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Warlordtheft
Part one of a three part poll. Tell us what you thing of the top ten Megas!
DWC
Ares is allied with the invae, while pretending to be the wholesome "Leave it to Beaver" of the Big 10. Horizon is brainwashing people, manipulating governments, and has managed to completely undermine the entire shadow community of Los Angeles by convincing them that they should care about how well Gary Cline knows them. MCT just wants to make money, and doesn't apologize for what it does to people who stand in the way of that.
Stahlseele
all evil.
Evo is slightly less evil, as is Draco Foundation, but not by much . . it's entirely subjective, depending on which side of a contract you are
masterofm
I think the best question would be "which corp is the least evil?"
Fortune
Corporations aren't 'evil'. They may do things that can (in some societies) be defined as evil, but they are not set up solely for the purpose of doing bad deeds. Even Aztechnology was not evil, or even particularly bad, comparatively speaking. They just had a Great Dragon on the board with an agenda of his own. Since Dunkleberry's death however, Aztechnology has cleaned up its act significantly, and might even be one of the 'better' Corps nowadays.

That being said, I rate all the listed Corporations on a par.

Speaking of Aztechnology, they would definitely win hands-down in the best PR department. Throughout all of the 'shadow happenings' over the decades, the general public loves the corporation, and it is among the more trusted among the megacorporations.

Heath Robinson
Damien Knight is a more realistic Tony Stark. This means he's totally awesome and therefore I have to vote well of his company. Sure, he's the head of a megacorp and is, therefore, a slick bastard willing to sell his own grandmother, but I like bastards.

Ares is also totally awesome. Awesome like the Marines in SC. Awesome like the USMC in Aliens. Awesome like a minigun in a crowded mall for no damn reason. Awesome for putting mages in space to attack the bugs on their home planes. Mages. In space. That is so awesome that there are no words to explain it.

They still only rate a 2. EVO will also rate a 2 for their lovely transhumanism.


Also, I am totally behind Fortune on his take on corps and evil. There is only awesome and less awesome. Horizon got some awesome for Cline telling the current Tir head of state to "just concentrate on staying alive for the next thirty days. I promise, by this time next month, they’ll all be so fucking happy they live here they’ll be lining the streets with rose petals.” Aztech gets major awesome points for having the best PR department in Shadowrun. SK get a big thumb up for Lofwyr being a gigantic badass.

All other corps are vanilla in comparison.
Warlordtheft
Bumping the poll so it doesn't get lost to early. I hoope to get a few more people to opine!!
MaxMahem
Just a note for all the '4th Ed is turning Ares/whoever into GOOD guys' crowd. In Ares case at least, this concept predates 4th ed by a good bit. Ares is portrayed in quite a positive light (all things considered) in the Corporate Shadowfiles (a SR3 publication) especially where the shadows are concurned. Apparently they even sometimes give out limited duration Docwagon contracts to their 'independent contractors'!?!

Quite a number of other older publications are either relatively neutral or positive in favor of Ares. Not necessarily good guys, but not that bad all in all among a fairly rough lot.
DWC
Feral Cities definitely doesn't paint Ares as anything other than the money grubbing, exploitative scum that we all know they really are.
Tiger Eyes
QUOTE (DWC @ Dec 17 2008, 06:52 PM) *
Horizon ... has managed to completely undermine the entire shadow community of Los Angeles by convincing them that they should care about how well Gary Cline knows them.


rotfl.gif

*gasp* Oh, man, I don't normally laugh so hard in the morning...
Mäx
QUOTE (DWC @ Dec 19 2008, 04:10 PM) *
Feral Cities definitely doesn't paint Ares as anything other than the money grubbing, exploitative scum that we all know they really are.

I laughed so hard for that Ares Arms, Africa joke.
hyzmarca
Saintly? Evil? Really. Good and evil are such silly and limited concepts. I prefer to discard the black&white moral paradigm that this poll suggests and replace it with something substantially more technicolor. Morality is very interesting when you replace the one dimensional line one usually measures morality on with a thirty-dimension vector space. Then instead of the good guys vs the bad guys you have the bleen guys and the forat guys in slightly different oppositions to the smershik guys and the zobmo guys, and other meaningless nonsense words I just made up.


Lord Vetinari put it simply, "I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides."

This is, however, overly simplistic. It isn't just that people are on opposite sides, it is that they exist within a complex web of goals that interact in unpredictable and interesting ways.





hermit
Mary-Sue, inc. (Horizon) is saintly, because the devs will it. It's just too good and cool and edgy and new and better to be anything else.

Ares is neutral because it's using Invae, aiding them because they believe they can control them, and because Knight is scary and evil himself. Ares isn't willingly pursuing the end of the world, nor is Ares much into mass murder.

MCT is evil because it's a bunch of fascist nazi racists who endorse rape in the Phillipines, are in bed with the Yaks, indulge in oprgan smuggling, mass murder, and support nasty dictatorships, spoil the land, and hold monthly puppy kicking contests in their enclaves.

Mind the sarcasm!
Warlordtheft
QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Dec 20 2008, 12:00 AM) *
Saintly? Evil? Really. Good and evil are such silly and limited concepts. I prefer to discard the black&white moral paradigm that this poll suggests and replace it with something substantially more technicolor. Morality is very interesting when you replace the one dimensional line one usually measures morality on with a thirty-dimension vector space. Then instead of the good guys vs the bad guys you have the bleen guys and the forat guys in slightly different oppositions to the smershik guys and the zobmo guys, and other meaningless nonsense words I just made up.

Lord Vetinari put it simply, "I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides."

This is, however, overly simplistic. It isn't just that people are on opposite sides, it is that they exist within a complex web of goals that interact in unpredictable and interesting ways.


I am also trying to work within the confines of the poll system here, 3 questions, up to 10 answers. I could of gone with something more haphazard such as a textual choice. But analyzing that is more difficult and often counter productive when trying to just get an idea on what people generally think of the top 10. (I put together the results of the poll here: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=24733)

As to regard to good (saintly) and evil, IMHO they are more encompassing than you might think. The varying shades of grey only imply that evil is commited by everyone. Which is also not the case. My response to the remark that there is neither good nor evil, black or white only shades of grey is that your focus is placed on the individual and not the acts themselves. From the focus upon the act itself, you usually find that it is either a good or evil act. The totality of the corps actions in the past, would give one the abilty to give an opinion on the degree the corp is either good or evil.

Take Ares for example. THey have Firewatch Teams to go after bugs spirits. They also have the arms deals with both sides in many conflicts. Now the fact of the matter is how you view each act depends on your POV. An insect shaman would view the firewatch teams as evil, while the arming of both sides might be preventing genocide (by some considered a good thing).
Aren't opinions wonderful!
Fortune
Ares has Insect Shamans on their Firewatch teams!
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