Ginger, Guerilla Media Star (A to Z, G)

Drifting from idea to idea as inspiration strikes, back to Shadowrun (though easily adaptable to any cyberpunk/dystopia setting) for today’s supporting cast member.

Ginger, Guerilla Media Star

Quote: The Megacorporations are shearing you like sheep, but at least sheep have to be herded.  You walk into the shearing stations willingly.

Buy local, buy small.  Every NuYen you keep out of the hands of the megas helps society rebuild.

Description: Everyone thinks they know what Ginger looks like, but is it the truth?  In her broadcasts, she looks eerily similar to a young Tina Louise, the actress who played Ginger in Gilligan’s Island and from which her nom de gurre seems to have been drawn.  So, most people think of her as a tall shapely redhead with a smoky voice.

Very few people can claim to have met her in person, but those that have confirm that Ginger is as she appears.  But outside of her broadcasts and stills she has released, almost no other legitimate images of her exist on the web.  (Of course, there is a cottage industry producing faked Ginger porn but that is another issue.)

Background: Like her appearance, verifying Ginger‘s background has proved impossible.  She has dropped hints that she was raised in LA and one or both of her parents worked for the studios in some capacity.  Analysis of her speech patterns confirms that she was probably raised in a corporate enclave in Southern California but little more than that.

What is known is that about five years ago, Ginger started showing up on pirate broadcasts both over the airwaves and via the Matrix.  At first, it was an insider’s outside view of things happening in the media space but soon things started taking on a more political edge.  The reason for this is unknown but heavily speculated on.  Now she is a full-time reporter and commentator of corporate misdeeds and malfeasance, aiming at those who call the shots, not the underlings who have to carry out the dirty work.

Presenting this Character: Ginger is a crusader, opposing the way megacorporations ruin lives. But she is also cheerful and upbeat that a better world can be built once the megacorporations are reduced in power.

But she is mindful in her reports that most of the lower level workers in the megacorproations are just doing what they have to in order to get by.  She has access to sources of information that embarrass the corporations, and admits when she has been wrong or lied to, and she has techniques of avoiding notice that have proved very effective in allowing her to keep on the air.

What can she do?: Within the Matrix, Ginger has dead drops for corporate whistleblowers, people who have stumbled onto secrets, and others to provide.  Her network is extensive and grows everyday but nothing is trusted; everything is checked and crosschecked.

But it is her ability to avoid detection, even while reporting, apparently live on occasion, that is Ginger‘s greatest asset and the one that frustrates the megacorporations the most even as they feed information to her to upset and embarrass their rivals.

Who might know her and why: Most everyone knows of Ginger even if they do not watch her shows.  Her stories get discussed openly if they affect a rival, obliquely if the report embarrassed your employer.

Her Matrix site in the fringe of the network, The Island. is a hub for the discussion of conspiracy theories and actual ones too.  Do not access it from a corporate system though.

Plot Hooks: A text arrives in your mailbox, but it does not have a return address except The Island.  It asks you to confirm certain details you may have seen on a recent mission and offers information in exchange.  Can you trust the offer?  And how did they know to ask you?

Ginger appears to you in the Matrix and offers to interview you about corporate misdeed.  Promising anonymity in exchange for your chance to have an audience for your views.

You are sure you just saw Ginger with a corporate building in the background.  What is about to happen?

Notes: May try to expand on this more later but this is enough for now.

Image © Warner Bros. Television Distribution, fair use.