Its been a while since we last got a 'Corporate Download' style update, so I've been working on one of my own for my games. First up is every runners favorite corporation (because they make all the best guns) Ares.

Below are my thoughts on Ares ratings in 12 key markets. They are rated on my 'Scale of 6', where 3 is average, and 6 is the highest any generic buisness might rise to. Mega-corporations are decidedly non-generic however, and so may raise higher then 6 (maybe much higher).

Some examples to make it clearer (all in agriculture):
Rating 1: Barley any market presence at all; a mom and pop grocery store
Rating 3: modern small-medium sized business; localy owned grocery store, small regional grocery chain, successful farm
Rating 6: large national presence, moderate business presence on a global scale, one part of the market; Dole Foods
Rating 9: Major global player in global markets, dominate national position, multiple parts of the market; Tyson Foods, PepsiCo
Rating 12: Dominate position in global markets, all parts of the market; no current companies at this level (some close though).

The industry categories are pretty wide as well, some insight into what the different categories mean, note that there is still some bleedthrough in various categories:
Agriculture: The production, processing, and distribution of food stuffs, including farms, grocery stores, food outlets, and food brands.
Auto/Aerospace: The production of cars, trucks, planes, and rockets. Also their presence in space.
Biotech: Cyberwear, Biowear, Gene-tech, pharmacuticals, and other life sciences. To a limited extent medical services also (hospitals, ambulances)
Chemistry: The extraction, production, and refinement of chemicals, including mining, oil producing, smelting, and nano-technology.
Consumer Goods: Production and distribution of the junk we buy, like toasters, washing machines, clothing, toys and trids.
Electronics: Design and production of important electronics components, including commlinks, servers, CPUs, storage, and more.
Heavy Industry: Production of large items like Ships, Trains, Powerplants, Oil Rigs, and also large industrial projects like digging canals.
Magical Goods: Production of magical talisman of all sorts, and research and development in various magical arts, from spell casting to geomancy
Media: Production of all information products, news, movies, sim-sense, skillchips, and any other item composed mostly of information
Military: Goods and services for the military, tanks, guns, planes, bombs, and security and support services
Service: Providing services such as power, waste, matrix, police, ambulance, security, and fire. Also presence as a retail distributor.
Software: Production and design of programs that act on information, comm-link programs, pilot programs, OSs, firewalls, and node programs.

The ratings in all these are taken together, averaged, then doubled to get the corps total rating. Which could also be ranked on the scale of 6. All AAA mega-corps will rate at least a 12 or above.

Now without further ado, my ratings for Ares!
Agriculture: 3
Auto/Aerospace: 12
Biotech: 6
Chemistry: 9
Consumer Goods: 3
Electronics: 5
Heavy Industry: 9
Magical Goods: 4
Media: 4
Military: 13!
Service: 8
Software: 5
Total Rating: 13.5

As a mega-corp Ares of course has its fingers in multiple pies, but their primary focus is on military technology, with their presence in other areas often being a by product or as support to their military focus. Ares also has a moderate presence in resource extraction owning stakes in many mines and oil farms. One of the victims in their battle with Cross was the its Media division, which has fallen on hard times since then, while Ares focuses on what Knight sees as their core competencies, that is making stuff blow up.

I've also made a map that shows where I see Ares Presence in the 6th world. They are strongest in the UCAS/CAS and their former allies, but also have a strong presence wherever weapons of war are sought, that is, most everywhere. The do not tend to do as well in awakened lands however.

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So what do you think? Disagree with where I see Ares at?

I haven't had a chance to study your assessment of Ares, but I do like your map. Did you make it up yourself, or did you get the base map from somewhere?

Peter

I took a PDF map I found floating around out there and modified it to my needs. Its from 2062, but I think the borders are still more or less acurate, though after I got done modifing it, they may not be . My geography is pretty good, but I had to wing it for a lot of the countries borders/shape especially at the relatively low resolution I wanted (so I could imbed the map in some of my other creations easily).

