Plutocracy

Stage 0- Prologue (Important: Do not skip)

"The governments were the first to go."

Two men sat opposite from each other at a wooden cedar table, deep gashes in the wood illuminated by an old incandescent bulb suspended from the ceiling by a long black cord. Cement walls made the exterior and ceiling of the room, and a ragged olive carpet covered the floor. The two men sitting at the table looked very similar, but with different defining features and clothing. One wore a leather jacket, blue jeans, and had dark sunglasses shielding his eyes from the lack of light. His hair was a deep chocolate brown, and although he was stocky and muscular, he likely stood at six feet. The other man was built much the same, but with yellow eyes and sandy brown hair. He wore a suit and tie that was wrinkled and stained with sand in some places, but still looked nice. He listened to the other man, who seemed to be explaining something.

"When the people--people like you--couldn't get what they needed from governments, things like food, shelter, healthcare, they turned to the corporations. The corporations could provide these things, and a revolution took place. The people revolted, Corporate Militaries were dispatched, and everything came crashing down. Ironically enough, the United States was first; after all, they were already in the pockets of the Corporations. The E.U. fell soon after with Germany lasting the longest, and then Canada, the South American States, and most of Asia. Africa held out the longest due to very little corporate influence there, but PMCs came in and eliminated most of what was there pretty quickly. The whole thing took about three decades; that was the Corporate Independence Revolution."

The other man leaned back in his chair.

"Whoa."

"I'm not even close to done yet. So after the CIR, you have several hundred corporations, some larger than others. The biggest were Crius, Knight, Gestalt, C.I.S.T., and Prometheus. All with their own unique developments, they existed in a state of relative peace for about two more decades."

"Then what?"

"The Corporate Espionage started. Each Corporation started sending hundreds of spies into enemy territory, and when those spies got caught and killed? Well, it pissed off a lot of people, and then those PMCs that were gathering dust got pulled out again. War ensued; the Corporate War. And in all that chaos, Arksiane started.

"At the beginning, they were just a biology startup designed around building new animals that could end world hunger; a noble goal, to say the least. During the War nobody paid any attention to Arksiane, so they just kept growing, and even though they violated their generation's ethical standards of research several hundred times, nobody looked their way.

"So then when Arksiane got their hands on Antimatter, people started looking. All the big corporations had Antimatter, the stuff was like nukes. Nobody wanted to use them because then everyone was going to use them, and then, well, boom. Antimatter could be moved in much smaller amounts and still pack a huge punch, so one person in one city square is the end of an entire corporation. 1.1 million tons of TNT is about how much two pounds of Antimatter releases, if I remember the conversion ratio correctly. Big stuff.

"Arksiane then started buying out other Corporations and threatening an Antimatter drop if they put up any resistance. Arksiane had gathered a reputation at this point as being unpredictable and short-sighted, so they were taken at their word and many, many corporations fell. The last one standing was Knight. They dropped their Antimatter on their capital, ultimate badass style. They also torched all their records, burned their libraries, incinerated intellectuals, poisoned water and crops-essentially screwing Arksiane in the ass one last time."

"Can't imagine that went over well."

"It certainly didn't. The guy who ran Arksiane, Gregor Dickens, was absolutely furious. Of course, it did mean that Arksiane was the last formidable power left on the planet. Since Knight had poisoned most of Asia and since taming wilderness cost money, Arksiane decided to spread themselves across North America. The people, although they were a little afraid of their Corporate Government, were content.