The all-American corp would seem like a good fit to compete with NeoNET in Boston, but they really aren’t.
Something about the East Coast dislike for anything not the East Coast makes folks shy away from the Mid-west-based megacorporation. Now, on a global scale these may seem like minor
is-sues, but on a local basis they mean everything. Americans have always been very Amer-ica-centric, and just because they got drawn and quartered doesn’t mean that view has changed. In fact, it has probably gotten worse for the remaining Americans. By that I mean those with UCAS and CAS citizenship, not megacorporate SINs. Folks inside the megas or who work for them tend to eat, sleep, and defecate corp-branded
prod-ucts. The only money that ever leaves the company usually slips out through rebellious teenagers trying to piss off their parents. Outside the company, the megacorporations have to advertise and target other citizens to get their nuyen.
Ares has had a rough shake of late. The Excalibur de-bacle had some ties to work out on 128, and Ares’ nu-merous subsidiaries specializing in government defense contracts have been facing some unexpected challeng-ers since the brand-faith in Ares products took a hit. The introduction of the fifth model of Ares Predator at the beginning of last year and lack of new catastrophic prod-uct failures has helped, but the dearth of new innovative designs has hurt the company image, and speculation persists about trouble among Ares leaders. All things considered, it’s not much of a surprise that Boston is not a primary focus for Ares.
With that being said, I would like to point out the suc-cess of the Ares Strategic Action and Combat Simulator (ASACS). This facility has become a standard training ground for police and military forces from around the world. Not only does KE run advanced training classes and seminars out of the business offices at the facility, but they also host anyone who wants to train in the most realistic, fully AR equipped, and infinitely variable envi-ronments created indoors. The place is the next-gener-ation evolution of the Fort Lewis Combat Simulator out in Seattle. Ares has another ASACS facility on an island in Southeast Asia as well. This place will replicate almost any environment, and it uses near-hot-SIM trode feeds
to deliver virtual sensations (cold, pain, heat, pressure, etc.) and can even cause natural reactions to AR ob-jects, such as spasming a muscle to trip over a box on the ground or making muscles twitch in reaction to un-even or loose surfaces such as jagged rocks or sand. This place is big business for Ares in Boston and a frequent target of data steals to get a look at their code.
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I got a chance to play in this place when my merc companyearned some time there for buying a gross of Predator Vs. It’s everything Icarus says and more. Not only do they simulate different environments like caves, cities, forests, and anything else a twisted tactical mind can imagine, they can simulate conditions like rain, wind, snow, heat, and even heavy gravity. It is awesome.
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Picador>
How do they simulate heavy gravity? That sounds likebulldrek.
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Sticks>
From what I felt they just added extra fatigue to the legsand changed the ballistics rules. Other than that I’m not sure. I was too busy trying to assault an alien fortress without getting shot to do a detailed assessment. Getting hit in there felt way too close to getting hit in real life.
Might actually have been worse (in the short-term—the effects wear off much quicker).
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Picador>
This place is where Ares really got the feeling they neededto focus efforts in the laser weapon department. During combat simulations here they found even less-trained troops can defeat a superior trained force with the lasers due to increased accuracy and decreased need for ballistics understanding.
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Am-Mut>
I would buy that. We ran a few simulations with lasers andthey are far easier to use. No recoil, no bullet drop or wind variation, very easy to aim with a smartlink system, and a bitch to dodge. Dead on almost every time you squeeze the trigger.
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Picador>
Aliens and laser weapons? What kind of training were youdoing, Picador?
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Goat Foot>
The fun kind. It was free and the crew wanted to play so Ilet them. Damn good time.
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Picador>
What a waste of an opportunity. You get time in one of thebest training environments in the world and you use it to play Space Rangers 5125. WTF?
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Goat Foot>
After three straight cycles of training in THE BEST trainingenvironment in the world, I wanted my guys to have a little fun.
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Picador>
The “BEST training environment in the world”?>
Netcat>
Real life. In this case, the jungles of Central America.>
Picador>
Ah. I see.>
NetcatAlso, rumors along the Boston grapevine claim Ares has managed to produce successful prototypes for three models of fully automatic laser. I don’t think that’s some-thing KE will be field-testing, but you never know. May-be some of their special response teams or Firewatch squads will get to play with them.
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Careful with any new Ares lasertech. A lot of internal opshave been going on as well as outside attacks, and some of the stuff they are making is still glitchy. Those leadership issues have a way of trickling down.
