Laws

After the Fall, when democratic government was replaced by corporate control, the entire concept of "the rule of law" changed dramatically.

Essentially, the LATMA Metropolitan Area operates as a dictatorship led by a group of the most powerful corporations, known as the Corporate Consortium. The "laws" of LATMA are whatever the Consortium want them to be.

The inner workings of the Consortium are a mystery to all but the most elite, but generally it's understood that the various members of the Consortium come to some sort of consensus, and that consensus is enforced by MetSec. Everything boils down to this axiom: Profit Above All.

## Profit Margin

Every law can be traced back to how it affects the profit margin. Murder, for example, is against the law for a variety of reasons:

* Destruction of corporate property (the employee)
* Loss of productivity while a replacement is trained
* Loss of productivity due to lowering of morale (due to concerns about safety, bereavement, etc.)
* Collateral damage incurred during the assault (at the very least, paying someone to clean up the mess)

And so on. Suicide is also illegal, for generally the same reasons.

But note that this only applies to murdering a Bright. Murdering a Dark is (usually) not illegal, because doing so (usually) does no harm to Consortium members' profit margins.

## Punishment

Breaking the law usually results in a fine calculated to be equal to the calculated losses plus 10-50% (or more) as a disincentive for recidivism. The fine is usually determined by a corporation contracted by the Consortium, and not a member company, to avoid any potential conflicts of interest. If someone cannot afford to pay the fine, their property may be confiscated or paycheck garnished.

See also: The Death Valley Prison convention.

## Old School DM

The nature of law in 2039 LATMA is vastly different from that of the current USA or most of the world today. There is no lip service even paid in passing to law as a method of securing basic human rights or equal protection. Laws are the rules used by the corporation to insure the smooth flow of profit. Nothing more. Even basic family law reflects this.

As an example age of consent drinking ages have ceased to exist for the most part. A business decides who they want to sell to based on if they can pay and the owners own desires. An owner can not be sued by anyone for the actions of a customer using his product. All sales on all items are as is. The only recourse for people against someone manufacturing a cheap unsafe product is to buy something else.

Another example is the concept of a "Restraining Order", this is currently less about law than corporate human resource policy. If a corporate employee is harassing another employee it would be taken up with human resources. If the person was of less value to the corp and his/her actions were causing a loss of productivity they corp simply fires them and they end up a Dark. If they are of the same level as their victim they may be warned. If an executive is sexual harassing someone like a secretary. She would no doubt be advised off the record that it would be in her best interests to be compliant. The basic concept is simple, those above you in a corp can do pretty much what they like to you as long as it does not effect the corps bottom line. If the same actions involve a Dark. Then the dark has no rights or recourse at all. A member of another corp may complain to his or her HR department. In which case, Corp A might call Corp B and lodge a complaint, the grounds would be disruption of their resources. An would be grounds within corporate law for Corp A to sue Corp B. Corp B usually would simply pull the employee in and tell them to stop or face being fired. Then again is Corp A's employee is being stalked by an executive of Corp B for example.. Corp A's HR department might suggest being compliant to the stalker would net information Corp A would find valuable. In some cases going so far as to order it.

Carrying weapons is not a matter of law- since, in many ways, there is no single "law" per se- but of the policy of the corporation that holds the security contract for the area and, thus, tends to be subject to change without warning or discussion. A corp may mandate weapons just for its security personnel or for everyone.

Most public areas within the Bright areas of LATMA are under the control of the Consortium. Its security arm is Metropolitan Security (MetSec) and, as such, MetSec enforces Consortium corporate policy- not law. Most of that policy has to do with ensuring that no damage is caused to corporate resources- both property and human. Any corporation that has its own armed security force must pay a certain amount based on the type of weapons to MetSec as an insurance bond in case the weapons' use results in damage to property or the death/injury of a Bright citizen. In both cases, the money would be paid to the corporation. If a person is killed, his employer is paid for the loss of the resource; not the employee's family, though they likely will hold a life insurance policy for the person.

## See Also

* Corporate Law
* Bright Law
* Dark Law
* Matrix Law
* Order 47
* Oni Accords