AvatarsCampaign > AvatarsRealWorld > Av2CorporationsAndAgencies

Corporations


Avatars LLC - still the world's largest VR gaming company; as of 2064, it was estimated 1.2% of the world population subscribed to their game. However they were set back significantly by the Breakdown of 2065, and Dantech is catching up fast. In the corporate world, Avatars LLC is well known for its proprietary GESTALT AI that gives it an edge over all other companies for enormous simulations: besides their signature VR game, they also support number of military and scientific research programs, such as a next-generation weather modification program for cleaning up the Ecoclysm's fallout.

Programmable Matter Corporation - a company acquired by Avatars LLC for their electron simulation algorithms, among other technologies. Dr. Blake Forester, later implicated in a number of missing persons and murder charges, was one of the researchers transferred.

Dantech is a multinational that produces computers and software. Their product line ranges from VR goggles and PDAs to high-density archives for libraries and universities, all the way up to quantum AI cores, though they haven't managed to duplicate Avatars LLC's unique GESTALT AI as yet. Their new gaming division is headlined by the Gloaming, which has become the second most popular VR game in the world with an estimated 0.8% of the population subscribing, and they predict it will pass Avatars in the next few years.

Voya Multimedia: the controversial successors of the former recording industry, they have embraced the 'new' Internet - they understand that as soon as albums hit the net, pirates will release bootleg copies almost immediately. While they do sell subscriptions to their vast archive of music, videos, movies, and VR "artsperiences", what really brings in the bank for them is the chance to experience the lives of their star performers - you're there, flying wingman in the cameras always present around them or even in some cases, in their head seeing what they see, feeling what they feel. Critics claim that their stars frequently have little or no talent, and their lives are orchestrated to create the kind of drama you'd expect to see in a classic subscribers-only soap opera, but no one can deny that it's quite a show when you watch Inari, their latest star attraction, go from shredding the clothes off her latest boytoy as she sends him packing, to making her triumphant entrance to her latest concert, diving from an aircar sans parachute at ten thousand feet to land safely at the bottom. It's All Real, they proclaim.

Eagle Security - a megacorporation with operations in weapons manufacture, personal body armor, security systems, "technical" modification kits (for armoring and "militarizing" vehicles), monitoring, and even their own corporate security ("rent-a-cops"). Unabashed "ultra patriots", they've produced several action flicks starring loyal Eagle Security defending America against terrorists in giant nuclear-powered robots, freely distributed to build the Eagle brand. Eagle offers fairly standard civilian self-defense systems, but their top of the line gear for governments and corpsec are famed for being rugged enough to stand being used as clubs, dropped in corrosive substances, et cetera - and still work! They also offer a line of vintage firearms such as revolvers, for the diehard cowboys.

Spazzic! - Yes, the exclamation mark is part of the name. If it's "Spazzic!" then it's loud, obnoxious, and dangerous. Advertising is so "cutting-edge" on slang (cherry-picked from various corners of the Net) that it's nigh-unintelligible, a mere vocal punctuation of their over-the-top music-video-ish presentations. Guns, bikes, molecular blades, body armor, multimedia music and video players, cyborg body parts ... there's a Spazzic! line for them all. Spazzic! ware tend to be larger than they have any right to be, with huge clips, add-ons, and gadgets that look intimidating and are sometimes even functional. Spazzic! customers often pose when using their guns, holding them upside down or out to the side, etc., for maximum coolness, rather than lining up their shots and aiming - and if they get a limb blown off due to the higher rate of explosive malfunction with Spazzic! merchandise... Next episode they'll be back with a Spazzic! all-metal hand or arm, showing how COOOOLD AS STEEEEL they are.

Miracle Prosthetics - manufacturer of cybernetic replacements, artificial sensory organs, cloned body parts, and other biotechnology aimed at sustaining and enhancing human life. While they do offer limb replacements, their products lean toward human appearance, not tech-flaunting cyborgery. Their products are famously reliable and easy to maintain.

