[X] My Assistant

[Ixal]

The Hidden Stories and also the latest books make it clear that Ares is in a bad spot and quite desperate.
That doesn't mean that they are close to bankruptcy or loosing its AAA status of course, just that they have a negative cash flow with no immediate idea how to stop it or even just not making as much money as planned which endangers their future projects.

But how did it come to this?

I know of:
- Their latest personal weapon being junk which results in a lot of lost trust of their customers (and with it sales).
- They having a hard time with UCAS which was one of their primary markets (but I do not know the details of it).

Speculation of mine:
- Laser weapons are still not mainstream.
- Other heavy arms manufactures currently making a lot more money than Ares (Dassault will make quite a profit from the AZ-AM war while Amazonia probably buys only 2nd hand stuff with a lot smaller profit margin. Also I can imagine people are more likely to trust Aztechnology/Dassault for anti-dragon weapons than Ares).
- Their space division still recovering from Evos Mars colony and burning money to close the gap again.
- The KE Seattle contract not being that profitable (No prison contract, they still put in extra effort to impress Brackhaven and now having to police the Underground),
- The Seraphim use the dragon civil war to strike at their enemies,

Is there anything that I am missing or where I am dead wrong? And is that in your opinion enough to actually hurt an AAA?
And whats up with Vogel anyway?

[bannockburn]

Basically, the answer is "because someone said so".

A flopping weapon is not nearly enough to seriously hurt an AAA Megacorp.
A lot of money can't be funneled directly into the bug research either (as this would surely be noticed), but it could be part of the explanation.
They backed or didn't back the right faction in the UCAS government, which means that the relations have cooled a bit, but that's not really an explanation either, because ... yeah, there's a rest of the world. And it is a multinational corporation. With more income than the entire UCAS together.

So. Because someone decided that Ares should be in trouble.

[DeathStrobe]

Bugs...probably the bugs...

Bugs probably don't make very good upper management decisions.

[Ixal]

Basically, the answer is "because someone said so".

That is of course the reason for everything that happens in Shadowrun no matter who writes the story and which company owns the license.
Still I hoped to find some more in game reasons for it instead of just dismissing it with "because someone said so" instantly.

[Bearclaw]

Where can I find info on the Mars colony?

[bannockburn]

The thing is, that a lot of things happen lately where the reasons seems to be "it seemed like a cool idea at the time."
I'm not a fan of these decisions, because they fall into a plothole under closer scrutiny.

To an outsider, one of those reasons appears to be a very America-centric world view, which is unfortunately not how the world at large works.

[BishopMcQ]

A combination of in-fighting, bad PR, a dip in 3rd quarter earnings, and a mid-level exec who panicked because he was going to have to tell his boss that his department swallowed a 50M (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) loss -- all add up to Horizon pulling the trigger on a meme that has been smuggled into the Ares watercooler system and mass hysteria takes hold.

Or you know, more information is likely coming forth in Storm Front.

[crazyconscript]

Well, considering that Renraku had to write off their entire freaking Seattle Arcology as a complete loss and while that "hurt", they did not lose their AAA status, I imagine "hurting" just translates as "less profits than expected". Because if Renraku can write off an expense the size of the Arcology and still keep on trucking, I don't see what Ares could have had happen to cause big enough waves to put them on seriously unstable footing. Perhaps trouble in the boardroom? Stockholder shenanigans threatening Damien Knights control over the company?

[Nath]

As far as the books go, you listed everything that I can know of.

The issue has not been addressed in any sourcebook, but it would also make sense that the space industry undergoes an upheaval as the Kilimandjaro mass driver is fully operational and a space elevator is in the planning stage. Both project are controlled by the Zurich-Orbital Gemeinshaft Bank, and the profits they'll made spread between all the Big Ten (though there would still be a business of manufacturing the equipment to be transported in space). This comes in addition of Evo rise in the space industry since 2059.

