Business

The Corporate Pyramid

At the top of the pyramid of corporate power stand five massive inter-related financial companies, H.U.B. and it’s competitors: Nautical Financial, Providential Core, West Financial and Yamtaijika. From their space-borne headquarters these five control almost all of the stocks of the next tier of megacorporations, the other score or so companies who together with these five make up the “Sovereigns” – corporations so rich and powerful as to be able to declare themselves nation-states, controlling 60% of the world’s wealth between them. Armatech, GenTech, Umbra, Cascade, Core Systems, Dream Corp and the other Sovereigns are the superpowers of the modern age and many of these two have set up their own jurisdictions off-earth in orbiting fiefdoms. Beneath that tier come those corporations that, while as large as any from the turn of the century, can only barely face nation-states on their own terms. Finally, there is the vast range of smaller companies of all sizes – minnows ever-fearful of being eaten by the corporate sharks and whales they swim with.

Business Index

Featured here you’ll find some of the many businesses and corporations, big and small, that might be encountered by Edgerunners.

Aegis Genetics
	Aegis Genetics Inc. are one of the largest biotechnology corporations in the world, producing genetically tailored, vat-grown solutions for everything from algae foodstuffs to replacement organs. The company maintains clinics and offices worldwide, as well as manufacturing laboratories on every continent but they are based in the Mumbai metroplex. As a major world player and one of India’s premier megacorps, they are also one of the mainstays of Indian politics.
Aquino Automations
	A robotics and electronics boutique located in a rising Mulligan Hill neighborhood, Aquino Automations is gaining a reputation for fast, reliable repair service in addition to their line of unique robot toys.
Air and Sea Malaysia
	A.S.M. are a sizable but by no means dominating international cargo transportation company. Anybody who lives near the pacific ocean has probably seen their emblem dozens of times plastered over shipping containers and never stopped to wonder what it was. They aren’t flashy but strive to keep their supplies moving effeciently. In the past they had contracted out private security, but in recent efforts to cut back expenses in the long term have begun using in-house trained soldiers to combat piracy.
Armatech Defense Industries
	Formed after the crash from the merger of the U.S.’ largest military industries, Armatech are one of the oldest Megacorps and by far the world’s largest arms and security corporations, with dozens of subsiduaries providing a full spectrum of goods and services from firearms to warships and from security teams to base maintenance contracting.
Bearische and Benz Automotive
	Bearische & Benz are one of the world’s largest motor manufacturers, making ground, hover and AV vehicles from town-cars up to big rigs. Based in the Northern Union of Europe, they produce several brands which have long histories and household-name status.
Biotech Malaysia
	BioMai – Biotech Malaysia Inc – are an aggressive up and coming company involved in the bio-engineering and bioware industries. Based in Malaysia, they have spread their manufacturing base across Australasia and the West Coast of the U.S. BioMai have a reputation for ruthlessness in a world of ruthless businesses, aggressively headhunting the best researchers in their fields and punishing those who transgress against them.
British Arms And Technology Inc
	BritArms is a private-public partnership corporation in which the British government and Armatech Corporation hold equal shares. The company produces some Armatech lines under license but also manufactures unique weapons, vehicles and armor for the British and export markets. In particular, it is often used by Armatech as a dumping ground for surpus inventory, which is then passed on to third world and private buyers.
British Biotech Invention Ltd
	B.B.I. is a recently formed private-public partnership in which the British Government, Rossum Industries and Umbra hold equal interests. Based at a secure facility near Nottingham, the company conducts research into cutting-edge biotechnology and cyberware fusion techniques, only possible in a technologically advanced nation because of the Republic’s lax laws on human experimentation.
Cascade Corporation
	Cascade Corporation is the world’s leading provider of everyday computing hardware, making everything from your car’s auto-drive and engine management systems to the HUD display in your cyberoptic and the smartphone chip imbedded in your shirt collar. Cascade hardware finds it’s way into many everyday items, and the corporation keeps especially close relations with both Core and UCS, the owners of the two primary computer operating systems.
Core Systems
	Conrad Rinehart Engineering Systems are the world’s largest power generation technology provider with customers on both sides of the Atlantic. They are major shareholders in almost all Western powergen companies and have begun expanding into related businesses such as the metal industry.
