| From: | Danyel N Woods <9604801@********.AC.NZ> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: China - PLA Macrotechnology |
| Date: | Fri, 15 May 1998 16:55:58 +1200 |
>I'm not sure how many of you have heard of that particular
>corporation - PLA Macrotechnology, that is. I'd like to call your
>attention to it.
>
>It is a 'corporation' consisting of China's military companies, which
>is under military direction. Its purpose is to provide weapon
>platforms and weapons for domestic use, as well as export. It has
>quite extensive finances, and I would expect that company in
>particular to be of interest in the SR world. It is also fairly
>diversified into other areas of warfare than weapons - uniforms,
>medicine, boots, foods, etcetera... and then further diversification,
>still under 100% military ownership.
>
>In the book Dragon Strike, this corporation used inside knowledge to
>make a few billions on advance knowledge about a surprise attack in
>the south china sea. That book is more a theoretical 'what if'' than
>a thriller - no main characters, and quotes a lot of speeches,
>leaflets and so on to support its hypothesis.
>
>... just in case you need an A/A+ (but not AAA) megacorporation
>based on current corporations, which might have a few 'ulterior
>motives' with what they do.
<spontaneous corp creation mode>
Please bear in mind that this has about twenty second's thought behind
it.
*People's Liberation Army Macrotechnology Incorporated*
An amalgam of all those formerly state-owned armaments companies which
survived the '29 Crash and the various other disasters of our modern
age, PLA Macrotech has the distinction of being the only Chinese corp =
to
even approach the size and power of the Big Eight.
Part of the reason for PLA Macrotech's survival to current times is the
fact that China, in the wake of the collapse of the central Communist
government during the first VITAS plague, was for the most part still a
technologically backward nation. While the virus devastated more
sophisticated systems, the Chinese computer network was insufficiently
developed to be as vulnerable as others.
PLA Macrotech's main areas of interest are armaments, military =
aerospace
technology, ground vehicles of many varieties (including military
vehicles such as LAVs) (put it just behind Ares?), and the various
support industries (textiles, oil and fuel, et cetera). To the fortune
of many other corporations, PLA Macrotech still lags far behind in the
fields of Matrixware, cyberware and bioware, being considered some
seven-to-fifteen years behind the current State-Of-The-Art {as at =
2050}.
(e.g. hydraulic rams (see the Plastic Warriors supplements) instead of
microtronic myomers for cyberlimb 'muscles', wired reflexes etcetera
still experimental).
(Suggest +20% Essence cost, x 2 monetary cost for PLA Macrotech-made
cyberware, and treat as 'second-hand' for chances of failure/breakage.
Artificially-grown organs are 'Type G' at best. PLA Macrotech-made
Matrixware (cyberdecks etc) are still the size of a (1995) personal
computer, and their programs are either unlicensed copies of
'mainstream' Matrixware or rather clumsy (PLA decks and programs are
effectively cyberterminals - 'tortoises'.)
</spontaneous corp creation mode>
I *was* going to do a long spiel about PLA Macrotech's survival against
the odds (the VITAS plagues, the Awakening, the Crash, a series of
Secession Wars when provinces tried to get away from the Beijing
government, a border war with the Russians during the EuroWars, etc).
Unfortunately, I haven't found any detailed material about this region,
canon or otherwise. Has anyone drawn up some stuff about China and =
Asia
that might help form the basis of such a back-story?
<Pause to read Bracket's post>
I don't know about China's central government circa 205X, but you can
bet your hide that some of the provinces tried to secede during the
chaos of the Awakening, VITAS, UGE/Goblinisation, the Crash, et cetera.
I can also easily see a border war with the Russians during the
EuroWars, and a resolution of the 'Taiwan independence' issue one way =
or
the other. At a guess, I'd say that Mainland China is a military
dictatorship (what, like it isn't already?) or maybe it's reverted to =
an
Imperial Monarchy. Give it a couple of days (the LAN here closes for
the weekend in about three minutes), and if the topic's still running =
on
Monday morning when I log on, I might post what I, personally, have =
come
up with for PLA Macrotech and the *former* People's Republic of China.
Danyel Woods
9604801@********.ac.nz
'Are you deliberately trying to drive me insane?'
'The universe is already mad. Anything else would be
redundant.'