There is also a plot introduced in Man & Machine and never continued that I liked a lot for its implications.

Man & Machine, page 90
Ares cannot fully develop its own niche in nanotechnology, as the company as little interest in either cyber- or biotechnology. Rather, Ares acquires whatever nanotech it needs via license arrangements and espionage, and by reverse-engineering what it cannot otherwise acquire. This has left the company bhind the tech curve, as the market leaders are obviously unwilling to license out their cutting-edge wares.
To finance the huge Aitken Basin project, Ares is considering a limited partnership, through a subsidiary, with a corporation with complementary interests. MCT is currently the foremost contender to provide the expertise Ares lacks. Many smaller A-level corps in the Pueblo Corporate Council have recently become close to Ares. While unable to provice the resources and commitment that MCT could, Ares would have a 100 percent open-door policy on its research, and that may sway the votes of Knight, Vogel and Daviar.
This is obviously preferable to shifting Ares away from its single-minded goal of dominating the arms and space industries, but it has the UCAS government more than a little concerned. Fears in the UCAS of losing their last all-American mega to Japanese investment or the PCC are real and growing. Phrases such as "protection of vital industries" and "anti-trust" are the current buzz words of the Senate.

Considering the Pueblo were among those who funded Arthur Vogel to buy 20% of Ares (seemingly along with Hestaby and the Draco Foundation), and Vogel is now executive vice-president of AresSpace, there may be a pattern here.

[Pepsi Jedi]

I'd asked this too, one failed firearm for a company that produces everything from teeshirts to tanks seemed a very strange reasoning. Some people pointed to the bug angle. Someone was very nice and gave me a list of books to look through to read up on those. I looked and while messing with bugs is a -bad- idea, it's a small covert sort of thing, a few queens were caught, all but one killed. That one wasn't enough to totally take over a mega, and it's hinted that while they had gotten a little bigger that those were also burned during one of the events.

I hate to say it, as I don't like to throw that sort of thing, but "Why are they 'hurting' and 'desperate'?" Does seem to be kinda 'Because someone wrote them as being hurting and desperate'. Maybe there's more going on, but as pointed out, Corps have messed up on much larger scales than one faulty products and not even been listed as hurting or desperate.

[IridiosDZ]

Caveat: I have not followed the hidden stories as closely as some others. They may have info that I do not.

That being said, it may not be the whole of Ares that is hurting but rather one division or subsidiary. Sometimes people confuse a smaller part of the whole with the whole. Especially when they share a name.

[kzt]

Consider that the entire US firearms industry is stated to be $12 billion. That's pistols, rifles, shotguns, etc. Of that any given pistol is a little piece of that, the idea that a failed pistol would even affect the overall corp bottom line by even a tenth of one percent is absurd. If every gun sold in the US was being sold by one company this company would be about the size of Best Buy or Lowes. That's not exactly a world-striding giant of a company.

In fact the largest single small arms company that I know is FN Herstal, which has about 2,500-3000 employees and sales of something under $1 billion

So if you are supposed to be a huge company built around the defense industry and have total company revenue larger then the entire US GDP of $15 trillion then small arms sales is going to be a really tiny portion. BTW, the largest defense contractor in the US is Lockheed-Martin, which did about $50 billion in revenue in FY 2011. So Ares would need to be 300 times larger than Lock-Mart. Lock-Mark has 123,000 employees, so you are talking about a company that has about as many employees as the entire population of California.

I expect that the people who write the tripe that has been produced for the last few years have no idea what the hell they are writing other then "hey wouldn't it be cool if..." or why it makes no sense. Furthermore, I predict the developer couldn't provide a logical explanation for this that makes sense inside the game world if you put a gun to his head.

[JanessaVR]

Consider that the entire US firearms industry is stated to be $12 billion. That's pistols, rifles, shotguns, etc. Of that any given pistol is a little piece of that, the idea that a failed pistol would even affect the overall corp bottom line by even a tenth of one percent is absurd. If every gun sold in the US was being sold by one company this company would be about the size of Best Buy or Lowes. That's not exactly a world-striding giant of a company.

