Hey Veeky Forums Wondering if you could help me brainstorm a but for a noir style sci-fi campaign I'm writing backstory for. The essence is that it takes place on a planet much like Venus - the surface is a hellscape but colonists have propped up 'cloud colonies' at a point in the atmosphere that sits at 1g & a comfortable temperature. Lots of rain and neon like any good cyberpunk setting.
Here's where the question comes in - the entire planetary operation is privately funded by corporations, with residents of the colonies mostly being employee/citizens paid either in cash shares or both. There are terrible dead-end jobs (surface mining, water purification, hydrogen/helium processing) ranging up to cushy office jobs. The corporations all invested in a joint 'government' of sorts that handles law/defense, but for anything that doesn't violate the core charter the corporations effectively govern their colonies as they see fit. Thing is, I want this society to be gritty and flawed but not evil or cartoonish like sci fi corps tend to be. Some corps are definitely more exploitative than others (think space wal-mart), but for others life on the colonies are pretty solid. None of them are Omnicorp/Weyland-yutani/Umbrella scale corrupt, & a major part of my plot is one of the corps getting up to some shady shit even though they seem really friendly at first glance. Any advice or places to look? all tips are very much appreciated. Thanks in advance lads!
Samuel Walker
if you have ever worked at a large publicly traded company you will know that "efficient" and "corporate" are two words never uttered together
Aiden Turner
A direct way to show your players that not all the companies are bad is showing early on that some companies actually are doing good things, and not just for their higher ups. Have a few doctors from a parent company being shipped in specifically to help the surface miners heal from whatever strange sickness they're getting. Have some newspapers show that the Space Union and Space Corp just negotiated new terms that make both groups somewhat happy and work is starting up again. Have the higher ups in the company actually believing in what they're selling.
Andrew Peterson
This, but let's be honest and fair: no society has ever been truly efficient. There is always room for improvement. All that matter's is that you are more effective than your peers and rivals.
Chase Thompson
it is also scary sometimes how companies can lose money every quarter but then just keep going for years anyway, acting as if nothing is wrong
Lincoln James
This dear fucking god this. Some people hold the private sector as this beacon of efficiency where government fails.
Lemme give you some examples as a private worker and a guy that's had to watch shit hit the fan in a company.
>Reverse Engineering >Firing of individuals that dont conform to the company vision even if that means losing money or firing a person with valuable input to better the company >Competition between upper management leading to overall loss of efficiency company wide >Management setting unjust goals >Workers not knowing the perils of management >Workers not getting the macro scales of things/
Brandon White
Both are made of humans of course they're going to be shit. However >corporation is run like shit >loses market share, business, money etc
>government agency is run like shit >gets fat check from the taxpayer regardless
Hudson Lopez
They're more interwoven in most countries. The government gives fat cheques to corporations run like shit because they're buddies. Promotes investment/business activity, which provides jobs, but also takes a decent amount of tax payer money.
Joshua Reed
The same still applies. Even if a corporation gets insane amount of government cheese they're still beholden to at least a few customers. Gov't agencies have no such thing.
Also corporate subsidies are disgusting. Like in 2008, bailing out the companies that fucked up. People seem to forget that failures are just as important as successes.
Hunter Collins
One word for you user: Comcast.
Brandon Wright
Ain't beholden to shit after that sucker buys the product. I'm not trying to say gov. is more responsible/better, just that they're reprehensible through each other rather than separable. Also that despite that, people end up with some things that are beneficial and find ways to make what they can. It not great tho.
Logan Long
Comcast is a natural monopoly that's even further protected by regulatory capture. If people were allowed to compete against them they wouldn't be so powerful.
Elijah Perry
>Ain't beholden to shit after that sucker buys the product. I'm exagerating sas because internet. There are a series of regulations and laws corporate bodies can be held somewhat accountable by that they are aware of. The effectiveness of this accountability to you or me is usually strongly limited by the disparity of wealth available to access legal apparatus though.
Jackson Collins
>Ain't beholden to shit after that sucker buys the product. You know that cons only work once, right? If you sell shit people hear about it, with the internet now more than ever.
Just look at Ford's stock, and then look at how their cars are rated.
Kevin Russell
OP here, loving the thread so far. But does anyone have advice regarding corporate stuff IRL translating to corporate governance of a society? Basically the resources that are being pulled from colonization justify the investments into infrastructure/security/basic quality of life but I imagine that things will be a lot looser than a standard government. Like I was thinking anything below a felony would be handled by private eye's bounty hunters - or even that sometimes colonial security can't be bothered with shit less important than protecting the life support systems, starports, and railguns used for shipping.
Dylan Barnes
>looser than a standard government. What do you mean by looser?
John Stewart
>If people were allowed to compete against them they wouldn't be so powerful.
The problem is that competition naturally leads to monoplies and regulatory capture. They are wonderful tools.
