Horizon Group: What's the deal?, Discussion Thread Options

[Blackb1rd]

I've been thinking for a while as to what the true motivation of the Horizon Corporation is and i can't find anything that really sticks. They seem too good to be good guys though. I mean at best they're Knights Templar, well intentioned but fanatical. However in a world of very dark grey/black morality they just don't quite fit in. Horizon group is almost too perfect for my tastes.

The obvious answer to the problem is that Horizon is simply using the mass media to control people and sway their opinions in favor of the corporation and it's agenda and way from anything that could be potentially damaging to the company. But none of this is definite of course because we have no real informational information on Horizon. All we really know is that their media gurus and that they recently took a seat on the Corporate Court, and what does that tell us? Nothing

I opened this thread to prompt discussion on the topic and i'd welcome any theories.

[OneTrikPony]

They're actually a hive-mind cult. Don't drink the coolaid (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[The Jake]

Good is a relative term.

Compared to Aztechnology, unless Horizon really are a breeding pit for insect hives infecting the public with their nefarious schemes - lets be real, they ARE the good guys.

- J.

[TeaTime]

.... Horizon... lets be real, they ARE the good guys.

I suspect otherwise. Out of all the AAAs, Horizon scares me the most.

First, it is suspicious that a AAA would materialize (almost literally) out of nowhere. Of the new players, corps like CATco (already gone and buried) and NEOnet built up from previous AAAs. Wuxing clawed its way up over decades. Horizon seeming just appeared.
Next, there is Cline.
But the nail in the coffin is Consensus.

In my mind, most of the AAA want financial or resource control. A few are perusing other agendas.
But my guess on Horizon is that they're after "Hearts and Minds" control of the population.

[tagz]

I see Horizon as having both Fox news AND CNN as AR programs they offer.

They only appear to care but will play off any side, just so long as they maintain high public opinion.

They won't care about who's lives they ruin with news reports, they will muckrake and such just to get a little more ratings. Heck, a team of shadowrunners might even be hired to plant a story or two if it's been a slow news week.

And who do you think was behind the whole orkxploitation in the media?

[Ancient History]

And who do you think was behind the whole orkxploitation in the media?

Jong-Won Kim. I helped.

[Chrysalis]

I think Deus is behind Horizon.

[hahnsoo]

I think Deus is behind Horizon.

Horizon is curious about technomancers and Resonance...

[LurkerOutThere]

Everyone is curious about technomancers and the resonance.

Horizon is interesting to me and I hope there is no ulterior evil A.I., Immortal Elf, or heretofore unmentioned Great Dragon behind it all. I like the idea of a information age company clawing it's way to the top with information age tactics. If their actually "Good" it's only because the rest of the world has gone so bad that being good is a viable marketing strategy.

[hahnsoo]

Everyone is curious about technomancers and the resonance.

Yes, but Horizon tends to hire technomancers rather than treat them as subjects for experimentation or objects for persecution (like Mitsuhama). At least, according to the Shadowtalk.

[Jericho Alar]

I think Deus is behind Horizon.

I think Horizon doesn't actually exist and is instead an experiment in global scale disinformation campaigns. (which explains why it sprang up so fast.) That said, I'm not sure who stands to gain from this angle.

[Tachi]

Personally, I think that Horizon is a joint venture between the Invae, Tzitzimime, IEs, Great Dragons, and Ancient History...

*Crash*

*Gunfire*

Yeah, one down, two down, three, four... Fatal Funnel bitches! Hahahaha...

*More gunfire*

Five, six, seven, all you bastards are going to heaven... COME GET SOME, MOTHERFUC... AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh...

YOU"LL NEVER SILENCE THE TRU...*Single gunshot*

*Silence*

I was just kidding, Horizon really IS the good guys, seriously. No, really, this really is Tachi, see, I'm using his, er, my account. Trust me.

[in the background]
Move along people, there's nothing to see here... Damn, why are they always so much heavier when they're dead? Dunno, seems to have something to do with the way they just hang like that... Did you catch that Urbal Brawl last night? No, I was watching the Combat Biker finals...
[/background noise]

[LordHaHa]

Doubt that its bug spirits (or any old-school Earthdawn magical entity, for that matter), otherwise Tir Tairngire would have declared them "verboten" instead of giving them a boost post-Crash 2.