In fact the largest single small arms company that I know is FN Herstal, which has about 2,500-3000 employees and sales of something under $1 billion

So if you are supposed to be a huge company built around the defense industry and have total company revenue larger then the entire US GDP of $15 trillion then small arms sales is going to be a really tiny portion. BTW, the largest defense contractor in the US is Lockheed-Martin, which did about $50 billion in revenue in FY 2011. So Ares would need to be 300 times larger than Lock-Mart. Lock-Mark has 123,000 employees, so you are talking about a company that has about as many employees as the entire population of California.

I expect that the people who write the tripe that has been produced for the last few years have no idea what the hell they are writing other then "hey wouldn't it be cool if..." or why it makes no sense. Furthermore, I predict the developer couldn't provide a logical explanation for this that makes sense inside the game world if you put a gun to his head.

I only regret that your post is too long to sig. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) That was marvelous.

[hermit]

Where can I find info on the Mars colony?

Where things that belong to Evo are discussed. It's called Gagarin for a reason.

So if you are supposed to be a huge company built around the defense industry and have total company revenue larger then the entire US GDP of $15 trillion then small arms sales is going to be a really tiny portion. BTW, the largest defense contractor in the US is Lockheed-Martin, which did about $50 billion in revenue in FY 2011. So Ares would need to be 300 times larger than Lock-Mart. Lock-Mark has 123,000 employees, so you are talking about a company that has about as many employees as the entire population of California.

Cheching my corp list, Ares is made up of the following real-world companies (and then some, of course): General Electric, every American small arms company, Colt, IMI, NASA (not a company per se), American Airlines, Qantas, NBC, Time, Alcatel, Bank of America, "many Silicon Valley companies", General Dynamics, Lockheed-Martin, Mowag AG, General Motors, Honda, Pratt&Whitney, Apple. Add to that major SR corps like Knight-Errant, most of former CATco, Victory, CerebroTech, Winter Systems. That's a total of roughly 1,6 to 2 mn, with roughly 10% employed in the corp's defense sector. In such a corporation, small arms aren't a big earner, they're small fry kept for the sake of image (you know, the 'Americannes' of the company). Still, that's not ... that much. They have little to no chemical industrial capacity, lost Truman (a major, major chunk of their entertainment sector) to Horizon, and no consumer goods division to speak of, far as I can tell (well, Apple, but in Shadowrun Jobs never returned and they remained a fourth-tier terminal producer). I can't see how this could employ the population of California. It'S not even the whole of America's military-industrial complex, as Boeing is missing. On a side note, FN Herstal belongs to Monobe. As does Weapons World.

I remember that, in Corp Dossier, Ares' reorganisation of having each subsidiary eport to two commanding companies instead of one, infighting between Vogel, Aurelius and Knight, and losses like Truman to Horizon were mentioned as source of troubles. While Ares could need some more assets (DuPont? Ford? Companies in exotic foreign places that are not America?), I fail to see how one crappy gun that's only good for American weapons nerds anyway flopping could make such a corporation even feel a sting, let alone reel from it.

I expect that the people who write the tripe that has been produced for the last few years have no idea what the hell they are writing other then "hey wouldn't it be cool if..." or why it makes no sense. Furthermore, I predict the developer couldn't provide a logical explanation for this that makes sense inside the game world if you put a gun to his head.

+1

The whole Excalibur debacle plot seems to stem from the high self-importance of a certain type of American gun owner. Guns are small business. Even if they're that important to you.

[Sengir]

Of that any given pistol is a little piece of that, the idea that a failed pistol would even affect the overall corp bottom line by even a tenth of one percent is absurd.