I think that's a pretty good assessment, all things being equal. You've hit all of Ares' key components -- General Motors, Ares Arms, and NASA -- and they certainly never struck me as a magic-heavy corp. I might push their biotech rating up another point or two, though; with their emphasis on military gear, I'd think they'd be all over anything that turns soldiers into supersoldiers. And while their commercial magical ventures aren't exactly big, I might even consider putting their magic rating at 5 or 6 because of the Bug-farm that was mentioned in . . . . . SoNA, I think. I forget. Point is, I'm sure Ares has learned something from their pet insect spirits.

Tazmania and Madagascar should be blue. They are essentially uninhabited. ?? Somalia still exists?

Thanks, I'll adjust. My knowledge of the larger SR4 is limited. Evidently China is split up into like a bazillion different nation states, I had no clue. So Ares presence in all of them is mostly just fudges .

And yes apparently Somalia is still around. It was on the map I used at least.

I wouldn't worry too much about Somalia, chummer. I don't think it's ever really been around; it's one of those places that's always at war with itself. If you can get your hands on Shadows of Asia, though, they have a nice little map in the China section with all the official demarcations shown. It's one Hell of a big jigsaw puzzle, though, so I wouldn't worry too much about matching your map.

Unless, of course, you're OCD, in which case, go for it.

Heh, I'm not worrying about it. Actually my sinister plan was instead of digging through a bazillion books to look up Ares Presence in various continents, I went with my gut feeling and was counting on the people here to set me straight on the places I went wrong. Besides the information out there is probably pretty sparse anyways, so it would probably be mostly guess work in any case.

Basically my philosophy when making up the map was, "Is there a demand for guns there?" if yes, then I increased Ares presence in the area. There were a few other considerations, but basically it was as simple as that.

Well, looking at the map, you might want to tone down the reds and oranges across the Middle East. I know that its one of the most war-torns areas in the world, but between Aden running the north of it and Lofwyr the south of it, I'd think that S-K's weapons might be a more prevalent. And besides, as a Red-Blooded American Company, I doubt that Knight would be willing to sell guns to a bunch of Arab countries. Israel, sure, but not Iraq or Saudi.

Soldier, I respect your love of country and the faith you have in your fellow corporate citizens.

Peter

Knight's ex-USAF, right? Only makes sense that he'd share my outlook. There's a reason why my first ever SR character was on Knight Errant's payroll.

Knight's origin and true name remains unknown, but the persistent rumor is that he was the old project manager for Echo Mirage back before crash 1.0...

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Not to pick bones, but your feelings hasn't prevented the US from selling quite a lot of weaponry to the Saudi's and the Iranians in the past, and probably won't stop us from selling to the Iraqi's in the future.

Of course that doesn't mean Ares will. Your right that there weaponry buisness will probably be deterred by S-K's presence, but that just means they will probably sell more to their enemies . Cause after all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend...

Of course, but that was all under different political situations. In the 70s, Iran was our friend, so we sold them weapons. After the Islamic Revolution, Saddam's Iraq became our friend, so we sold them weapons instead. After 91, Saddam became our enemy and Saudi became our friend, so we sold them the weapons. Now, Iraq is our friend again (nominally, anyway), so we're selling them more weapons.

So, let's look at the situation as presented in SoA. Lofwyr controls S-K which is basically raping the Arabian pennisula of its petroleum resources. Aden is fighting against Lofwyr's controls. Aden lives on Mount Ararat in the middle of Kurdistan and plays Big Brother to the Kurds, and the Kurds have been reliant on US intelligence and under-the-table military aide for a while. Aden supports the Kurds, Ares supports UCAS, UCAS supports Kurds. . . ipso facto, Ares supports Aden. The fact that Aden is sticking his finger in the eye of another AAA is just icing on the cake. So yes, I'm sure that there are LOTS of Ares Alphas running around the Land of Sand. But I'm sure that S-K, having a larger area of influence, has a much larger slice of the pie.

As for Knight, so far as I'm concerned, he was born David Gavilan, a Major in the USAF and one of the project leaders in Echo Mirage after its first disastrous run-in with the Crash Virus. As supporting evidence, I offer the factoid that Dunkie's controlling stake in Ares was the sub-contractor Gavilan Ventures. I don't believe in coincidences.


