Hey, just wanted to know what your opinions are as far and which corp is the worst, greatest threat, most dangerous .etc

I'll start with Aztechnology for they're use of bloodmagic and cybermancy along with general AAA corp evil.

Saeder Krupp, especially now that Lofwyr is now Lore-Master and the Big D ain't around to bother him anymore . .

Mitsuhama for the creation of the Zero-Zone.

Shiawase for the creation of Corporate Extraterritoriality.

Fuchi/NovaTech/NeoNet for constantly changing it's name and confusing me.

Horizon for it's brainwashing capabilities.

Ares for selling weapons to EVERYONE (Including Shadowrunners!).

Renraku for treating it's AI like a slave and causing it to go insane.

Yamatetsu/Neo for having a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG-Term outlook (Free Spirit CEO, effectively immortal!).

Wuxing for having multiple daughters to marry off and create a massive empire through family relations.

Saeder-Krupp for being legitimately Draconian.

Aztechnology.

I'd call it a tie between Horizon's brainwashing techniques and Ares for their allying with invae.

Aztechnology all the way. For sacrificing their own citizens and consorting with Horrors.

Blood! Blood! Blood makes the jungle grow!

Or the quote from a previous character during a run against this corp:
Rickson: "You surely know the old wives tales of Aztechnology. How they sacrifice children to unspeakable horrors. How they sell their souls to demons for magical power. The sacrifice of millions for the regrowth of the Amazon basin and it's bounty for corporate exploitation later."
Midnight: *the elf shaman looking annoyed* "Yeah, yeah...what of it?"
Rickson: *looking dead serious* "They are far, far worse than that..."

Damn good quote!

Who really knows? The megas are huge and sprawling, inpenetrable in the extreme due to compartmentalization and the huge sprawling size of the corp.

Of course, Aztechnology is too hard to argue with. Who can out-do them for evil? Being a machiavellian dragon doesn't really change him morally from Damien Knight or Richard Villiers, and they'd have no problem making you dissapear if they wanted to, they just don't have the inclination to eat you (but then again, I doubt Lofwyr really eats just anyone, i'm sure he has discerning tastes. So Ares is perhaps allied with the invae? That is pretty bad, but insect spirits are controllable, they can be outsmarted and outgunned. Aztechnology has tried to tear the fabric dividing earth and the Horrors' metaplanes. The Horrors. The magical alien soul-eating scourge. As much as I'd like to say Horizon's attempt at myspace is pretty nasty, it doesn't really compare to calling the apocalypse, and sacrificing the blood of many innocents to do so.

True. After all, the only other major group that tried to do that, Winternight, was a Cultist Group of Yahoos who wanted to tear down the Matrix, thinking they were Loki's Chains.

Aztechnology, for the "most evil" award.

Azzies for most evil

SK for most likely to come after your hoop a month after a run is over.

Now imagine if they sold consumer goods. See? Fucking sinister.

For years FASA and Wizkids has been making Aztechnology the bridge between Earthdawn Horrors and SR (catalyst hasn't had enough time IMO to continue the trend), so that is the only real vote...

Thanks! Rickson was a ton of fun to play. He was the former head of an Aztechnology psy/black ops team that made the stuff from Seirra Leone look like an episode of Barney the Dinosaur...only nicer. It warmed his black, hard heart when, the previously rather pacifistic at least in terms of killing, hacker of our group said, "I haven't used my katana on anyone yet. Let me kill them!" about the recently downed, but not yet dead, rival runner team.

Interrogation 5 (Torture +2) and rating 6 stim-patches against mages gives you a good idea of what he was all about. The funny part is how he was really calming down on the killing and senseless torture bit while the rest of the party was really ramping it up towards the end of that campaign.
He "retired" by opening a private eye/PMC company called D4C Security, LLC with the surviving members of his team once he broke 100 earned karma. It seems like a good time for a character to call it quits.

The best, most recurring quote,

Random character: "What's with your cuban drug dealer carrying the man purse?"

Rickson: *usually later in the car* "I'm fucking Brazilian, dammit!" *clutches his high-fashion euro-styled equipment satchel to his chest* "And it's not a purse!"

...Horizon for the most insidious and sinister.

...hey, we're not like the others, we're your friends. Here have some more Kool Aid...

SK

because this f... dragon already owns Europe and u never know if he will stop in his imperialism!

