Sunday 8 November 2015

It's all about the money (The MegaCorps)


Ah the MegaCorps.... Where would sci fi be without them? No longer were the shadow-y dealing of governments be enough! Oh no! We needed bigger, badder, stronger!

I know virtually nothing of economy or global trade/business, but everyone else seems to have MegaCorps, so hey, I jumped on that bandwagon.

What I tried to change were the key players. I didn't want my characters to identify as Americans or British or whatever, so that's where the War came in. After all that destruction, and the unnumbered waves of refugees, I wanted to break with all these early 21st century trappings. So nationality is something that only matters on your ID file. Also ethnicity, people have names and backgrounds that make little sense to our ears (Caucasian people having Japanese names, for example). Also, you could live and die in Little Moscow (still to be mapped), speaking Russian every day of your life, without ever leaving New Hades.

But back to the Corps. At this stage, they are just these brooding presences, with tentacles all over town. The only thing that keeps them in check are each other, and the nightmare scenario of another major conflict. With a very few exceptions, each Corps will be involved in pretty much everything you can think of (Pharma, Weapons, Aerospace, Weapons, etc.) but they have a tendency to specialise in one or two areas. Eclipse, Inc., for example, is one of the major players in space. They have a reputation for inflexibility and ruthlessness, in one case eliminating a couple of hundred rebelling miners without a second thought. 

So for now, most of these are simply logos on boxes in alleyways. But never forget, they are pulling all the strings. So sooner or later, all roads lead to the Corps.

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