PS: I've always wanted to use "ipso facto" in a real conversation. Hooray for me.

I don't disagree with any of your analysis, but it would help me if you could put some better names on these places. Where specificaly does S-K have a presence? All of arabia? or just Iraq, Iran, ect... how about Libya and Egypt? You also said Aden (a dragon right) is wholed up in Mt. Ararat, which I would take to mean he has a strong presence in Turkey, correct?


Oh again, I don't disagree with this at all either. It has been strongly hinted many many times that this is exactly who he is. However it has never been explicitly stated that this is who he actually. Which makes it one of those funny SR things that is all but confirmed, but still slightly a mystery. Getting the runners close enough to the edge of the truth to drive them mad. They might have mountains of circumstantial evidence as to who he is, but they can never seem to find one that actually sticks

All of the Aden vs. S-K stuff if highlighted in Shadows of Asia. When I say "Arabia" I mean Saudi Arabia. My books are about 2,000 miles away at the moment otherwise I'd get you some specifics and page numbers. If memory serves, S-K basically owns (through a shell corporation, of course) mineral rights to Saudi Arabia and the other little countries that rim the Arabian pennisula (UAE, Yemen, etc). He's got his talons in Iraq, too, though how far is anyone's guess. In my mind, the rich oil fields of southern Iraq (in the vicinity of Basra and Um Qasr) are the battlefield between Lofwyr and Aden -- the northern oil fields around Kirkuk and Mosul are too close to Aden's home turf for S-K to safely operate.

Aden, yes, is a Great Dragon. He has massive influence across the Middle East, but his powerbase is in the Kurdish Autonomous Zone aka Kurdistan, which consists of the eastern third of Turkey and a quarter of northern Iraq. After the Iranian ayatollahs declared a world-wide jihad against all things Awakened in 2020, Aden quite literally destroyed Tehran -- presumably both as a punishment and a warning. Since then, he has remained mostly out of the limelight, prefering to make his moves under the table and avoid media exposure. So far as anyone knows, he doesn't even have a metahuman form -- all of his orders go out through spirits or his human auxilliaries. He also refused to accept a bequeth from Big D's Will, which reinforces the generally held belief that he's very prideful and something of a pro-dragon racist.

In 2070, you'd had to merge Tsimshian with Salish-shidhe, and Ute with Pueblo

To me, your assessment for Ares correctly take into account the ownership of Apple and the whole Ares Global Entertainement division, which owns NBS in North America, Canal+ in France, some newspapers, and trideogames studios. The rating for chemistry seems a bit high, as I know no precise mention of Ares assets in that domain, except the highly successful plasticrete...

Also, the fact that Germany has a bunch of megacorps doesn't prevent Ares from being around. AFAIR, the Germany SB had Ares listed as a big mover with Ares Makrotech and Ares Industrial Solutions subsidiaries. As for Denmark, the Ares Europe HQ is there. Rating around 4 or 5 for those countries seems a bit low.

Drat, I was afraid my map was slightly out of date, I'll adjust.


This is probably someplace where I am deviating from cnnon. I know Ares has been stated in canon as having a rather respectable entertainment arm, but it frankly doesn't mesh with my vision of them as the inheritors as the modern American Military Industrial Complex. And yes, I know parts of the modern Military Industrail Complex have huge entertainment arms. GE for example is probably the primary source of inspiration for Ares, and it has a huge entertainment division (Telemundo, NBC, Universal Studios). As for Apple, well I see that consumer electronics part of their buisness as almost entirely gone.

But what can I say, I like things more clearly defined, so I've written that part out. Consider the Ares Entertainment division to be a loss to Crash 2.0 and the crash with Cross. I see Ares Current Media presence much more limited to things like an Ares Military Channel or Ares Presents - True Story's of the Desert Wars. Sort of a modern day discovery channel sort of thing. I might bump them up to a 6, but thats about it.

As for Chemistry, consider that Ares not only has considerabl facilities for creating the high tech materials they need in there military equipment (including space manufacturing), but likely also holds substantial amounts of resource extraction facilities (mines and what not) in the various hot-spots of the world. Especially in say Africa.


