Hey, I was just wondering, does anyone else have a favorite corps?


I know that I have a real soft spot for Ares for some reason, so most of my (corporate type) characters usually end up with some sort of a tie to them.

Ares.

Take out of control capitalism, combine it with the American firearm industry, the (old awsome) American car industry, and throw in NASA because things in space are just cool, and there ya go.

... I wonder if Ares owns Harley.

Is this a trick question?

Honestly, out of all the Corps... Ares might be tolerable*, but the rest... monsters. The whole Megacorp thing leads to horrible things.

* = except the whole "Lets make Frankenstein monsters by combining bug spirits with some paracritter!"

Horizon. I've done some research into the methods and objectives of the advertising/marketing industry, and there's some downright unethical things they do. In particular regarding imprinting children who can't even speak yet with brand loyalty and indoctrinating them with parent manipulating skills so they can better control family cash flow based on their desires. Horizon reminds me of this, they've got the psychological and fiscal savvy, and not a shred of ethics to restrain them. The fact they haven't really been caught up in any huge dastardly metaplot just makes them creepier, too.

Renraku I like because of the strong imagery. The powerful and evocative uniform red, the blending of traditional Japanese design (like the Oyoroi armour) with futuristic imagery. I also love that a computer company's logo is a fractal.

Mitsuhama Computer Technologies get an honourable mention for irony, being called Mitsuhama Computer Technologies, yet having some of the strongest magical assets of all the AAA's.

Wuxing deserve respect, because they mustered the asia-pacific region into competition with imperial Japan. It's like they're still sore over the rape of Nan-king.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Horizon, Kolkotta Integrated Talent and Technologies, and NeoNET. Probably because I work both in the web/tech world and the world of marketing and advertising so I find it easy to relate to these companies, both in how they would operate and what their motivations would be. And I find them all much more frightening than a gun maker.

Aztechnology is interesting to me as a concept but also it also feels rather one note: "We cut out people's hearts to maintain our power! Oooga-booga bwa-ha-ha!" While the Aztecs did practice human sacrifice, the numbers are overstated and other pre-Antiquity cultures followed similar traditions (Wicker Men, Vestal Virgins, Celtic Druids, the Slavs sacrificing prisoners to Perun, Pawnee Indian virgin sacrifices, etc. etc.)

The Japanacorps have always struck me as being bland, cyber-80s "evil companies" though after the Corporate Handbook is released I may change my mind. But I really like Monobe's corporate emblem. I think it's pretty.

Fuchi Industrial Electronics - heh, a fond nostalgia-trip if nothing else as my first ever 1st Edition character was a decker.

My "favourite" corp is EVO, metafriendly, (relatively) openminded, with an ork as CEO and a free spirit into the board of directors, it also has many ecofriendly buisness at hand, produces some of the best augmentations on the market, are strong in nanotechnology, food related buisness (because runners have to eat too, and is good to not line Azzie's wallet for a change), have CrashCart (and hopefully they keep it insect free after the 2XS dreckfest) and have an agreedment with some red welsh dragon (greater variety) for a music related blog.

The second goes to Ares, yes they are bastards that make moneys by causing untold bloodletting in Africa, but they helped to kick Saito's butt (at least what I think was his butt, it could have been his face but it's hard to tell which was one and which the other) and helped Masaru in the Filippines (even if just by accident, because we all know that they didn't mean to sink Mitsuhama's warships when they stumbled in that Ares/Yamatetsu joint naval battle simulation held for training porpouses, don't we?), they are the ones that are called in when mystical insect dreck hits the fan, have space stations (places where the can access metaplanes without endangering Earth) and lets face it from the Predator to the Banshee Ares means toys and so it's close to any shadowrunner's heart (because we all love our Predator ).

At the tird place there's NeoNET (which is not New NETwork, no, it's New NovatechErikaTransis-neuronet); they have for CEO the bastard that made Fuchi an AAA corp just destroy it when his buisness mates decided to get rid of him, and did so backstabbing his greatest rival at the same time (he managed to fragg over not one but TWO triple A corps at the same time), they revulutioned the Matrix (in a much more radical way they ever planned to do) and have a fragging Great Dragon as head of R&D (one of the most diplomatic as well). From a runner point of view they offer top notch cibernetics, matrixware and software; what takes the second place away from them is the experiments on the technomancers.

