Which dystopic megacorp do we get first in our brave new world?
Which dystopic megacorp do we get first in our brave new world?
Cyberdyne Systems, Wayland-Yutani Corporation, Tyrell Corporation, or Arasaka Corporation? Something else?
Nah nothing that cool. A megacorp that has so much influence that it doesn't need a military of its own. It knows everything it needs to about everyone, can sway public opinion as it wishes, and will continue to enmesh itself into every aspect of private and public life. It produces no products. We are the products, and we are the consumers.
And it's already here: Google, Meta, whatever Elon Musk is doing idk.
So, Evil Corp, then
Sometimes the companies they subcontract, named something boring and innocuous like Isolace Data Systems or Wimblo Digital or some shit, fucks up spectacularly.
Like they'll just have 400gb Excel spreadsheet called all_meta_usernames_and_passwords.xlsx stored in the company's shared intranet and then some dude guesses the WiFi password was WimbloDigital2024 and leaks it to whoever.
Pizza Hut's biggest mistake was selling off their war-fleet.
Which was a shame as Taco bell won the fast food wars.
Yeah I don't see how anyone can not see it's Google... Who else is even close to having all our data? All the web searches, mobile android play backend, maps, Google streetcar, etc etc... They know everything.
The world got its first dystopian megacorp several hundred years ago and it was called the East India Company
British or Dutch?
Yes
Pssst, Amazon already exists...
If we have to go by a fictional one, I think OCP.
You down with OCP (Yeah you know me)
Who's down with OCP (Every last homie)
You down with OCP (Yeah you know me)
Who's down with OCP (All the homies)
I'm not sure if that's OC or a reference I'm not cultured enough to understand, but I can absolutely imagine a modern OCP advertising jingle like that, showing how down with everyone OCP is and totally not evil in any shape or form. The TV ad of course shows people dancing to it like it's some coke ad.
Amazon?
The joke's on us, we've been in the dystopic megacorp era since the 00's.
80s. Check out Snow Crash.
The similarities I see between them and the Aztec corporation from shadowrun is pretty astounding. Both primarily sell consumer goods.
Amazon is damned near benevolent compared to some of the corporations out there.
Fucking Nestle
RobCo
Military contractor and aerospace giant obsessed with autonomous AI.
Replace Robert House with El*n and it's halfway there already.
Umbrella Corp.
Or possibly Conglomo (from Rocko's Modern Life). They own everything and are run by two dip shits.
Weyland-Yutani canonically merged with Wal-Mart, so Wal-Mart.
Buy N Large!
That's Amazon.
Black rock
Tyrell, because Paypalpatine wants his sex robots, ands that means replicants.
Paypalpatine
chefs kiss
But the other Paypalpatine is building the precrime Minority Report machine. We're really getting the worst of all these fucking shitheads combined.
Kroger
E Corp
Taco Bell
Spoiler
Demolition Man
Viridian Dynamics.
"Veridian Dynamics. People Lie. Companies protect their interests. It's different."
It's all of them, all at once. Yesterday.
It's called the United States of America
We get Qualityland's "The Shop" if we like it or not.
We need to revive the neon sign industry at least
I'm holding out for Aperture Science, if for no other reason than that their AI has a dry, dark sense of humor.
Ares macrotechnology. Guns, cars, space, a private military/police force, and 'Mom and Apple pie.'
Neuralink.
Blue Sun
OCP
ICP
Virtucon (Dr Evil's org in Austin Powers)
Mao-Kwikowski Mercantile, with their subsidiary Protogen.
Aint the Standard Oil is the OG that "pioneered" many of the bread and butter tactics of acquiring and abusing monopoly market power?
Brondo, the thirst mutilator.
I'll take Cyberdyne. A laser blast to the head sounds like a nice, peaceful way to go out.