Amaranth Corporation - a cosmetic surgery and cybernetic prosthetics corporation specializing in the designer look for humans. Unlike Miracle Prosthetics, they don't focus as much on matching skin and hair color and maintaining precise feel to be the same as a normal limb, so much as enhancing the youth and beauty of their patients and creating new and bold artistic statements. Some of the most striking of their work is deliberately far removed from the human norm, such as implanting fur, a muzzle and working nose, a cybernetic tail, and swiveling ears to create an anthropomorphic cat form, disturbing yet attractive to the general public.

Einhorn Engineering - a manufacturer of heavy industrial walkers using tiny fusion reactors that vent clean water and gas with only a hint of radation, used for construction, emergency services, and agricultural applications such as minimal-impact tree harvesting. Their corporate motto is "tread lightly upon the Earth," reflected in the unique (and patented) cushioned feet, wide spread to distribute weight, of their robot vehicles. They offer a line of security robots ranging from small house quadrupeds to large crowd-control mecha.

Valkyrie Medical - the natural evolution of life and health insurance, Valkyrie Medical has ambulances and clinic all around the world, and upon detecting signs of injuries or systemic shock, they'll dispatch an emergency vehicle immediately for prompt treatment at the site, or recovery at top speed to a fully outfitted hospital where any injury can be treated and their patients can get back in the fight ASAP. Most consumers are happy with basic protection which only includes the area of the towers and the fortified suburbs, but high-end clients will pay for fast shuttles and monitoring from anywhere in the world, and their top of the line service includes military-type extractions, up to and including fully armed gunships with medical staff in protective gear.

G-Shop - "G" for Global! Purveyor of the cheapest goods around, in all senses of the word. Even recognizable name brands offer "economy" versions of their main products, cutting corners for exclusive distribution through G-Shop (sometimes rebranded under G-Shop in-store brand names, rather than sullying their own good brand names). Their stores are huge no-frills warehouses, organized like labyrinths - shoppers are advised to subscribe to their interactive catalog-map to avoid becoming lost as they search for exactly the gadget they need. G-Shop - for the shopper on the go!

Pyramid Foods - owner of the distinctive Egyptian-themed Food Pyramid grocery supermarket chain, as well as the Duamutef Donuts and Isis Cream fast food chains. Much of their food is either soy-based or algae-based and vitamin enriched, but it's cheap, flavorful and life-sustaining, and abundant.

Icarus Aerospace - While it might be argued (and frequently is) that naming your aerospace company "Icarus" is sort of like naming a new cruise liner the "Titanic," Icarus is a leading manufacturer of high-end hover vehicles, best known for graceful, streamlined skyliners done up in two-tone brushed metal finishes with retro styling. They also produce consumer-grade hovercars and airbikes.

Reality Check is a small company operating in the North Bend area, operated by Jason Edwards. For a modest fee, they will check your company's security and advise on how to fix any vulnerabilities revealed.

Government Agencies


There are entire worldwide government agencies tasked with the protection of Earth's ecology, physical and virtual. Among these are:

Internet Consumer Protection (ICP), which enforces spam prevention and prosecutes commercial fraud, sometimes with armed response teams.

Cybercrime Emergency Response Team (CERT), tasked with stopping runaway AIs and other threats that could escalate into a collapse of the Net.

Human Individuality Enforcement (HIE) has been romanticized for its Clone Detectors, security forces that go after suspected clones and "replicants" (androids built to exactly resemble people in order to take over their identities). The actual majority of their work is in airports and Tower checkpoints where they check papers and validate people's identities as they pass through to the megacorporate offices.

United States - still exists as a government, and still employs thousands of people across the country in a variety of agencies, including fire and police departments, but it has had to delegate a lot of its authority and its ability to collect taxes to corporations - it's simply stretched too thin to be everywhere at once. As a result, some megacorporation armies may rival the strength that the US could assemble in a given place - but that's them putting everything they have there, since they don't have to save troops for defense from other countries.

New York Police Department - tasked with law enforcement in the greater area of New York and New Jersey, of which North Bend is part. In practice, the corporate security in the Towers and the Districts handle petty crimes there and it's a matter of pride with them not to have to do more than ask the NYPD to come by and pick up a perp, so the investigations and patrols the NYPD carries out are mainly in the Works, and very occasionally in the Dregs when evidence of a murderer are just too numerous and blatant to ignore.
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