Aztechnology still trumps SK on that, too. They literally have their hand up the back of a puppet government, with virtually no competetion. Due to the cultural segregation in europe, and the myriad of borders and home corporations, Loffy has a lot of work cut out for him, so he doesn't really own Europe.

Worst corps, hhhmm well they are all cutthroats and there arent any good Megas. I always find it fun when I run into players and other gms that insist some are nicer than others or insisting that they are good-guys....I guess corp channels and commercials work Hey its all about the money & power and nothing else!

But if I had to pick the worst of the worst it's has to be a tie between Aztechnology, Ares and Renraku:

-Aztechnology due to it's instutionalized bloodmagic, it's ruthless way of controling Aztlan, and what they did in Yucatan.... Oh yeah and ties with horrors and a corrupted dragon are very good reasons too why they are the worst.
-Ares due to their handling of the situation in Chicago (using a nuke), which showed how little life matteres to them, and ofcause of Ares being the chief weapon seller in the world..... Oh yeah and the possible ties they have with the bugs now is a very good reason too for being picked as worts.
-Renraku because of them being one of the leading forces in the racist charge against all non-humans: orcs, trolls, elves, shapechangers etc., and their involvement with the metahuman prison island in the Philippines (Yomi island) where countless died, the Saito regime in Calfree which they supported.... Oh yeah and their AI mess.

Others could have been picked for a number of reason tbh: like other Japana Megas for being involved with Yomi Island and the Saito mess but those are my top picks.

It's interesting that we all have a collective impression of the "worst" megacorporations. The Azzies and SK are definately up there. SK mainly because of the "eat shadowrunners policy".

As for the japanacorps, Mitsuhama, Renraku, Fuchi (Now fragmented), and Shiawase. Yamatetsu used to be guilty of this, too, although moving to Vladivostok and changing their outlook has done a lot, at least for their public relations. Renraku gets special mention for setting Deus upon the world.

Ares doesn't get too much bad press. But it's still there. There's definate allusions to some sort of arrangement with the invae, but we hear a lot less about that than we do, say, The Azzies blood magic. Although if you extrapolate, they make guns. Lots of guns, and they market them all over the world. Also, they use military might as a business tool, for example in their offshore drilling, they're practically oil-pirates with warheads, preying off the smaller riggers. A big thing that makes me think Ares are nasty is Damien Knight/David Gavilan (depending on your opinion). He's a corporate criminal, bordering on information terrorist.

Horizon we know little about, but they give us the heeby-jeebies - but that's about it. They even have an ork as their CEO.

Neonet? Villers. A cut-throat operator, but we don't really know many of his corps real underhanded practices, and since they're in competition with Renraku (who got the rest of Fuchi), they always look relatively clean.

There's probably more to deal with, but you notice that as the list goes down, the corps get "less" evil. Personally I'd like to see more information in future fluff/campaigns to shed a bit more light on the worst practices of corps like Neonet, Horizon, Evo, and maybe Ares. They're just too squeaky clean for me right now, so I notice whenever I need to cue genocide/environmental hazards/machiavellian political coersion and violence, I look to these guys.

Anyone have anything to contribute on this matter?

Azzies. Definately.

Most corps, the worst they can do is torture you to death after you watch the same to your loved ones.

AZT can torture you to _undeath_, and then keep on torturing you until ultimately, the team of ritual mages doesn't roll enough successes, and your soul is _allowed_ to flee it's corrupted husk.

<shudder>

I know this will probably get me stoned to death but I don't consider Earthdawn to be part of Shadowrun canon so the whole Horrors thing doesn't float with me. But in terms of pure, unmitigated evil Aztechnology still ranks number one. However, that doesn't make them the greatest threat. Ares, SK, MCT, and Renraku are about as subtle as a brick to the head when it comes to unethical and straight-out illegal business practices. Horizon, on the other hand, wants to be your friend and is determined to get into your head any way possible. That makes them the greatest threat in my mind. NeoNET and Evo, I have no opinion on.

Ah, but we're not talking about Threat! That would be MCT with it's Zero Zones!

We're talking unmitigated evil. And I do have to agree that the whole Ritualistic Sacrifice of everyone they can get their hands on for power has AZT in the lead.

Even the rest of the Corps only want your body and purchasing power for the most part!

Well, Lofwyr wants the occasional snack, but that's not "evil", that's being a Dragon.