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Sticks>
Even after all this time I can’t get used to Sticks talkingagainst Ares goodies. But what he says is good advice.
The early MP models are pretty solid, but any newer goods might have the taint of Excalibur on them.
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Clockwork>
The Taint of Excalibur. Sounds like a b-rate trid. I’m notan Ares salesman or anything, but I have to say that the laser products are getting extra scrutiny and beta testing because they have been particularly effective against the bugs. If they land in the hands of a Firewatch team, you can assume it’s been tested to the nth degree.
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PicadorEVO
Word of difficulties plaguing Evo’s Boston operations first surfaced eighteen or nineteen months ago, but no one could get a handle on what was going wrong or why—until the revelation of CFD. Now that we know, we’ve got a fairly good picture of what Evo, and its well-known Yamatetsu brand, have been focused on here in the Hub. If you want to find Evo hard at work,
look out on 128, where they own at least three major research facilities under different names, or around the Charleston docks, where Yamatetsu Naval Technolo-gies still has a small-ships’ dry dock, or out on the edge of the Boston Naval Shipyards where they have a dry dock for the big ships. I’m not a mil-spec tech guy, but it looks big enough for an
aircraft carrier to me.
Out on 128, Evo’s fo-cus seems split between developing newer and better cyber and bio en-hancement systems and
trying to test and clean up nanotech and geneware en-hancements. We all know it’s probably because of all the CFD stuff, but the general population doesn’t know any-thing more about CFD than most of us did a year ago.
Since then, we’ve lost friends and spread info, but we are a small community and not one the world will take as cred-ible. None of the megas have stepped up and claimed responsibility (though we all have our current favorites), and no one has really explained this issue to the world.
So the corps heavily invested in genetech and nanotech, like Evo, are scrambling to find ways to get rid of CFD and to develop tech modifications that prevent future CFD in-fections. Consider this if you ever consider running an op against Evo’s subs out on 128: They will have samples of the virus on hand. Take that however you want.
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I can’t take it as anything but a warning, though I knowothers might see it as a payday. I’ve warned about it before—CFD is like nothing you have ever faced, and there are not many protections that work. Do not mess with this slitch.
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ButchDown along the waters a lot of YNT vessels have passed through the dry dock facilities in the past year.
Again, it may have to do with CFD and the odd effect it has on nanite systems outside a person, but it also means a lot of YNT’s SOTA naval tech is sitting there waiting for folks like us to go take a peek. The possible CFD issue means that some of those systems we go to take a peek at may have some glitchy drek going on with them, so decker beware. One last warning about messing around near the dry dock facilities: Evo Marines. When the ships come in, their complement of seamen, including their marines, all stick around. Many rotate into the security detail for the facility, but most of the time they are simply assigned as additional security on and around the ship.
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Evo’s 128 operations involve some advancedtranshumanist experimentation. I got an op brief for our merc outfit to field a small recovery team. I didn’t take the gig, but I asked for more specifics. When they refused, I changed plans and just put two of my best
scouts on the trail off the books. What they caught might have once been human, but it was not even close anymore. Hexipedal, black skin, claws, sticky hands, piranha teeth, five eyes evenly spaced around the head, and thick dermal depositing. The scouts watched the thing stalk and shred three of the street runners Evo got to do the job. They popped the thing, which took seven well-placed rounds from a SM-5, and then let the last few runners take the kill in.
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PicadorAZTECHNOLOGY
The big news of 2074 was the victory of Aztlan in the Az-Am War, which really means a win for Aztechnol-ogy. In 2075 the big news was rebuilding after all the losses they faced at the claws of Sirrurg, as well as the bombs, bullets, and
spells of Amazonia, and negative publicity by the media, while fending off continued attacks and re-prisals by the many drag-ons of the world that have scores to settle with the Azzies.
So far 2076 has seen Aztechnology on the de-fensive everywhere,
in-cluding Boston. All Aztechnology facilities and the fa-cilities of all their subsidiaries have received enhanced security. No one who is not Aztechnology or an Aztlan citizen gets beyond the first two floors of their pyramid on the water. The price of a useable counterfeit Azzie SIN has tripled in the shadows—if you can find one. AZT has been coming down hard on forgers, hard enough that a lot of them won’t take AZT work.
