The Missing Piece in Corpsec Discussion
Perfect Crimes Are Boring Crimes

THE CURRENT PROBLEM:
It's entirely possible to commit "perfect" topside crimes - no clues, no narrative, just success. Plan ahead, stay quiet, don't brag, don't connect it to any movement or agenda. Technically impressive, but narratively empty.

This creates an unsolvable problem for corpsec: no narrative thread to follow, no movement to infiltrate, no agenda to counter or negotiate with. You either smallworld your way to a solution or abandon the case entirely. Neither is fun.

WHY THIS HURTS THE GAME:
When crime has no narrative stakes beyond "corpie bad, murder," there's no story for anyone to build on. Corpsec gets all the burden (isolation, reputation hits, resource investment) with none of the payoff (interesting investigation, narrative resolution, factional conflict).

THE SOLUTION:
Stand for something. Loudly.

Murder someone? Own it. Explain why. Connect it to your faction, your ideology, your movement. Leave your mark. Show up in public and defend your action instead of hiding shrouded or cubeside bragging where corpsec can't engage.

Yes, this means higher risk of getting caught. That's the trade - you're choosing narrative impact over perfect operational security. But it creates stories that involve more people and gives your actions weight beyond the kill count. Just like people expect agents to walk around on gold, react to things, and be big walking targets to be killed for gear and chrome, not hiding who they are at all.

THE RECIPROCITY POINT:
Criminals expect their victims to accept death as "part of Sindome." Fair enough. But corpsec also needs something to work with beyond cleanup duty. If you want corpsec to be a compelling adversary rather than just a target to hit up for gear, give them something to oppose beyond untraceable perfect crimes. Playing corpsec comes with insane limitations and annoyances, the upside is the intrigue and dealing with crime. It's also how corpsec can ICly make most chy, time of peace or crimes with nothing to follow leave you with extremely limited ways to earn.

When there's a movement to disrupt, an agenda to counter, or a public figure to target - THEN "go to the Mix and handle X" becomes a worthwhile risk, because there's actually something to find and someone to catch. Do it often enough, it may become worth it to even setup mix bases and other longer term investments, as there will be a possible payout for all this work.

What people seem to be forgetting is we aren't playing to win, we're playing to tell interesting stories.
Sometimes, loss can be even more fun than winning.

But if people put nothing in, they tend to just get the same no effort out. If you did not take some risks to drive a narrative, why should anyone give you anything else but a no-talk vat and no gear sell back at very fair price?

It's a two way street. Just like people expect corpies to be known and vulnerable, so do have to be people attacking them, just in a different ways. Or it gets boring fast.

There's also something to be said for the potential unthemelyness for a corp to care about an attack that wasn't even on their people or their property.
Of course there are circumstances where this does make sense, and those are incredibly themely, leverage, make the other corp look incompetent, etc.

But I feel I am howling into the wilderness here.

It could be that a rival corp hired that person to kill you, maybe it was a ganger getting even for stuff you did as a mixer. Etc etc etc. You never know what goes behind the scenes and layers and layers to the story. Maybe it was your junior hiring that person to relentlessly kill you to bully you out of topside or your job or embarrass you.

Gonna be real here. the vast majority of the 'corpie bad' kills I know of, have real reasoning behind them.

It's weird how many people talk shit ICly, or fuck people over. Then when they die, pretend to be completely innocent oocly and complain on the BGBB or elsewhere.

Not every group is loud.

Can easily put some effort to earn that chy in creative and engaging way, ironically what is expected of corpsec players to access that "endless money" people think agents float in. And yes, it can be A LOT of work to figure out how to access it, even though many agents could as easily just go and murder someone for gear.

Engage your victims, one way or another, tell a story, not just "I wanted chy or influence over them so I will not-talk-vat this person Y".

That is all.

In a way, it feels like this is an illustration of what Mixers experience versus what corpies experience. I can understand why CorpSec players might be more interested in story. But for Mixers, particularly Mixer criminals, the ever present threat of death, bankruptcy, etc looms large. The need for more flash to fuel your plans is ever present. I'm just pointing that out as a reality. If someone offers you a large sum of money to kill someone, the motive is the money, not the story you are helping create.

When you bend anti-corpie morality, you can easily access the corpie money, and then use it to… go after corpies. And you can do it without having to sacrifice the core of you, and resort to no-talk-vats and other non-engagement ways.

Just because you are a solo doesn't mean you don't ask questions. And most notably if you want that solo, you generally end up working all sides to make that work.

And I'll reiterate what I said before, faction warfare exists in the mix too, with backing and support, it's not restricted to corporations, but it will require commitment to a side, just like corpie players to do enjoy similar benefits.

THE ACTUAL ISSUE:
Mix vs topside conflict is supposed to be THE central theme of Sindome. But when's the last time anyone saw a real movement-based conflict playing out? Not personal grudges, not gear runs, but actual ideological warfare between factions?
Think about it: when did you last see an anti-corporate movement publicly claim responsibility for actions against a corp? When did you last see ongoing visible faction conflict where both sides are actively engaged?

WHAT I'M ACTUALLY ASKING FOR:
Not evidence. Not getting caught. Just… engagement with the theme at all.
You don't have to brag "I personally killed X" - that's evidence. But you CAN have your anti-corpo movement claim the kill. You CAN have shadowy operators under a public banner. You CAN create faction conflict without exposing individual operators.
Example: Movement posts on grid claiming responsibility, explaining ideology, making demands. Operators stay shadowy. Corpsec now has a movement to infiltrate, ideology to counter, something to actually oppose. Creates RP for everyone - mixers, solos, corpsec, corps.

On the many responses:

Notably none of this is about me, and yet a lot of posts treat it like needing to convince me. I see a systemic issue in the game, which when broken makes playing corpsec unfun to play and is very high on the list why no one wants to do the job. Answers to that that amount to: people are playing corpsec wrong and they just must do even more or XYZ (without knowing how much of that happens, as that's again getting against singular person,not the bigger problem) are just not going to help.

Nor is saying "be grateful you got anything to investigate at all". Imagine if corporate players went with the same mentality, they all bought cars, and only traveled from garages at home, to garages in the tower, with corpsec escort at home garages as needed. Diverging from that is intentionally exposing yourself for crime, and many happily do it to enable story creation. Sacrifice goes both ways.

Sometimes the fault for lack of attractiveness is on the other party. If robbers do not want to play along, eventually cops get bored and stop trying as the disproportionate effort is not worth it.

I also highly recommend for anyone who thinks that corpsec just sits on sea of chy, got everything expensed, and can easily turn no-data murder into a corp-backed frame-up and so on, please do apply and show the world, or learn the amount of work it takes to get chy out of expenses, and redirect corporation into a frame-up.

I am using "you" in the general sense in most things I share an opinion on. Please don't take it personal as that is not my intent. Thanks.