Good to know. I'll adjust. My inital (primitive) thinking was, "S-K is there, so Ares is likely not." I don't have any of the German SB, but I'll take your word for it if they say Ares is a bigger player in those regions.

You missed a whole category of Services/Products: Security... as in Private Security Forces/Police/Bodyguard services... as I recall, thats what Knight Errant is all about (aren't they the main competition for LoneStar/MCT Security?


You have them with a 7 in Japan... that might be high, you might wanna check SoA, I doubt even Damien boy is willing to be in conflict with Lofwyr (see comments about interactions with S-K earlier) and Ryumo AKA MCT.

I see a possible confusion here. Are you rating "assets", "economical activity", "market share" or "source of revenue" ? Ares might be selling bullets and missiles and helicopters in, say, Marroco. But there might not be a single factory producing those in there. All you need around is a few salesmen, better have a lobbying team as well, and then you ship all that those sold in. This is particularuly true of Ares, whose major markets, aerospace, defense, automotive, media, can be highly centralized.


For what I remember of SoA, Lofwyr and Saeder-Krupp weren't that much of a big player in Japan with the ownership of the Nippon Credit & Trust and Kawasaki. Now, Japan is among the largest economy in the world (though, according to figures given for pop and income, UCAS remain ahead). If the Japanacorps made it impossible for any foreign corps, including the AAA, to set a business in Japan, they'd just marginalize Japan as a market and Tokyo stock exchange as a financial place. Plus, none of the major japanese corps is a major player in aerospace, defense or automotive sectors. The only markets on which Ares would clash at a big level, with MCT, would be security services and media.

Anyway, as far as SoA goes, Ares has no significant presence in Japan.

Sorry... I wasn't very clear earlier. I meant he was tangling with S-K in the Mid-east' and was unlikely to be pushing hard into Japanese markets at the same time. I don't have SoA anymore (my copy wore out), but I was thinking unless he already had a strong presence in Japan he was unlikely to be pushing one while still dealing with the Mid-East.

I don't have SoA handy, but I did just check Corporate Enclaves. In Tokyo, at least, the only non-Japanese AAAs with a foothold are Evo, Horizon (through Turner-Hisato Broadcasting), S-K (through Nippon Credit & Trust), NeoNET, and Wuxing (through the Prosperity Group). No mention of Ares anywhere.

I wanted to keep the number of categories down to 12, so some sacrifices had to be made. Consider the "Security Services" field to be a combination of Military and Service catagories.


It may be hard to tell because of the small size of the map, but they currently rate a 2 in Japan, they are hardly even present, as those markets are dominated by the Japanese Corps. But Japan has a huge economy so its nearly impossible for a corp as big as Ares not to have at least SOME presence.

Though I doubt it is fear of S-K that keeps them out. Knight is no coward, and lets face it SK (and MCT) are primary competitors of Ares in virtually every one of its primary fields. So he could hardly avoid conflict with them even if he wanted to. No Ares presence or absence in an area is merely a result of its success in penetrating those markets. It may be harder for Ares to get a foothold in Japan or Germany, and they may put less effort into it because of this (focusing on more profitable markets) but it is certainly not fear which drives them out. Ares is the top 5 of the megacorps and the #1 weapons manufacture in the world, its safe to assume they truly fear nothing.


Yes, all of the above. Frankly for reasons of simplicity its not worth it to divide Ares' presence in different markets up by assets, revenue, market share, or whatever. Its simply a rough aggregate of all those factors. For example Ares may have few factories in the SEA combat zone then then in Australia, but they might sell a lot more assault rifles there, so the two ratings might come out roughly equal. Probably best summed up by the term 'Presence" as in how influential are the actions of Ares in that area.

Sigh... I will try one more time... I am saying I don't think that he would push agendas into 2 seperate areas controlled (at least partially) by his biggest compettiors at the same time.... That would be like starting wars on 2 fronts at the same time... I think Damien is smarter than that...

Never ever ever give 2 of your enemies who happen to be each others enemies a reason to unite against you.... it is not a fun experience.

I've updated my map with some updated borders in NA for the 2070s and taken some the considerations of the posters here on the coloration. Enjoy!