Evo was the "Quiet Corporation" until the CrashCart thing started the ball rolling to make them a household name. The character in 2XS finds out about the AAA-Corporation, and is amazed that he's never heard of it before.

And we're not talking some Barrens rat, here, either. Dirk was an educated person who had a pretty good view of the world that is from a number of different aspects.

College-educated former Lone Star officer who worked the shadows as a mundane human with no cyber and was successful at it. That should be enough to cement his badass status.

And the Alera thing came about because Jim Butcher was on a writer's workshop board (I think Random House, but I'm not sure). A polite discussion and thought exercise started about whether craft or an idea is more important. One side was no matter how good of a writer you are, you can't polish a turd. The other side had seen the Mythbusters episode about that and said you could make a bad idea into a good book if you were a good enough writer. It devolved into a flamewar with all that entails. Butcher and several others were on the craft side, while other people were on the idea side. Eventually, one guy on the idea side said "Prove it then. Take a horrible idea and write a good story with it!" Butcher, being in his 20s and fueled by internet rage, said "Screw that, give me TWO bad ideas!" The guy responded with lost Roman legions and pokemon. Butcher then started brainstorming and realized that pokemon were basically manifestations of the Shinto kami of the elements and went from there.

He also challenges anyone to read the Alera books now and imagine the first big battle in the woods with "Rill, I choose you!" and take the books seriously.

My brain just broke.

And that's like crack for writers, from what I've heard of his interviews!

Former Russian military? As in, ships? Tech? Or what? Where is that piece coming from?

Yamatetsu Naval Technologies is described in Corporate Download, page 117, and Corporate Guide, pages 88-89.

Shipping was originally one of Yamatetsu core business (though Corporate Guide has it as a construction company, Tsuruga International, Tadamako Shibanojuki's own company, was a shipping company according to Blood in the Boardroom). Before 2059-2060, Yamatetsu did not officially have a military force, but maintained a fleet of about 40 patrol ships (probably corvettes or frigates-sized ships) to secure shipping routes. When a land force was needed, they were contracting operations to Ares Arms or similar corporations.
After Buttercup and Yuri Shibanojuki seized control of the corporation and moved the headquarters to Vladivostok, they strengthened ties with the Russian authorities. However, at that time, Russia was a game of thrones between Saeder-Krupp, Zeta-Impchem, Yamatetsu and Cross-backed factions. Most of Yamatetsu allies were related to parts of the Russian space complex, the eastern local governments and the Pacific fleet. The Russian government considered allowing Russian troops to be sent abroad if needed to defend the interests of the now-Russian only AAA megacorporation.
Buttercup and Shibanojuki then establish Yamatetsu Naval Technologies. YNT was to act as an umbrella for all Yamatetsu defense-related activities : the military shipbuilding business, the patrol fleet, and the use of Russian or contracted military forces. The first President/CEO of YNT was Fyodor Uvarovka [sic], a Russian military advisor, tasked with the creation of a combat swimmer unit. By 2072, YNT is nonetheless described as "one of the last holdouts of the hardliner Japanese".

And that's why I can't read the Alera series.

>Fyodor Uvarovka
>hardliner Japanese

Yeah, SR3 is still as good as I remember with Russian surnames, and Corporate Guide is just as good with everything at all. :3
Anyway, thank you for the info.

The real problem I see is while Evo and Horizon both seem to have sparkle-y clean records, I only really have sympathy for Horizon. Evo just seems to rub me the wrong way. With Horizon, at least how it's portrayed in Corporate Guide, seems to actually be a half decent corp. Hell, there's suggestion that they caused Crash 2.0 in their section, but even with that, I still like them.

This is the mind control kicking in.

well i should specify... I can't see much harm coming out of Horizon, but i can see doing runs against them as much more dangerous than against other corps... so I am less inclined to go against them, so I like them more I guess? After hearing that Horizon won't nec. destroy you, but will instead destroy your cred... yeah, thats a pretty powerful incentive not to f*ck with them.

Evo is a major driving force beyond the pro-meta action; that alone makes it better than the great spin-corp.

I will give them that; not only are they involved in pro-meta politics, but they also are responsible for much of the meta-friendly equipment on the market. Whatever their motives, they do good works.

The question is how they research that meta-friendly stuff.

There is a reason my pixie is listed as "Experiment 235-D" in Evo's records.






-k

Very much the above, they're too back alley and underhanded with their sneaky. At least Lofwyr's fairly honest about his intent to rule the world.

Would you believe the frakking huge golden dragon trillionaire if he told you he didn't want to rule the world?

Depends on how big the numbers on the stick he was handing me were.

"That's enough for me to agree that the moon is cheese and the sky is mauve."

Agreeing and believing are two differant things, if Mr J. hands me enough money I'll agree that Mr Knight is a dumb punter, doesn't mean I believe it. Dragons have more.... immediate methods of securing agreement.

If nothing else, because they're rich enough to own a ketchup factory.