It's like saying, "Here, prison convicts. Race to the top of this hill. First one there gets to go free. No other rules. Oh wait, why are you fighting? Oh my god you are killing each other! Who could have forseen this?"
Setting up a happy fat monopoly and a nice subservient regulatory regime isn't a side effect or a trick or a dead end. It's a natural goal of competitive capitalism. Kill your competition in the cradle.
Jackson Rodriguez
Like, in the sense that the government wouldn't concern itself as much with day to day life. Anything but the most major laws would be outside their jurisdiction. Say you're a citizen of Corp A, they're goibg to have employee regulations that are de facto law. But if you're for Corp B, you might have different restrictions. In either case violation of corporate policy would be dealt with by corporate security, keeping it all 'in house'. But say you straight up murder someone, or steal freight, or tamper with the water supply, then that's a matter colonial security and the 'government' will have jurisdiction over.
Lincoln Gonzalez
Like, in the sense that the government wouldn't concern itself as much with day to day life. Anything but the most major laws would be outside their jurisdiction. Say you're a citizen of Corp A, they're goibg to have employee regulations that are de facto law. But if you're for Corp B, you might have different restrictions. In either case violation of corporate policy would be dealt with by corporate security, keeping it all 'in house'. But say you straight up murder someone, or steal freight, or tamper with the water supply, then that's a matter colonial security and the 'government' will have jurisdiction over.
So there just wouldn't be as much cohesive legal structure
Isaiah Jones
Apologies for double post. Fucking wonky internet.
Ian Rogers
The dark and gritty stuff should come from labor laws and advertisements (advertising cigarettes to kids and the like). You can make it less dark by having a juxtaposition to the impoverished with happy go lucky ads and jingles being everywhere. Robots doing police work that are happy go lucky spouting ads. Ads ads ads is basically how this world would function in my mind.
Tyler Morris
>tfw Verizon buying me out of Comcast
Comcast is about as natural as Frankenstein's monster. I'm thanking the market gods for putting multiple providers in my area, because verizon never, ever gave me the sheer level of dishonesty and shoddy service that comcast has.
>Ain't beholden to shit after that sucker buys the product Look, I went to business school and I work for high-level managers in one of the largest companies in the world, and I can tell you that corporate leaders worry about things called "customer churn" and "net promoter score". If you rip people off and make them dissatisfied, they will not recommend your service to their friends (stunting the growth of your customer base), and they will become much more likely to stop giving you money if that is an option for them (which reduces your customer base).
A great example is the shitty treatment I just received from Comcast. They lied up and down until I signed on the dotted line, and overcharged me for shoddy internet that randomly drops to 0.2mbps. That made me intensely dissatisfied, so now I am both leaving them for their competitor, and ranting about them online in a way that may hurt their sales later.
Isaiah Rodriguez
What if the state didn't have the power to seize business? Using the coercive power of the power of the state isn't free enterprise. How is hiring the mafia to squash competition any different than hiring the government? That's the whole point of limited government. If the government doesn't have the ability to squash people, then no group can hijack it to suppress their enemies/competitors.
Also monopolies are a meme. Standard oil was rapidly losing market share by the time the government started trust busting. As it turns out trying to keep a corporation highly competitive in a rapidly shifting and constantly changing world is near impossible. And with the internet increasing communication speed by orders of magnitude, the speed in which the economy shifts will is getting faster not slower.
Levi Morgan
There should definitely be science organizations do stuff like genetically engineering animals to live on the planet, just to get valuable data. This also lets you add beasts to the world.
Brayden Phillips
>That's the whole point of limited government. If the government doesn't have the ability to squash people, then no group can hijack it to suppress their enemies/competitors. Ah, you haven't read "Seeing Like A State", right?
Governments don't self-limit. It's the opposite. The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return, etc. Governments want to -organize shit -keep all the power -allow fewer outside actors It's in their nature. It's like complaining about supply and demand or something; governments seek to organize the world and increase their power. Not the opposite.
>Also monopolies are a meme. Standard oil was rapidly losing market share by the time the government started trust busting. It's... not quite that simple.
But arguing history on Veeky Forums is like pissing into a hurricane.
Jace Collins
>It's in their nature. It's like complaining about supply and demand or something; governments seek to organize the world and increase their power. Not the opposite. Fucking obviously. That's why it's necessary for the people to maintain a limited government. It's why the founders of the United States constantly warned of the creeping rise of tyranny for a reason, and tried to create a government that was limited by design. Which worked for quite a while mind you.
>It's... not quite that simple. Not an argument.
>But arguing history on Veeky Forums is like pissing into a hurricane. no u
Joshua Perez
OP should read Mencius Moldbug
Imagine the "sovereign corporation" as a real estate holding company.
At the head of the company is a CEO, hired by a board of directors to run the territory as he sees fit, with absolute authority (at least til he screws up so bad that he is replaced).
His job is to increase shareholder value. Mostly he does this by using corporate resources to enforce order, make profitable trade with other territories, and make it the kind of place useful people want to live.
