What you all are as a Shadowrunners

Deniable Assets

"Shaowrunners are vital to modern society." A shadowrunner said that once, and oddly enough, it's true. Shadowrunners are vital to modern society, specifically to modern corporate society. I hate to burst the bubble of any any of you out there who might have a "lone hero up against the capitalist corporate empire" complex, but the only reason shadowrunners exist is because the corporations need us. Tough pill to swallow? Welcome to the real world, chummer.

The fact is, everything in the twenty-first century is tagged, cataloged and cross-indexed within a micron of its life. The Matrix knows all, and few escape the reach of its informational tendrils. With the right search programs, you can find out just about anything about anyone. Shadowrunners, however, are ghosts in the information machine, SIN-less individuals who have skills the corps need. We're vital becasuse we're deniable assets: invisible, untraceable. We don't exist as far as society is concerned, so we can do the corps' dirty work for them. In short, the corps let us exist because they find us useful.

A touch simplistic, but essentially correct, Shadowrunners and corporations have something of a symbiotic relationship. We need the corps because they're our best employers (to say nothing of being our best targets), and the corps need us to carry out their black ops. It's that simple.

No way, omae! I may take corporate money, but I'm no hoop-kissing, boot-licking, corporate lapdog! Being outside "society" gives us total freedom, the kind corporate wage slaves only dream about!

Uh-huh. I'm sure lots of shaikujin would love to give up their comfy condos and nine-to-five jobs to live with devil rats and get shot at on a regular basis. Having no legal existence, hiding out from the Star and living in the Barrens... That's real freedom! Most runners do shadow-work to survive, not because it's romantic adventure.