Well, NovaTech seems to have a hard time...They are going deeply into the red.

The Big A, is still fighting a war that they do not seem to be winning,and are getting a longer list of countries they aren't welcomed in.

SK, what can I say about them..They seem to being picked on by all sides.This is not to say that they are getting beaten,or that anyone group is taking them over,but some of the smaller players (namely nearly of all them) are taking small bites out the king.

Renie is not to happy about what is happened in the Americas. They seem to be be going down for that little Dues problem. But I can see a big check going to the UCAS,so they may get some friends in the right places.

Cross had to do some major purging of it's angels,and that my friends may have dulled their edge over Ares.

So there are five of the big ten that are having large problems. How are the other ones doing?

I wouldn't consider any of those issues ones that would cause a financial hardship big enough to threaten their solvency.

I don't know, Art seems to be stripping away Novatech piece by piece pretty effectively. I can see a lot of similarities between Novatech and the old USSR right at the very end if it carries on as its going.

USSR had financial issues because if its military machine that make it a somewhat invalid comparison compared to a megacorp IMHO.

Not really. They had more costs than their economy (income) could support. If Novatech keeps losing money then eventually they're not going to be able to cover their expenses and start defaulting on their debts and payments. Triple A Mega's literally are globe spanning countries.

Edit: The whole USSR analogy idea came from a friend of mine. Here's how he put it,

Right but Novatech can do things as a corp that a country could not to solve these problems. They can divest themselves of departments hemmoraging cash and so on. They are just assets that form a collective whole.

I wouldn't say Novatech is in the red at all. Not a chance. At worst a larger-than-usual number of it subsidiaries are doing so.

~J

*Shrug* I guess we just have different ways of seeing it. Even if they do try tactics of divesting themselves of subsidiaries and departments, Art would just move on to crushing the ones they've kept. He's got the cash and lack of sanity to take it right to the very end. And that's not counting the other corps circling like vultures.

Actually I have a problem with the whole Art line because it's just not feasable that he could do that for an extended period of time without taking a dirtnap. Hell, other megas would be out to kill him too, just to keep the status quo and discourage such behavior. I just think its not feasable.

Indeed. They screwed up when they had Art having actually achieved anything significant yet. I just put it up there with the NAN books and hope that eventually there will be a blurb in a sourcebook about how the effects were overblown.

~J

I am actually happy that writers actually let Art push Novatech so far. It simply reinforces the fact that no-one, not even a AAA, is truly all-powerful or so powerful that no single person can take them down. Shit happens to everyone, even the megas. The bigger you are, the bigger the shit.

I can see some AAAs or even AAs just waiting to pounce on the empty seat should Novatech drop from mega status. Heck, if Novatech is really into the red, I can see them all taking a bite like sharks in a feeding frenzy.

All sarcasm aside It's one of those things that looks okay on paper, sort of, and writers use it to have a cool NPC that does something special, but it just doesn't happen. At all.

Er....what has Art been able to achieve with regard to NovaTech lately? I know he has a grudge against him, and he took down Gunderson, but I haven't seen any mention of it since Threats 2, at least overtly. Is there something I'm missing?

Frankly, while I think that was an interesting idea, I can't see it ultimately being successful, because Villiers' net worth is at least several time Art's, and Art seems to be burning cash just to smash away at things, whereas Villiers' is trying to actually grow his cash. While he may have leveraged a lot, Villiers is described as a financial genius, so while Dankwalther might be an incredible pain in his side (and certainly cause significant problems Novatech will have to deal with), I would hope it would not be enough to bring down Novatech, barring some other sort of problem (like if the UCAS suddenly becomes VERY hostile to Novatech or something similar, but I can't see that happening).

It is mentioned that Novatech isn't doing so well against Art in SOTA:2064. Which is stupid.

~J

why? you accepted Richard Villiers doing the same thing to Fuchi, without Fuchi ever realizing what was going on until it was too late. why is it harder to see Art doing it, especially when Art isn't limited by any desire to make a profit on the deal (as Villiers was)?

Because Villiers wasn't doing the same thing to Fuchi. Dunkelzahn did the same thing to Fuchi, and he was giving Villiers/Lanier voting stock and cred to work with (ok, Villiers supplied the money, but he had both) instead of just cred. Not to mention that in terms of connections they started near the top rather than as former low-level accountants.

~J

Could be wrong, but I think he meant Villiers ripping Fuchi off and setting Novatech up out of stolen parts.

IIRC, Villiers was actually responsible for obtaining Fuchi's Corporate Court seat (and thus AAA status) in the first place.

~J

Im not a proponent og angsty anything. I'm a proponent of things that could theoretically happen in any kind of plausible real world without it just being Artistic Licence with the plotlines. This doesn't qualify.

It doesn't to you. It does to me. If it doesn't, empires would never be overthrown. The Americans will still be singing God saved the Queen. The Russkies would still have their Czar. The Chinese will still have the Qin Emporer. It is perfectly plausible that someone with sufficient money and motivation can bring down a AAA.