Horizon is the 4th, they do some great things but their buisness is an hypocrital one by definition; also there's something creepy about their goodness (if anything in the 6th world has been shown us clearly is that goodness has a most likely a second porpouse) yet they have a good impact at social level, they are big in transhumanism and produce biological food (we can't stand soy anymore), what realy irkes me is that I can't go from my bed to the bathroom to piss without having reminded how great they are, Hey chummers world existed even before them, and so life.

Than comes Geatronics, not a triple A but they are ecofriendly and keep Shiwase's filthy nuclear plants out of Seattle, not bad for a second tier corp.

Wuxing also stikes me favorably, I don't know maybe it's their mystical feel, maybe it's the Big D's involvment or that they are a giant middle finger pointed toward the japanacorps; anyway they are confortably in the good side of neutrality. By the way:

who wouldn't be pissed off? And think how they felt when Japan proclamed the Yamato Spirit Act.

on the negative side of the spectrum there are SK (Lofwyr and pollution), the japanacorps with Shiwase the least drecky, followed by Renraku, Mitsuhama (that with the dreck that its Zero Zones did in the Filippines is placed high in the drecklist) and Yakashima (which contendes the title of Wrost of the Wrost with the evertwisted Aztchnology).

For some reason, this just makes me think of the movie Wall-E when they show the clip of the robots teaching the babies their ABCS... "A is for ... B is for Buy and Large your very best friend..."

A Horizon Preschool? Hell yeah, I'm stealing it.

I have to say I love them all equally as they keep me employed (ICC).

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The best corp? The one that hires you and doesn't set you up.
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Or the one that leaves the backdoor open. God I love those corps.
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I've always favored some corporations in Shadowrun because of the characters that led them, and less so for their corporate culture. I always liked Renraku because of Aneki-san, who had a genuine intention to advance mankind through computer technology and accidentally birthed one of its worst technological horrors (Deus). Whether I'll like Renraku as much without him remains to be seen.

And I still think Richard Villiers is great, even though I find NeoNET as a corporation to be somewhat bland. I used to love Fuchi because of the Nakatomi-Villiers-Yamana power struggle and I'm glad to see Villiers has come out stronger for the whole thing. The personal touches in the stories in System Failure about Villiers' attempt an IPO were my favorite parts about that book.

Saeder-Krupp.
Don't even need to explain that

Seconded.

Scoliodentosaurophilia?

What's that meta-friendly corp? Evo?
yeah, that one is my favourite.

Right now, I have a soft spot for NeoNET simply because of how useful they can be as a corporation that tries to do big things and other interests get in the way.

Mitsuhama figures large in a lot of my games, too.

My 2nd / 3rd ed games were centered in Detroit, so Ares was my OCP. Had a lot of fun with the Cross Ares conflict. In 4th ed I like using Mitsuhama as my main boogie man, (but I do like the subtle insidiousness of Horizon). MCT and their Yak connections make for good Johnson / Target opportunities for both the Street and Corp aspects of my game. In the end, though, I feel its better to portray the Corps as collections of individuals bound by corporate culture, each having different motivations and goals. Look hard enough, and you'll find good honest folks in AZT and MCT just as you'll find coldhearted money first bastards in Evo and Horizon. Portraying them as "entities" can easily turn them into paper villains.

The game I'm running right now is set in Boston (it's the closest big city to where I live), so NeoNET plays a pretty damned big role. Ares has always had a soft spot in my heart though, if for no other reason than the MP-LMG. Waay back when I played Shadowrun a decade ago, half of my characters toted the LMG as their primary weapon... to the point where Ares and Aztechnology were the only mega's I remembered from back then, and I never liked Aztechnology. EVO and MCT are fun too.

Ares and the Azzies the only ones that you remember?
Hey chummer, how could you miss a dragon taking over SK and making it the fragging biggest corp in that dreck filled thing we call world?

I for one would be happy for CGL to explore or even give a few nods to the darker side of Horizon and Evo, who seem to be taking the high-road a little too often in SR4 metaplot.

You mean like how Evo is using the Vory as muscle, and Horizon is giving AI the bodies of criminals? I hope they keep Evo and Horizon as subtly evil as they have. Consider the Horizon commlink program: technomancer testing? Consider Evo's move to Russia: resource grab? And let's not get into the Pulsar-Sojourner question. I'd hate for them to make either another MCT or Aztechnology...