Cybernetic Design
	Cybernetic Design is one of the best known brand-names in cyberware today. They don’t do prosthetics (arms, legs, eyes etc), instead they concentrate on hardware that enhances human performance internally, such as their signature speedware packages, artificial organs, bone and muscle lacing etc.
Dinamika
	Dinamika is the Russian equivalent of GenTech, producing everything from vehicles to consumer electronics, from cyberware to weapons. They have a reputation for producing goods that are physically sturdier but technologically inferior to Western version.
Dream Corp
	Dream Corp is the single largest media corporation on the planet, an amalgum of several Florida and California media giants from before the Collapse. They make holo-programming for the networks, holo-movies, sensies, games, VR settings, produce music and run a chain of popular theme parks as well as merchandising stores for their copyrighted intellectual properties.
Duronic Systems
	Duronic Systems Inc. make computer sytems. Big ones. You won’t find Duronic hardware in your implanted computer or your laptop, because they specialize in mainframes and large quantum computing installations, especially the ones capable of supporting sophisticated A.I.s that help run Megacorporations. They’re not the largest computer company in the world by a goodly ways, but their corporate power outweighs their size simply because their hardware runs most of the large corps.
ECHELON
	ECHELON is a private intelligence agency, formed after a consortium of wealthy patrons purchased the remains of the United States government’s international signals intelligence network during The Collapse. ECHELON claims to be able to monitor nearly 30% of all telecommunications traffic through backdoor access to telecom satellites, capture of wireless transmissions, and ‘man in the middle’ signal repeaters installed in secret on a number of telecom cables. ECHELON’s primary business is the capture and analysis of ‘signals intelligence’, but there have been rumors that ECHELON also operates some ‘human intelligence’ groups and even covert-ops wetworks teams.
Enyogeni
	Enyogeni is a biotech corporation based in japan but known throughout the world for their genetically engineered kelp strains. Some are high-protein food sources, some filter minerals from seawater and still others synthesize pharmacuticals in harvestable amounts. The company also does bioware and custom gene tailoring.
Feng Environmental
	Feng Environmental is a biotech reclamation company and the world’s leading leaders in recycling. They hold contracts for trash collection for many cities and corporate arcologies, the refuse then being seperated and treated with patented enzymes and bacteria which break even plastics and metals down into re-useable forms. In some of the largest cities, their satellite company Resyk even does the same for the corpses there’s no longer room enough to bury.
General Resources
	General Resources Ltd do only one thing but do it very well. From their base in The Sprawl’s Pittsburg district they produce the 3D material printers on which 2050 technology has come to depend. They make everything from bench models for chemical and biological research up to monster machines capable of printing the drive train of a 70 tone battletank.
GenTech
	This general manufacturing group is perhaps the most diversified of all the megacorps, with subsiduaries involved in everything from consumer goods to power generation, from cybernetics to shipping. GenTech also manufactures components which you’ll find in just about every other megacorp’s products and owns shares in dozens of smaller non-subsiduary companies. Everywhere you go, GenTech will be there.
Goebel Asset Management
	Goebel Asset Management is probably the world’s largest property owner and realtor. They lease space in their office blocks, retail developments, industrial parks and residential towers to other corporations in every corner of the globe. This megacorps, a joint venture of the five big financial houses, operates from it’s glittering headquarters in Brazil and dozens of offices in the world’s major cities. Unlike most of the Sovereigns, it doesn’t keep it’s own in-company police forces – instead it uses sub-contracted security from the likes of Whirlwind, Armatech and others. However, it is more than happy to extend its Sovereign benefits on territory it owns to it’s tenants, giving smaller companies the benefits of that status even though they don’t have the power to claim it on their own.
Harlow Manufacturing
	Harlow Manufacturing is a small but cutting edge company headquartered in the Chicago edge of the Chi-Pits sprawl. Primarily, they manufacture and field test prototype weapons and armor for larger corporations, but the are known for their innovative styles, often selling patents to some of their bigger clients.
Hospital Plus
	Hospital Plus is the world’s largest provider of full-spectrum medical care and medical insurance coverage, everything from research to full-service hospitals to out-patient medical centers. Their “Trauma” Team branded armed, aerial med-evac service is the subject of a ratings-winning reality show and many Edgerunners pay the hefty fee to have the Trauma Team fast response plan as a last ditch recourse.
