From:	Brian Angliss <angliss@*****.COLORADO.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Maxim, again?!
Date:	Wed, 26 Mar 1997 21:10:40 -0700

>She's _far_ from the most evil person on the planet.

Very true. Moderately meglomaniacal, ambitious to the point of having
delusions of grandeur, but not inherently evil as such. She just has no
problems in stepping on people. About as normal a corp exec as you can
get, actually.

:)

>Actually, I (and several of my and Hazel's PCs) admire and respect
>Velli: while they oppose her goals, her ability and skill in pursuing
>them deserves respect.
>
>And to make Maxim successful, Velli needs customers, meaning she can't
>wipe out a significant percentage of Earth's population: the problem is
>her willingness to sacrifice moderate numbers of others in pursuit of
>her goals, and perhaps a slight blindness as to consequence when it
>suits her.

Well, yes, she is willing to sacrafice people when she feels that the
sacrafice will further her ambitions. But if she wants to stay in
buisness, she can't kill her customers, or allow Maxim's rep to be shot all
to hell.

At some point, I suspect that Velli will realize that military power is
important in a MAD way, to keep other big fish away, but that the only
really good way to win in the long run is through economics. Out-compete
the competition with higher quality material, cheaper and better guns, the
occasional shadowrun to steal some technology that Maxim can't develop in a
reasonable time span, etc.

Brian