Mitsuhama: For hiring Halbertsam and their researchs on Otakus
Azzies: Horrors, Darke, Roxborough, blood spirits
Ares: Their weapon being sold to everyone... everywhere. How they dealed with Chicago, about everything related to Damien Knight.

What is a zero zone?

Zero gets in Zero gets out! It's a lethal security philosophy " shoot first,shoot second, shot third and frag the questions".

But that's not what Oni asked! He said, Those sound like different questions to me.

The worst corp is whichever one just screwed you over.

Worst corporation: my vote is for Ares. I never really liked war-mongers and merchants of death

Most Evil: Aztechnology: dealing with horrors and ritual sacrifice just gets you there...

Most Threat: Mitsuhama, zero zones and the developers of nasty stuff like ringu and cyborgs. They come second in my "evil" book for going to bed with the yakuza and unethical technomancer experimentation.

SK is just the most powerful, evil and a threat, but I tend to use it as a cruel, manipulative, selfish but ultimately positive influence in my games. (for instance: pulling the plug in SF, hunting down Winternight, etc.) The runners I game with usually do not mess with SK, so no snacks yet.

And in my book all megacorps are evil, bad and a threat. They come in different flavors, that's all.

Cheers,

Max

"Zero Intrusions Allowed".

You get caught in these places, you're dead. Dead dead dead. Gattling guns on rails along the ceilings, trained Hellhounds roaming the fenced-in areas, Cyberzombie security guards, In-House Hackers that FastJack thinks are almost worth their equipment.

Think about a 'Runner's worst nightmare... Take a job running against that, rather than a Zero Zone.

Aztechnology is way too obvious as an answer. Still, I'd go for a tie between them and Ares. People at Aztechnology encountered the purest form of evil in the universe and said "That's okay, we're siding with you. Let's bring on the apocalypse, we probably can make profit of it when it comes." They're just puppets. Then, people at Ares encountered the second purest form of evil in the universe, beat it up with heavy weaponry and then said "Hey, let see if we could make a profit of that now."

I'm not sure which one is worst, but I would bet that a lot of people in all the other corps, would have done exactly the same, had they the opportunity.

Zero Zones are only a threat to a small, illegitimate subset of society. Runners who try and infiltrate a zero zone.

The Invae and the Horrors/Blood Magic? Nuclear Weapons? Corporate monopolistic hegemonies? Insidious and manipulative PR machines? Squashing an indigenous/lower class rebellion with fire and toxins?

The Azzies (and Ares)have a much greater potential effect globally than Mitsuhama's zero zones. Not to mention that Mitsuhama only pioneered the zero zone. All the major corps use them. It's just like Extraterritoriality.

Also, I think it was in the Aztlan sourcebook, that the Azzies have been using the same unethical techniques made popular by Halberstam and The SCIRE incident/Deus to create biocomputers out of brain-slaves.

Ah, good ol' Halberstam. I wonder where he is now.

I don't know, but I'm sure various Parent and Community groups are keeping tabs on him. Stranger danger.

United Oil or Natural Vat Foods.
Seriously.

If we're going to talk about environmental damage, I'd attribute that to Shiawase and Saeder Krupp. Shiawase because of chemical/nuclear waste, and Saeder Krupp for their huge industrialised heavy industry.

Hey, how about the original "Evil Empire", MicroDeck?

There is no such thing as the worst company. They are all bad and good in their own way.

Take, for example, baby formula manufacturers in the real world. If you're a modern first world parent who is unable to meet your infant's nutritional needs using your chest alone, powdered baby formula is the best and most cost efficient method of doing so. Millions of babies are saved from malnutrition every year by cheap nutritious powdered baby formula. If you're a third world parent who can't afford running water, on the other hand, formula just doesn't live up to the hype. Powdered baby formula kills millions of babies every year due to malnutrition both because it is diluted by poor parents who can't afford to give their babies the full amount and because it is mixed with stagnant parasite-infested water.

Ares's machinations with insect spirits have probably saved a great many lives and they'll probably continue to save more. Aztechnology thought that what they were doing would save lives, except for Darke who was just corrupted by the Horrors.

You can't look at one or the other and say that they're bad. They have, if not the best of intentions, at least decent intentions. They both want to make the world a better place and they want to make money doing it. The two goals aren't mutually exclusive, but it is rather easy to trip one up on the other, and better is a very subjective term.