The Corporate Shuffle

While the corporate landscape always has been and likely always will be in some state of flux, the megacorporations  as we know them in 2070 have all been fairly recognizable since at least the forties. It was during this time that they began solidifying their respective corporate identities into some of the monolithic giants under whose shadows we’ve lived since 2033, Each of these following “AAA-rated” corps is part of the corporate cabal that runs the whole show, otherwise known as the Corporate Court .

### Ares Macrotechnology

   It starts with Damien Knight . No one had heard of him before, but they sure did after the Nanosecond Buyout  in 2033. With this programming feat masterminded from Stockholm, Sweden , he managed to buy 22 percent of Ares Industries and make himself CEO Leonard Aurelius ’s rival for control of the Corp. Some say that he did it with the great dragon Dunkelzahn ’s help and some say that Knight used to be Echo Mirage ’s ex-team leader David Gavilan , gone underground and reborn. Whatever the truth of the matter, no one can say that Damien Knight is not a savvy corporate shark, because he’s been swimming ever since.

#### Fuchi

The next year, Matrix Systems of Boston came out with the first gray-marked cyeberterminal  (MS-Portal). The founders, Ken Roper and Micheal Eld, were among the Echo Mirage survivors who had put their knowledge to use developing a portable version of the equipment they’d used to fight the Crash Virus . They didn’t live long enough to enjoy the rewards of their labors, however; both died in mysterious accidents. This left a corporate raider named Richard Villiers who had bought 49 percent of their company, with total ownership. He brought all relevant information on the Portals as well as several models to a company named Fuchi Industrial Electronics and demanded one-third ownership in exchange for this new technology. Korin Yamana and Shikei Nakatomi , the other owners, reluctantly acquiesced and thus began Fuchi’s meteoric rise in the cyberdeck market. Thing is, it also kicked off years of infighting within the corp, so the seeds of its own destruction were also sown.

#### Saeder-Krupp

   Once upon a time, there was a company named BMW that as the backbone of the Seader-Krupp empire. A very smart lady named Wilhelmina Graff-Beloit  owned it, having wrested it from the man who had created the empire: her own husband . In 2037, in a move that may have coined the phrase “Never Deal with a Dragon”, the Great Dragon Lofwyr  announced that, through various avenues, he owned 63 percent share of the company’s stock and was thus taking over as president. He gave Mina the boot (after which she went up the well to the Zurich-Orbital  Habitat in 2050 and spent her time stewing over it until she died), got rid of the current board and completely overhauled the management. Through some very astute maneuvering, Lofwyr made Saeder-Krupp an even larger corporate empire, shooting it straight up into the AAA league. The dragon has lived quite happily ever since.

#### Yamatetsu

Ever the upstart and revolutionary (probably another reason they eventually renamed themselves “Evo ”), Yamatestu

    Corporation sprang on the scene in 2041 to everyone’s dismay. These punks were determined to get themselves a seat on the Corporate Court and weren’t taking any negative answers – how dare they? At least that’s what other corps kept saying until Yamatetsu managed it in 2042, hauling themselves up to AAA status and thumbing their noses at the naysayers. They’ve continually had to oust the deadwood, those who would hold the company back, but otherwise have consistently attempted to remain at the forefront of technology, recently delving into many transhumanist  endeavors as Evo.

#### Renraku

    Originally Keruba International , Renraku  changed its name after the Crash of ‘29 when a corporate hotshot named Inazo Aneki bought it and completely restructured it. The company became a key player in rebuilding the information network after the Crash and made wagonloads of money doing it. But it overreached when it began dabbling in the creation of semi-autonomous knowbots (SK’s) in 2049. Although this research launched Renraku furuther ahead of the tech curve and increased its market share, it also laid the groundwork for the insane AI Deus  and its part in the second Crash.

#### Aztechnology

Aztechnology  made an extremely poor judgement call when it ordered Aztlan  to nationalize all foreign-owned businesses in 2044. This act of economic war prompted the Corporate Court to mandate the very first “Omega Order ” – essentially a green light for every other corp to go after the offender with extreme prejudice. It took a few years for the megacorps to go after the offender to respond to this, but they did so in style: in 2048, backed by the Corporate Court, the joint Operation Reciprocity struck Aztechnology’s Ensenada  facilities. AZT couldn’t run to the bargaining table fast enough and the resulting Veracruz Settlement force the megacorp to pay direct compensation to all affected companies. Somehow in the negotiation process, the megacorp managed to arrange things so that other megas could only establish local subsidiaries in Aztlan and the major shareholders of those subsidiaries had to be Aztlan citizens or majority-owned Aztlan corps. Devious, no? It simply goes to show how bloodthirsty  they really are… pun intended.

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