 January 27, 2010 - 9:31am | How does everyone see and use PGC? I see it as "the Company" or "Massive Dynamics" (from Fringe). They are pervasive, they are everywhere, and they seem helpful and decent but have some very secret, hidden agenda. Does this fit with other folks' vision of the PGC, or do you handle them differently? Long live the Frontier! |
 January 27, 2010 - 10:10am | I run PGC as a very important entity in the frontier. They unified language and technology standards. They have tentacles into almost every aspect of frontier life and exploration. I often use PGC as a plot device. When I want them to do something shady or down right evil I make a division, department or manager within PGC "do the dirty work". I have a feeling you have something up your sleeve? :-) |
 January 27, 2010 - 10:12am | To put it in a dry way, the Corporations are pure plot device. Some people have spiralled them into all sorts of different permutations. I recall one poster saying that Streel was so nasty that they are actually in cahoots with the Sathar! Was that Shadow...? I don't remember. My take is that PGC is a huge, powerful conglomerate. However, being a gigantic organization has many flaws and drawbacks. Look at the "too big to fail" banks from the financial crisis just last year! Without revealing too many of my "state secrets" in my adventures, should anyone actually play them, PGC is normally an employer to the PCs, and a relatively generous one. But - there are many possibilities. Maybe the "secret agenda" is a huge scam perpetrated on the people of the Frontier to get money. Or maybe there are struggles for dominance at the top that the PCs can get wrapped up in. Distant PGC bases may be almost totally out of control of the Corporate structure. In that case, the situation is local - and might be very bad. In terms of pervasiveness, I might be a little more lukewarm on that. I imagine a large number of small and mid-sized local competitors that could hold PGC in check. Not to mention Streel and GVMPI and the Capellan Free Merchants, etc. However, in yet another opportunity for adventure, maybe PGC starts to set about eliminating these smaller players, offering below-market buyouts and using more muscular means of persuasion if the deals are refused. Overall, I would think it would be important to avoid some sort of monolithic view of PGC as "the man" to be opposed at every turn. They are not the Sathar. At the same time, that kind of massive power, as we know very well right here on earth, is rife with opportunity for abuse, corruption, and violence - what we call around here, "adventure"! |
January 27, 2010 - 10:34am | @ wOOt: Let's just I've been working on ideas about megacorps. I've been reading up on post/trans-humanism, genetically modified crops and such. In the almost 30 years (!) since SF was published, there have been a lot of advances in our tech, IRL. The megacorps of SF are somewhat lacking... As to PGC directly, I have an article in mind for SFman, but nothing much else there. :) Just curiousity... Long live the Frontier! |
 January 27, 2010 - 11:29am | I tend to regard the SF game as slightly more cyberpunk then a Traveler styled space opera, so I approach the PGC like a big corrupted megacorporation, like the Omni Corporation from Robocop, Weyland-Yutani from Aliens, and many of the big companies from Cyberpunk 2020 & Shadowrun. I also like to make the Federation and Star Law more authoritarian, like the Alliance from Firefly/Serenity. I generally downplay the Sather treat, or use them as the focus of a political "red scare". My approach is way more cynical then what most players are use to, but I like to push the players between the dangers of unexplored space, and the corruption of civilized space (I could never figure out why they call it a "frontier", when all these worlds are all so centralized?). |
 January 27, 2010 - 4:07pm | I recall one poster saying that Streel was so nasty that they are actually in cahoots with the Sathar! Was that Shadow...? I don't remember. That was me, in the .org forums. Shadow just mixed them up with his SDA baddies. Corporations are like every other criminal gang...out for themselves, and for what's not theirs. Governments are that way too. @Malcadon: Good ideas there. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
 January 27, 2010 - 11:42pm | I treat PGC as the "U.S. Domestic company" and Streel as the "Japanese businesses". Not so much good guy/bad guy, but two well financed and business minded groups competing fiercely against each other in this inter-global market. PGC usually does it first, Streel finds a way to do it better for less...something to that effect. And for the record, I haven't "mixed Streel with the baddies"...they're simply percieved to be in cahoots with them. Nothing has been witnessed or documented. The baddies simply have heavy contracts with Streel shipyards for warships, and Streel discovered safe travel routes through the SDA's blockaded system...all of which support conspiracy theories of an alliance of the two. But nothing solid has been established.
Actually if you click on my Historic Adventures link (in my sig) you'll see a pre-UPF adventure I'm in the middle of writing that has Streel as "good guy victims to PGC", sort of a shoe on the other foot compared to TSR published material on the subject. Streel is in their infancy, not a mega-corp yet but merely "Streel, Inc." instead, and they find themselves targetted by a mining guild established by PGC that interferes with their own business within their two homeworlds. It essentially sets the stage for the whole "modern" fisticuff scenarios between PGC and Streel. |
 January 28, 2010 - 5:41pm | I handle them just as any other massive corporate or over blown government enity. Corrupt and only looking for their own self interests, if the survival of the UPF is in their best interests then they'll work with it or even through it as often as the case can be. Streel is pretty much on the same level only not as big yet. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