OTOH, I don't think that its an AI, either. Too played out, plus its a little harder to conceal that kind of thing post-Crash 2.

Maybe the PR arm of the New Revolution? Nah; wild guess.

I do find it interesting however that, aside from its media pursuits, SR4 mentions that it is also heavily involved in real-estate, land development and pharmaceuticals.

LordHaHa

[d1ng0d0g]

And what if Horizon is truly good ?

Already the discussion here is sparking whether something like that is possible in the world of Shadowrun.

When everybody suspects they are doing something 'not good' that's actually an incredibly powerful business tool.

After all, when Horizon starts to invest in small farms and businesses that work with biological food, the other companies can't really stay behind. After all Horizon *must* be up to something. And indeed, they were up to something, because the all of a sudden their biological food products are selling like crazy. And the market could never have been better (even for the others).

The other Corps think they have taken a cut of the pie from Horizon, but instead they have actually made the world just a slightly better place to live in, where greed was their goal.

Perhaps the next thing is that Horizon is starting to give good, free, health care to their employees and their families, not asking a single thing in return. Productivity goes up. The other corporations can't really stay behind or they'll look like bad guys.

And so on.

***

To make things very short. In business, contrary to the natural instinct of most businessmen, sometimes the only way to make profit, is to spend more money on people.

Actual real life tests have shown that companies who spend a lot of money increasing the job qualifications of their employees actually don't lose their employees, even though they are now better educated and could probably earn a little more elsewhere.

[Ascalaphus]

I was going to post something dull here, about maybe their methods being so profitable that they become good for the money. But that'd be dull.

- Why did they weather the Crash so well? Did they see it coming?
- Market research and trend manipulation at such a scale - something bad has to be in there.
- Being egalitarian doesn't mean being tasteful. They will surely sell all kinds of sleazy and sensational things.
- They're trying to corner the market on edu-simsense. Isn't that terrifying? They give schools educational tools and in return get to totally track what the kids do, like, buy - they'll have a death grip on the minds of the next generation.
- What about the tricky issues in education: orcs are mature at 13, can you force them to stay in school until 18? Horizon will provide a Solution™.
- What about markets that require 'cooperation' to be allowed into? Creating mass-culture (and obedience) in totalitarian states? Hiring an AAA corporation to run your propaganda machine.. brrr..

[Ol' Scratch]

Insect Spirits make the most sense to me, personally. They sound a lot like an updated version of the Universal Brotherhood. They love putting on a show of being good, honest, upstanding individuals as a cover, and it usually takes quite a while before anyone sees what's really going on. And they love controlling minds (ie, education systems). They learned a lot last time with the Universal Brotherhood, too. This could be them doing it the right way.

If not insect spirits, another forerunner for the Enemy makes a lot of sense. Whatever it is, good guy megacorporations don't exist. Especially in Shadowrun.

[Blackb1rd]

Doubt that its bug spirits (or any old-school Earthdawn magical entity, for that matter), otherwise Tir Tairngire would have declared them "verboten" instead of giving them a boost post-Crash 2.

This is the number one reason i believe the bugs aren't behind whatever they're doing. I like the idea that they're not really a corporation per se but more of a mass media experiment as pointed out above but that would make me wonder where all their resources are coming from and even bugs dont have those kinds of resources, for christ sakes they're fucking bugs!

In my opinion Deus running Horizon is plausible but highly unlikely.

Plus i think it would be a little bit uncreative (?) of Catalyst to put Bug Spirits behind it all,

[Ol' Scratch]

Why does Tir Tairngire's backing prove that it's not a bug conspiracy? Elves can't be fooled?

[Jericho Alar]

Why does Tir Tairngire's backing prove that it's not a bug conspiracy? Elves can't be fooled?

They weren't fooled last time around by the bugs; so unless they got significantly more subtle... (I mean, I wouldn't be terribly surprised)

I'd think that having the Tir's backing implies that whatever it is the Princes are in on it, but that's just my myopic view of the Tir talking there.

[The Jake]

Everyone is curious about technomancers and the resonance.