Assault rifle (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Your point still stands, though. And before anybody argues with loss of trust in the brand, military procurement is not about trust or sympathy. Even more so when the stuff is not procured from a private company but from a freakin superpower corp-state.

[Umidori]

If Ares HAD to have a failed new weapon for whatever plot reasons, I would have chosen the Predator V as the flub, not this silly never-before-heard-of Excalibur system. It'd be a much bigger blow - both for residents of the Sixth World, and for us as players.

When the Ares Predator goes belly-up, you know something is very wrong.

~Umi

[binarywraith]

Consider that the entire US firearms industry is stated to be $12 billion. That's pistols, rifles, shotguns, etc. Of that any given pistol is a little piece of that, the idea that a failed pistol would even affect the overall corp bottom line by even a tenth of one percent is absurd. If every gun sold in the US was being sold by one company this company would be about the size of Best Buy or Lowes. That's not exactly a world-striding giant of a company.

In fact the largest single small arms company that I know is FN Herstal, which has about 2,500-3000 employees and sales of something under $1 billion

So if you are supposed to be a huge company built around the defense industry and have total company revenue larger then the entire US GDP of $15 trillion then small arms sales is going to be a really tiny portion. BTW, the largest defense contractor in the US is Lockheed-Martin, which did about $50 billion in revenue in FY 2011. So Ares would need to be 300 times larger than Lock-Mart. Lock-Mark has 123,000 employees, so you are talking about a company that has about as many employees as the entire population of California.

I expect that the people who write the tripe that has been produced for the last few years have no idea what the hell they are writing other then "hey wouldn't it be cool if..." or why it makes no sense. Furthermore, I predict the developer couldn't provide a logical explanation for this that makes sense inside the game world if you put a gun to his head.

Seriously, Ares is -the- North American arms contractor, and there is a shooting war to the south that has everyone on edge. One failed small arm is petty cash to them.

I want to frame your last two lines, make them into a stamp, and just hit the inside cover of every new book with it.

Seriously, it is the only explanation I have for so many decisions that were made to try to justify a 'wouldn't it be cool...' mechanics decision that makes zero fucking sense in-world, and doesn't bother trying to.

[DeathStrobe]

I don't know. Its not exactly unheard of for a company to make one big mistake on a flagship product and then their entire company that was previously on razor edge margins suddenly eats up a lot of profit.

Take for example Sony. They made a lot of money with the Playstation brand, walkmans, TVs, music and movies, even their computers did really well. Now? Well, they're not in danger of losing their Fortune 500 status, but they most definitely are hurting after the extremely poor reception of the Playstation 3, followed by their TV market crashing in on itself. But the question is, did the Playstation brand losing value in the eyes of consumers lead to TV sales dropping? Or was it just their competitors suddenly got a lot better?

Anyway, I am saying that it does happen. Even real world "mega corps" can screw up on a flagship product and pay for it in big ways.

[hermit]

I don't know. Its not exactly unheard of for a company to make one big mistake on a flagship product and then their entire company that was previously on razor edge margins suddenly eats up a lot of profit.

that's possible for a specialist. Ares' base isn't small arms, it's heavy industry.

[kzt]

Take for example Sony. They made a lot of money with the Playstation brand, walkmans, TVs, music and movies, even their computers did really well. Now? Well, they're not in danger of losing their Fortune 500 status, but they most definitely are hurting after the extremely poor reception of the Playstation 3, followed by their TV market crashing in on itself. But the question is, did the Playstation brand losing value in the eyes of consumers lead to TV sales dropping? Or was it just their competitors suddenly got a lot better?

Japan employes about 65 million people with a GDP of 5.9 trillion. Sony did $83.8 billion in sales 2011 and has 168,000 employees. So Sony is not exactly dominating the leading heights of the Japanese economy. Toyota is the 8th largest company in the world (by revenue) and it did 221 billion in 2011, with 317,000 employees. That still is a pretty small amount of the economy.