Hightower Universal Bank
	The wealthiest megacorporation around, the first Sovereign Megacorp and the largest of a group of five corporate entities, all financial houses, that between them own the shares of the largest of the world’s merged corporations. Based on Hightower, the O’Neill cylinder at L5.
Kerser Sport
	Kerser Sport are a large conglomerate built around the common theme of sports and sporting events. It has a manufacturing division which makes general sporting clothing and equipment, a cyberware division which manufactures specialized wares for augmented sportspeople, a media division which runs sporting channels and produces sensie sports clips and an events division which organizes or sponsors everything from the 2012 World Series to the Cyborg Ultimate Fight Club (CUFC).
Kirov Arms
	Kirov Arms is the megacorporation formed by the merger of the largest of Russia and eastern Europe’s armament companies following the Collapse. Kirov is still a major political force in its former host nations nowadays although the corporation itself has diversified into a worldwide concern and moved its headquarters off-world.
Kreig Kapital
	Kreig Kapital is one of two major rivals to Armatech for domination of the world’s arms markets, a massive megacorp based off-world but still having strong ties to its former roots in the Northern Union of Europe. It’s main manufacturing plants are all in Union districts although it has sales offices worldwide. Several well-known weapons brands are owned by the corporation.
Lazarus Group
	The Lazarus Group is an Up-and-Coming company of specialists for hire – advertising themselves as Consultants, Investigators, and general “Problem Solvers”. After the glowing praise from Friedlander Bey in the wake of the Ottoman’s Grey Market fiasco and a fascinating one-on-one piece Veracity Blaize did with their CEO, the Lazarus moved into their new headquarters in the Buchanan ICA’s commercial district, ready to make a name for themselves as serious professionals.
LifTech Industries
	LiftTech, a wholly-owned subsiduary of H.U.B., is the biggest player in the ground-to-space transport business. They are headquartered on Hightower but have a massive Earthside manufacturing facility near Praetoria and launch fields on every continent. They operate a fleet of shuttles, spaceplanes and OTVs as well as leasing craft to other corporations.
Ormand-Lytell Industries
	Orly Industries, short for Ormand-Lytell Industries, is based in the ChiPitts megacity and is the world’s foremost manufacturer of robotics. Their products find their way into every fabricator plant, into many semi-autonomous vehiles, into robots and, of course, their most famous creation – Biological Androids. The latter are produced in collaboration with the Umbra Corporation.
Prosthetic Ltd
	Prosthetic Ltd. was one of the earliest players in the cyberware market and nowadays is one of the largest and best known. The specialize, as their name suggests, in replacement limbs but have diversified over the year and also produce optics, audio augmentation, artificial skins and cyberweapons.
Rayson Weapons
	Rayson, despite their Western sounding name, is an arms company based in Darra, Greater India. They produce a wide range of weaponry for the military and non-military markets, including custom hunting rifles, mass-produced knock-offs of 20th century weaponry, some high-end military weapons and custom bejewelled or plated presentation pieces. However they are probably best known in the West for their retro-look and “steampunk” look non lethal handguns and rifles: ring-vortex and electrolaser weapons.
Rossum Universal Industries
	Rossum Universal Industries is a leader in neural interface technology, and a major player in the biotech, pharmaceutical, and computer hardware industries, but where they truly dominate is correctional services: the handling and disposal of convicts. They are contracted to over 80% of all world governments to handle their convicted felons, and they have several ‘Legions’ of mind-wiped Slates, the end-result of a Death of Personality execution, that they contract out or sell to the highest bidder.
Scorpia Warfare Development
	Scorpia Warfare Development is, despite their imposing name, a medium-sized corporation based in Eastern Europe who specilaize in providing the specs for 3-d printed firearms to the likes of Shopping Wall. Their products are cheap, available in a range of colors to order and ubiquitous. If the local shopkeeper pulls a gun on you the next time you try to shoplift some ramen, it’s likely to be a Scorpia.
Selene Systems
	Selene Systems is a bespoke software house offering custom solutions to customers both big and small, for all of the major operating systems. They produce ICE (Intrusion Countermeasures – Electronic), AI’s, specialist code for industrial processes and front-end interfaces for household electronics as well as everything in between. Their headquarters is in Cascade City but they have branch offices in most metropolitan areas worldwide as well as offworld at Hightower.
