The Factions: MEGACORPS

We're taking a brief tangent from our class reveals to talk about the factions, and we're starting with the most powerful – the corporations.

Did you miss last weeks post on the ginbushi? Find it here.

Zaibatsu
The megacorporations are often called 'zaibatsu' after the powerful business conglomerates that wielded unchecked power  in Japan  until the end of World ​War II.

Among the real-world zaibatsu you would recognise such names as Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, and Nissan.

You might know them as vehicle manufacturers, but they own a lot more.

ORIGINS
In exchange for their help in finding and colonising humanity’s new home, the multi-national  Earth corporations that assisted Chikyu-ni* demanded a heavy price. These twenty-three companies would be given extra-legal privileges no other entity enjoyed, the most dramatic of which was the right to create arcologies. These massive spires had to be self-sufficient, but in turn they would be self-governing. Cities, within cities, where the only law that existed was what the owner corporation chose to enforce.
 
POST-SHATTER
No one knows for sure why these arcologies have been left untouched by the Whisper. Perhaps it is because they exist on their own energy and information grids. Perhaps the Whisper doesn’t see them as a threat. Some say it is because the corporations created the Whisper.
 
Regardless the zaibatsu corporations endure in their gleaming towers, enjoying luxuries lost to the survivors on the streets below. Everyone wants a place in these safe bastions of what once was, but the zaibatsu have little interest in events outside. They scheme for a new world that exists beyond the Whisper, expecting others to find a way to make that world a reality.

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* Chikyu-ni was the name of the organisation of governments, NGOs and corporations responsible for locating and colonising humanity's new home on Hansei.

You can find a brief primer on Wireless Soul Transmission's history  here.

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Join us next week for another faction reveal (the last before we polish off the classes). We'll be looking at the ginbushi, not as a playable class, but as a faction in their own right.