None of those things were accomplished by one person acting alone.

Most empires collapsed from within rather than being successfully overthrown while healthy. The Americans are only not singing God Save the Queen because of the French, a power more on par with the Brits than the Colonies.

Not only is Art working with a fairly paltry amount of resources, he doesn't even have the home court advantage that the fledgling US had. It'd be more like the colonials deciding to take the fight to the British Isles than the revolution as it happened.

~J

Or who singlehandedly collapsed moderately stable empires.

~J

I do not have any data on Gunderson. So I took the stats for Transys Neuronet as a gauge. And I compared them with the stats for Novatech. OK, Art went from unrated to AA(rated about 50). This, he somehow accomplished, with his billions (possibly more since he probably used it more as seed money and grew more). After he took down one AA (and catching his breathe), he went on to take down Novatech. Novatech is only rated 20 more than Gunderson.

Alexander went from the king of a Greek city/state/area/region to conquer the whole known world. Destroying an Empire(Persian) in the process. Can you imagine being only the leader of one country and ending up ruling the world? Or from being a fugitive to ruling an empire from that span quite a few time zones and trust me his enemies didn't exactly roll over and die (Genghis Khan)? But since you people keep saying,"Oh, it is just too unbelievable. It can't be done," maybe Alexander was Al teh Gay in your world.

Art's picking on Novatech, which is still shiney, new, and on shakey Baby Bambi legs. The former partners from Fuchi are still thumping Villers every which way they can and Nova, in truth, doesn't deserve Triple-A status, as is mentioned in several places ... it only has it due to Villers having that Golden Ticket to the corporate court. There's a very good chance that he can do just enough damage to destabalize Nova enough to push it over the edge in that situation. I don't think any other corp is in quite that bad of a spot.

Renraku got hurt, bad, by teh arcology issue, but, they also had had a HUGE boost the previous year or three, thanks to Leonardo (Worst. Plot. Ever.) and still have their major assets. I'm guessing that they'll sell off some former Fuchiparts to make some quick cash and consolidate (Instead of defending against a Nova takeover on a subsidiary, just let 'em buy it and pocket the profit), but come back in a year or two with a major push into the drone market, thanks to Deus designs.

MCT also bought up a LOT of Fuchiparts but didn't seem to take as much of a financial stumble. I can see them trading a few things with Renraku, now that the feeding frenzy has settled down. You could probably get an interesting plotline out of this if Renraku managed to come out with a stronger mechanical side of things ... more drones, especially two-legged walker styles (Robots with a samurai theme, perhaps, for security?). Heck, there's always the powered hardsuits that Fuchi, Renraku, and MCT were supposedly working on. With the three blended, you could even roll those out too.

The Big A. Here we see the downside fo being linked nationally... as the country staggers, so does the corp. In the past few years, Amazonia's kicked them in the shins, the Yucatan Offensive has been a *major* disaster, both in terms of raw assets (Men, material, cash expendatures with no income to offset) and more over, public opinion (Aztech went from 'Yay we love you!' to 'Hey ... that ain't cool.') ... that latter part hurts them the most, really, as it lowers sales across teh board. Oscuro (Mr Darke) is gone, they lost a major Locus, and with teh Horrors shut out, they lost a pretty significant source of major magic mojo. If the metaplot rolls into teh next stage, where a combined force of CAS and Pueblo (With backing by Ghostwalker) rolls into northern Aztlan in a short, successful invasion (Say, retaking the lost areas of Texas and driving another ten, twenty miles tops), then teh Azzies are going to be rocked on their heels. I expect a sell-off of some major components to regain financial stability, which could lead to some fun.

Me?

I'd have them divest a few smaller ones, but one major one: Losing Stuffer Shack to Wal-Mart (Or S-Mart, if we could use the name) ... More and more big name corps are getting air time in Shadowrun (Erikson and Nokia, for the wireless matrix initiative, for example) and, really, the Wally's been unmentioned for too long. I figure that the world's largest corporation was a big player in the early days of the corporate council but, as the world's second-largest computer (Behind only teh Pentagon!) it probably got CRUSHED by the Crash of '29. Sold off tons of subsidiaries, had to rebuild the entire way it did business, and wound up doing a lot of business-business with sublines that spun from the retail enterprise. Wal-Mart trucking, for example, probably started the Drone Truck market and they would have made a killing by selling propritary trucks to other companies. It'd give teh CAS a nice AA corp that's trying to expand and taking the Stuffer Shack line would give them a road back in.

But that's just me.

Oops. Forgot to add that one company's yearly income was listed at 95 Billion dollars. (Renraku, I think it was? Ren or MCT) ... Wal-Mart, in January of '04, listed annual sales at 256 Billion, with *profit* of 64 billion.

Yikes.

And that's without the *huge* outlay of cash for super-security, magical defenses (How much does that Rating 6 Fire Elemental cost? And you need five of them? Plus wards?) and Shadow Ops.

