Posted by: Theodidactus
« on: November 03, 2013, 03:31:16 PM »I think it's important to throw in an unpredictability factor as well.
For example, if you had told someone in 1914: "By the end of this century, the united states will have unquestioned and uncontested military control of both air and sea." They would have believed you were a very silly person indeed. This extends to corporations as well. In 1914, prognosticators making a simulation game about a "future war" in the 1990s would probably beassuming westinghouse and Union Pacific would be making everything, the really smart ones would be giving their airplanes "BMW" engines.
So I like to throw random-but-plausible things out there, in my current campaign:
- Brazil is a military superpower and has a near monopoly on the most advanced fighter and bomber components
- the EU and France in particular has become synonymous with super-advanced computing, the best sensors are made by a french/british conglomerate (there's that bloomberg-gavilon again)
- An upstart plasma propulsion company started by one of my scientists ("Prestonworks") now handles all military propulsion contracts.
- most major manufacturing corporations are based out of india so the actual big menchanical parts of my ship, like railguns and magazines, are current indian corporations or potential future corporations. They also make a lot of fire controls and sensors
- a large percentage of the population is chinese and russian (and curiously for some reason mongolian), so many ships have names alluding to these groups, but virtually no large corporations seem to be based out of there.
For example, if you had told someone in 1914: "By the end of this century, the united states will have unquestioned and uncontested military control of both air and sea." They would have believed you were a very silly person indeed. This extends to corporations as well. In 1914, prognosticators making a simulation game about a "future war" in the 1990s would probably beassuming westinghouse and Union Pacific would be making everything, the really smart ones would be giving their airplanes "BMW" engines.
So I like to throw random-but-plausible things out there, in my current campaign:
- Brazil is a military superpower and has a near monopoly on the most advanced fighter and bomber components
- the EU and France in particular has become synonymous with super-advanced computing, the best sensors are made by a french/british conglomerate (there's that bloomberg-gavilon again)
- An upstart plasma propulsion company started by one of my scientists ("Prestonworks") now handles all military propulsion contracts.
- most major manufacturing corporations are based out of india so the actual big menchanical parts of my ship, like railguns and magazines, are current indian corporations or potential future corporations. They also make a lot of fire controls and sensors
- a large percentage of the population is chinese and russian (and curiously for some reason mongolian), so many ships have names alluding to these groups, but virtually no large corporations seem to be based out of there.