On the business side of things, Aztechnology has been earning a lot of positive Boston street cred. They used SOTA tech to clean up the water along the water-front around their HQ. They’ve stocked the protected area with unmodified fish and plants native to the Bay and opened the area to public swimming and scuba-div-ing. It’s been clean since the beginning of summer last year, but it took a little time for people to trust it; they had to hold competitions offering Azziescrip prizes to lure the first few hundred swimmers into the water. Now the media are filled with images of happy swimmers and glowing testimonials about cleanliness and safety;
the place is so popular it won’t be too long before you’ll need a reservation to get in. Speaking of which: Rumor has it that the underwater restaurant will be opening lat-er this year. Evidently its usefulness as a test lab ended when they cleaned up the water and the potential PR payday outweighs their worries about letting the general public inside their HQ. For us this means runs against the pyramid and some of their other research and testing
fa-cilities and stations around the area, trying to track down paydata on this new tech.
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I’ve heard the water isn’t being cleaned. It’s just cleanwater being pumped into the blocked-off area and the dirty water being kept out by spirits.
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Southie>
Someone would have commented on a spirit presence ifit were there, especially with all the MIT&T students who were enjoying the spot during their summer break.
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Arete>
The clean water flush would be tough too, especiallywith as much wildlife as they have down there.
Temperature fluctuations and water flow would be tough to regulate, not to mention all the stuff that could be introduced with unfiltered water. And you couldn’t use “clean” water or you’d mess up the system. This might actually be the real deal.
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BeakerI couldn’t skip over the magical aspect of Aztechnol-ogy. With their keen interest in blood magic and cyber-mancy, you know they are scouring MIT&T for anyone with the moral flexibility and hunger for power it takes to walk those dark paths. They often hire runners to take candidates out on jobs to test just how flexible the kids’ morals really are. The work usually involves some focused violence and trips to the darker haunts of the Rox or the Catacombs. The kiddies think they’re break-ing into hardcore crime while their every word, look, and twitch is being recorded from multiple angles for suitability analysis. These runs are little more than paid baby-sitting gigs, but they’re a big piece of Azzie work in Boston. There are a few Aztechnology research facilities out on 128 too, hidden among their consumer produc-tion facilities. They’re developing all sorts of new and horrible magical goodies under cover of assembly lines mass-producing arcane accoutrements for entry-level and wannabe magic slingers.
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That’s just wrong.>
Netcat>
That’s so AZT.>
Slamm-0!HORIZON
Since Horizon was still a baby corp when the ECSE was in Boston, they never established a major presence here. The heart of their R&D division is in LA and they have satellite labs and testing sites throughout the PCC, so they have no interest in the 128 corridor. They have close relationships with UCLA and CalTech and Thaum from which they
re-cruit almost all of their new talent, so MIT&T and Harvard hold no interest for them. What brings them to Boston is the music. Boston has a hot independent music scene and Horizon likes to headhunt up and comers, getting them under contract before any rivals see their potential.
With no major business operations to distract them, they are extremely focused on
working the music scene.
Horizon’s intensely merito-cratic internal organization and results-based business model, their talent agents compete against each other ruthlessly. But trying
to exploit that rivalry rarely pays off. When it comes to beating out another media corp, they put their individual agendas aside and become a seamless team determined to get what’s best for Horizon.
The shadows in the music and club scenes have been tense since Damon came to town. Damon’s investments have often interfered with Horizon’s plans, and his eye for talent is better than that of any metahuman in Hori-zon’s stable. That means a lot of the Horizon agents are watching Damon’s moves and his pet clubs to try to snatch up talent right from under the dragon’s snout (figuratively speaking—he’s rarely in his native form, and when he is no metahuman’s going to get that close).
That being said, they have been known to grab acts right from his clubs.
Their media battles have also put them at odds in Boston with a number of S-K subsidiaries. S-K’s media works have offices and studios here that compete di-rectly with Horizon’s operations. Just know that if you’re making runs for American Broadcasting Systems and Pathfinder Multimedia, you’re really working for S-K and Horizon, respectively.
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I appreciate the view-to-the-top mentality, and I alwaysdo my due diligence to see who I’m really working for, but to say every time ABS or Pathfinder contract a job it’s the global machinations of the megacorporations, well, that’s just ridiculous.
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2XL>
When it comes to NeoNET or Ares and their diverseinternal factions, I think 2XL has a point. But Horizon and S-K aren’t near as split at the top. These are the kind of corps where you might need to worry who you could be pissing off by playing for these teams.
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Sticks>
This seems as good a place to put this as any. Horizon isa major supporter of Warpath. I don’t mean openly, but a lot of runs get contracted through Horizon channels that positively affect the efforts of Warpath.