Horizon is interesting to me and I hope there is no ulterior evil A.I., Immortal Elf, or heretofore unmentioned Great Dragon behind it all. I like the idea of a information age company clawing it's way to the top with information age tactics. If their actually "Good" it's only because the rest of the world has gone so bad that being good is a viable marketing strategy.

OTOH, Horizon could just as easily be run by Hestaby - to counter Lofwyr's (and other undesirables) plans.

I suspect otherwise. Out of all the AAAs, Horizon scares me the most.

First, it is suspicious that a AAA would materialize (almost literally) out of nowhere. Of the new players, corps like CATco (already gone and buried) and NEOnet built up from previous AAAs. Wuxing clawed its way up over decades. Horizon seeming just appeared.
Next, there is Cline.
But the nail in the coffin is Consensus.

In my mind, most of the AAA want financial or resource control. A few are perusing other agendas.
But my guess on Horizon is that they're after "Hearts and Minds" control of the population.

I understand what you are saying - but that doesn't change what I wrote. Horizon have yet to display anything TRULY evil, at least nothing on the scale of Aztechnology. Hence my comment.

And they certainly aren't agents for The Enemy - otherwise I doubt they'd be opposing Aztechnology's entry into California. No, Invae are a much more likely explanation, at least if those are they only two. Likewise, Hestaby being behind Horizon is equally likely. Granted Shadowrun isn't intended to be a complete dystopia - so who is to say that the mega wouldn't be her shot at trying to build a mega that is trying to do things differently?

Until they prove otherwise, they are a potential boogeyman. Nothing more.

- J.

[Ol' Scratch]

They weren't fooled last time around by the bugs; so unless they got significantly more subtle... (I mean, I wouldn't be terribly surprised)

I'd think that having the Tir's backing implies that whatever it is the Princes are in on it, but that's just my myopic view of the Tir talking there.

Exactly. I seriously doubt the invae -- a very intelligent race -- is going to make the same mistake twice. They learned a lot after the Universal Brotherhood. They've also had zero impact on the Sixth World in SR4 as far as I know other than a few mentions of follow-up references to Chicago and the like. For such a major threat, that's pretty suspicious in and of itself.

The princes are also not immune to being influenced or controlled themselves, despite the dorky remnants of the first edition's Mary Sues (I'm sorry, "immortal elves") being on the council.

[Blackb1rd]

Double post, sorry.

[Blackb1rd]

The elves, at least the immortal ones, have been around way to long not to know the difference between a corporation and an insect hive. I just don't think it's plausible, i mean it didn't take them long to find out what was going in with the UB did it? And if that is the case, and the bugs are behind Horizon (which i doubt because it would just be poor storytelling on the part of Catalyst and no one has so much've said a word about it in the shadows and Horizon hasn't done anything in the near 5 years its been on the Corporate Court) then it really leads me to wonder what they're up to. The bugs are just human thirsty fiends. their only agenda is too multiply and its a pretty basic instinct which makes me wonder if they were Horizon what'd be taking them so long to put their plan into action, they've been around for close to a decade, of they really wanted to do something it would have been done by now. That's just my two cents.

Let's compare Horizon to a group of runners perhaps. At the front you've got one incredibly talented face. He handles all the public interface, but behind that you've got the grittier side of the team, the muscle, the street sams and the hackers, the private investigators and adepts and magicians and the list goes on and on and on. The only thing we ever see of Horizon is the front man, the face. There are scores and scores of things going on behind closed doors at orizon, i can feel it. And if there's one thing i've learned about Shadowrun it's that if something is locked away and hidden by a corporation so well that we can only speculate as to what it might be we'd better hope we never find out what it actually is. Whatever they're cooking up, it's gonna be huge.

[BishopMcQ]

Another important thing to remember in the discussion of Good and Evil is the Fourth Wall. We as players all know that Aztechnology is EVIL, but within the 6th World, they are viewed as a good corporation which takes care of problems and feeds billions. My vote is to wait until I have more information...either see them in plot hooks (like the Azzies and Ares were...) or more source material--like Corp Guide. Once I get that, then I'll make a decision about good and evil.

[hobgoblin]

heh, consensus sounds to me like a data mining project gone "nuclear".