Megacorps are supposed to have sales in the trillions and profits in the tens of billions, with tens of millions of employees. They are unimaginably huge and powerful compared to any existing corporation. Now there are some reasons why that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but the fact that SR has companies that big has to be accepted as a given anyhow.

[hermit]

The point is, even if Ares was the world's weapons monopoly - and it is by far not - or even a monopolist in the small arms market (again, not by far), one faulty gun that has a highly restricted target segment of an already - globally - miniscule market will not even dent their profit by a thenth of a percent. It is a slight annoyance. Nothing more.

[BishopMcQ]

Part of the megacorp strategy is that everyone that their wageslaves interacts with is also in the company. They don't contract out food service, janitorial staff, the deli around the corner from the office. All of that support staff and infrastructure is included. Once you start adding in the employees at all the smaller places that the Toyota employees visit the number of their employees would probably double. Then, combine Toyota with Starbucks, Microsoft, Dupont, and Monsanto.

Everyone who is anyone works for one of maybe 20 employers or they work for a local government. Governments themselves have privatized the majority of what they do--let's pay Corp A to run our schools they'll do it cheaper, Corp B will police our streets and keep them safe. Corp C built our entire network infrastructure and consults on security upgrades...

--------

Yes, the problems at Ares have to be bigger than one gun. The Vogel/Knight issue is a big problem for them. Imagine if Vogel wrests control away from Knight, or drives such a deep schism that Ares will be destroyed if one side doesn't agree to a buyout. If Ares looks like the next Fuchi and all the other megas start circling, how long can they last as divided as they are?

[Ixal]

We might overestimate the trouble Ares is in, too.

The company I work for as example is in panic mode because last year it didn't get the profit it expected. Thats because this expected profit is already planned away through long and short term plans. The missing profit of today are the debts of tomorrow. Then you either have the choice to go into debt you do not know if you can repay or scrap projects which means you loose your edge against competitors.

So when everything I wrote + bugs, Vogel, etc. came together it could have reduced the actual profit below the plan (by a large amount, lets say 20%) which would be enough for Ares to take more drastic measures (thats what the Hidden stories speak of).

[hermit]

Yes, the problems at Ares have to be bigger than one gun. The Vogel/Knight issue is a big problem for them. Imagine if Vogel wrests control away from Knight, or drives such a deep schism that Ares will be destroyed if one side doesn't agree to a buyout. If Ares looks like the next Fuchi and all the other megas start circling, how long can they last as divided as they are?

That'd be still a bit boring and lazy but at least plausible.

My favurite would be the Seraphin (secretly guardians of the Vatican Vault Noth America in Montréal or Quebec City) squaring it off with the Unlimitech/Bugs/Knight fraction, with Soaring Owl and Indians running along somewhere. That'd tie up the Ares-Yutani-plot, finally give the Seraphin and the Cross metaplot a deserved end, and provide a plausible explaination for Ares' fall. The fall itself could well be Vogel and Aurelius seeing Knight's faction's damage as an opening to drive their own agendas home, and Ares shatters. I'd hope the next Mega would be from somewhere where there's no native AAA though. The Mideast maybe.

[Ixal]

That'd be still a bit boring and lazy but at least plausible.

My favurite would be the Seraphin (secretly guardians of the Vatican Vault Noth America in Montréal or Quebec City) squaring it off with the Unlimitech/Bugs/Knight fraction, with Soaring Owl and Indians running along somewhere. That'd tie up the Ares-Yutani-plot, finally give the Seraphin and the Cross metaplot a deserved end, and provide a plausible explaination for Ares' fall. The fall itself could well be Vogel and Aurelius seeing Knight's faction's damage as an opening to drive their own agendas home, and Ares shatters. I'd hope the next Mega would be from somewhere where there's no native AAA though. The Mideast maybe.

Who is actually talking about Ares falling?
They are still on the SR5 cover so its pretty sure that they will not lose AAA status.