Siemens-Grumman-Boeing etc.

[Nibelung44 (OP)]

hi,

Has someone pulled out a list of companies from Earth in a doc, that he uses for various techs in Aurora? I always find myself scratching my head for nice names... So if  you want to share, don't hesitate.

[ddblackhawk]

If I want to use fancy RP names for stuff, rather than a short description of what it does, I look at the Wikipedia pages for various warships.  Generally you can see that various companies make similar parts, although then I loose myself in reading through loads of wiki pages =p.

For example in British ships Rolls-Royce makes engines, BAE does guns and sensor systems, and Ultra Electronics does fire control systems, if you use an American theme then it would be General Electric, Lockheed Martin, etc, etc.

Of course then you need to come up with a name for that model of a part, which I always had trouble with, hence my falling back on numbers and letters to describe what a part does =)

[Maltay]

Instead of using defense contractors or aerospace companies, I use shipyards.  I use the following website as a reference because I can look up shipyard names by country and feature.  This lets me pick out large shipyards of the appropriate country.  I figure shipyards are a more accurate source of names as even defense contractors like Northrup Grumman use shipyards for their large U.S. Navy contracts.  For example, Northrop Grumman uses Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard for its large U.S. Navy contracts.

http://www.ship2yard.com/area_country.php

[gharad]

To try and get my own game a bit more personalized, I also use the names of my shipping lines in parts.

[Theodidactus]

In my experience, science fiction authors make remarkably good "international conglomerate" names
Asimov, Heinlein, Lovecraft, Strugatsky, Brin, and Gibson all sound like corporations that would have worldwide scope and very sophisticated products. I can see "Brin Global" making targeting software, "Strugatsky Polyatomics" making armor, "Heinlein magnetoelectrics" making ion engines, and so on.

I name corporations after things in my immediate environment, it takes some creativity but it actually produced some cool corporations that I subsequently used in my science fiction: "Enye Incorporated" "Vest Interstellar" and "Vinehouse"

Also, neat trick I learned at my last job, where I worked all day as a campaign finance analyst and played aurora (or wrote science fiction) all night: Top Donor in the 2012 Election +Word from the name of one of the largest privately held companies = professional sounding company. You have to try it a bit but it will give you lots of good ideas. Even a "Silly sounding obvious" name (Bloomberg) and be made sophisticated and science fictiony with the right counterpart (so Bloomberg-Gavilion made engines in my last campaign). Generally, the list of the largest donors is also a good way to get sophisticated-sounding names. "Eyechaner" "Mostyn" "Thiel" and "Soros" all SOUND like people who put together big impressive things.

[Theodidactus]

I am pleased to see people put as much thought into this as I do.

[Zed 6]

I thought I had found these here somewhere. Not at all inclusive. Don't know who to give credit for this list.
And it is more than just shipyards.

[Bryan Swartz]

Thanks for the ideas here!  I'm definitely going to be stealing some stuff from this. 

[icecoldblood]

Generally in my games I Give manufacturer names to beam weapons, shipyards and ship components that are reflective of that manufacturer to day.
For example, Rheinmetall produces Laser Cannons/Railguns, Zeiss produces sensors and Rolls-Royce produces engines.

I generally find my names just going to wikipedia and searching up random ships/planes/weapons and use whatever I find.

[Aloriel]

Due to the tendency of corporations to merge, I name mine with merger names. For example:

Virgin-Boeing Spaceliner 909 (for a spaceliner design)


But I really do like the above idea of naming corporations after Sci Fi writers! I may just start doing that.

[Theodidactus]

But I really do like the above idea of naming corporations after Sci Fi writers! I may just start doing that.

I came up with it for a board game that I made based off HG Well's "The Land Ironclads" Where you had the mighty Wells oil conglomerate and Lovecraft Coal and Salvage and things like that. Also, while playing you had to wear either a pith helmet or a moofy-toofy hat or one of those napoleon things, depending on which side you were on. Sci-fi writers have such arcane and impressive sounding names, which doesn't bode well for my future plans.

I  should add that I'm writing a science fiction novel largely about corporate intrigue in the year 2100, so I spent a LOT of time coming up with corporation names. Aurora only helped me come up with 2 (BayRing Global and Enye Incorporated) but I love both names to death. Yes, Enye, like the Ñ, that's their logo, shut up.

[Theodidactus]

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.