Yeah, there's some plot potential here.

-- Johnny Reb

Well, if you don't like Art (I personally do: I've got this mental picture of the guy from Office Space in my head. The one with the stapler, but I digress), you've got a few options. You can be more smart-ness, and have him buy a position in some megacorp. You can have him succeed kill and/or ruin Richie, and have him lord over the company as Lord Ninja Supreme with his assloads of liquid assets. You can have him eventually fail, having run out of money or being bought out by a bunch of people. Hell, you could even have your players kill the guy on behalf of one of the AAAs, or some guy that Art crushed in his conquests.

Or you can just use the 'Not in My Game' excuse and retcon Art altogether.

-D, who is STILL pissed about the Sears-Kmart Merger.

Well they clamed 95 billion that doesn't meant that is what they earned

Do we have it confirmed that Wal-Mart still exists? I’d like to see it have been bought out by Aztechnology, though even that is too good for those bastards.

~J

As far as I know, Wal-Mart's never been mentioned in any Shadowrun product, ever. Which is really, really weird. Microsoft's had quite a few mentions (Heck, Harlequin was using Bill Gates' old office in his first module, if memory serves) but it's a fraction of Wal-Mart power.

I'd imagine that Aztechnology has a resemblance to it (Great PR, powerful retail applications) but it might have fallen to Ares as well. Or, it could still be out there, lurking in the shadows like some undead corporate parasite, waiting to get fangs sunk into some helpless prey, pounding on teh windows of the corporate court and demanding the return of teh seat that was stolen from it so long ago...

Ahem.

At any rate, I figure that teh Crash of '29 hurt it something horrible and that it'd only just now be back in fighting shape. The biggest edge that it had, however (Sheer size that makes suppliers knuckle under to give them the best contracts) wouldn't be valid anymore. They'd have to diversify.

-- Johnny Reb

Art does not control an AA, either -- he destroyed Gunderson, he didn't buy it. That's the difference between him and Villiers. Which, frankly, is pretty silly -- it would make far more sense for him to simply make NovaTech unstable and try to get Villiers to make a stock offering, and then buy up as much of NovaTech as he possibly could, to become a pain in Villiers' side, something more like the Knight-Aurelius infighting at Ares. That I could buy. But utterly annihialating NovaTech? How does that make any sense? Companies, even unstable ones, don't just up and explode -- they declare bankruptcy and reorganize, or divest themselves of unprofitable assets. And Villiers can get rid of as much as he wants and keep his seat on the Court as long as he owns what used to be JRJ.

Look at what Villiers has working for him -- aside from his own financial genius, which is reputed to be considerable, from everything we've seen. He has Miles Lanier, one of the best corporate security/corporate espionage guys in the business. He has his ex-wife, who's supposedly a crack businesswoman herself, and a Corporate Court seat. He has 20 years of experience running a third of one of the world's largest corporations, keeping two pissy Japanese families who hate his guts from killing him. He has significant influence in the largest financial center in the UCAS (Boston) and one of the top companies in the computer software/hardware field, not to mention connections to at least one of the SysOps of the Denver Data Haven that he seems to be on somewhat decent terms with. And oh yeah, probably ~100-200 billion dollars in assets.

What does Art Dankwalther have? He has 35 billion dollars (less now, presumably, after his spending binge) and a seething hatred of Richard Villiers. Oh, and 20+ years of accounting experience. And he evidently doesn't even have surprise or obscurity to protect him anymore. If I was Art Dankwalther, I think I'd be trying to find a very deep, dark hole right now.

Actually i just looked it up it was MCT and 95 billion nuyen was it annual cashflow. Now if I remeber correctly 1 nuyen was the equaivalent of 5 dollars and we come to 425 billion dollars. And that is published data and still below what they actually did for cashflow. As for assets I think we can figure in the trillions of nuyen.

Err...anyone considered that there might be someone behind old Art pulling the strings? The list of companies, individuals, dragons, and hell, maybe even free spirits that would have something to gain by Novatech comming down would seem to be pretty large. After all, one could say that one of the big reasons Villers got the power he did was through the manipulations of one a whole lot more powerful. Why couldn't someone else be manipulating events with Art as a counterbalance to what Dunk had a hand in setting up?

Corporate Shadowfiles p.16 Said by one Chromed Accountant

As for the Nuyen equal out to five of todays dollars it's not hard to see that one. Calculating inflation, salary raises, and price gouging, I am actually surprised it doesn't come out to 1 nuyen=10 current dollars.

The dollar has gotten stronger; while in NAGNA (IIRC) it was 1:5, it's now 1:4.

~J

Well, problem is it was also stated in that book that the big eitght megas accounted for half the cashflow of the earth. Those two phrases do NOT pan out. Furthermore that's beyond anemically low for what they do business wise based on it's corporate ratings. That's a fraction of a fraction.

Is it possible that Chromed's estimate was not including any subsidiaries whatsoever?

Even then it seems low, but possible.

~J