South East Mining Corporation
	S.E.M.C., the South East Mining Corporation, based in Brisbane, Australia is one of the world’s largest mining and resource exploitation concerns, with mining and drilling operations across Australasia and beyond. Their ocean mining vessels use drones and deep-water subs to harvest ore from the depths of the oceans, while their “Orbital Horizon” mining facility is busy bringing the mineral wealth of the asteroid 2101 Adonis, captured in 2036 on it’s closest approach, to the chain of stations and fabricator units in Earth orbit.
Synthomesh
	Synthomesh is second only to Armatech for the manufacture of flexible armored cloth, providing armored clothing with fully integrated electronics to security companies, to corporate police units and to several well-known fashion brands. If you buy armored clothing from Window Shopping, for example, the chances are it’s Synthemesh no matter what it says on the label.
The Shopping Wall
	The Shopping Wall was a revolution in retailling when it began in Germany. Essentially, a large box-unit with minimal staff and a clutch of CAD/CAM machinery and 3D printers, which can build most of its “stock” to order from raw materials, which is fronted by a touch sensitive display wall of the various products. Just select your purchases by touch, pay by credit or cash at the pay-point and your goods are delivered to a vending point. Think of it as a store-sized ATM machine. They’ve swiftly replaced 7/11s and corner stores in much of the developed world, catapulting the company into the top ranks of the corporate foodchain.
Tiberius Arms
	Tiberius Arms is a major arms manufacturer based in the Free State of Texas, which is the corporation’s primary customer. Their products, from body armor and small arms to vehicles all have a reputation for rugged and easy operation, making them popular in the Third World and the combat zones of the megacities.
Tuphana Industries
	Tuphana Industries, Headquartered in India, is Armatech’s chief competitor – owning hundreds of subsidiaries across the globe, making everything from firearms to fighter-jets as well as training and maintaining corporate armies. The name Tuphana may not be as well-known as Armatech, because they own dozens of brand names under which their products are marketed, but those products can be found anywhere in the world.
Umbra Corporation
	Umbra Corporation is the world’s largest biotechnology company, with subsiduaries involved in biofuels, wetware, medicine, genetically modified crops, biowarfare and more. Formed from the merger of several of the original biotech pioneers from Europe and North America, it is now a household brand-name.
Union Global
	Union Global is the world’s largest freight, shipping and transportation company. It runs the U.S. continetal maglev lines as well as the public transport networks of many of the megacities. Subsiduaries are involved in seaborne and road freight, port authority management, transportation manufacture and parcel delivery. The corporation keeps extensive security forces to police its maglev lines and other routes.
United Communications Networks
	United Communications Networks, known usually just as U.C.N. or as “Unicomm”, is the telecommunications giant of the 2050s involved in wireless and landline telecomms at every level from cellphones to network nodes. Your phone and Net datastreams almost certainly pass through Unicomm equipment at some stage, and the most popular consumer computer operating system is Unicomm’s Unity. There are persistent rumors that Unicomm monitors, taps, and otherwise exploits their communications infrastructure in order to secure their global dominance.
Uniwater
	Uniwater is the world’s closest thing to a water monopoly, owning water rights, purification plants and distribution networks on four continents. Particularly if you live in the Northern hemisphere, when you turn on a tap it’s Uniwater that pours out. In a world of radical climate change and water wars, it wields enormous commercial and political power.
Whirlwind Private Security
	Whirlwind is based in Cascade City in the Cascade free state though the distinctive field-grey uniforms of their personnel are a familiar sight to most city dwellers in North America. They provide corporate police, integrated security systems and specialist security contractors across the continent from sub-offices in every major city. They even have exclusive contracts to administer local law enforcement on behalf of the metroplexes of Rising and Citadel free Cities. The corporation also hopes to expand its operations beyond North America and has a pilot program in London providing security personnel as consultants to the British government.
Window Shopping
	Window Shopping is a nearly ubiquitous brand in the modern world. When most people who have money also have Net access, a lot of shopping gets done online. Window Shopping owns and operates multiple Net channels for everything from cosmetics to home defense weaponry – if you can buy it online legally, you can probably find a Window Shopping channel where you can browse VR selections of merchandise in your chosen field. The corporation simply acts as an online middleman for manufacturers though, and has no warehouses or real-world outlets. It even rents servers and such from Unicomm and contracts out shipping to Union Global.

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