MDL
RIP Doctor Calgori (2012-2017)
Shenzhiwu 2210 is a dystopian setting that attempts to take a fresh can of paint to the concept of corporatocratic futurism (cyberpunk) where commonsense societal evolution takes prominence over grittiness for the sake of grittiness. Because of this, the setting isn't cyberpunk in any sense other than the fact that it's a corporatocratic high-tech world.
The Shenzhiwu 2210 Project is an exercise in research just as much as it's an attempt at creating an interesting world. It takes queues from our modern-day society and attempts to bring our bizarre existence into the 23rd century while amplifying aspects of hedonism, urbanism, and social disillusionment along the way.
It's noteworthy to mention that this "toning down" of cyberpunk tropes shouldn't translate into a setting that's void of anything dark and grim, or that there aren't lots of stylistically "out there" subcultures and kooky characters. The project is simply trying to avoid elements you can't find much support for in emerging technology and other aspects of modern life.
Essentially we are plucking the "punk" out of "cyberpunk" — if that makes as much sense to you as it does to me.
The Shenzhiwu 2210 Project is an exercise in research just as much as it's an attempt at creating an interesting world. It takes queues from our modern-day society and attempts to bring our bizarre existence into the 23rd century while amplifying aspects of hedonism, urbanism, and social disillusionment along the way.
It's noteworthy to mention that this "toning down" of cyberpunk tropes shouldn't translate into a setting that's void of anything dark and grim, or that there aren't lots of stylistically "out there" subcultures and kooky characters. The project is simply trying to avoid elements you can't find much support for in emerging technology and other aspects of modern life.
Essentially we are plucking the "punk" out of "cyberpunk" — if that makes as much sense to you as it does to me.
Central Circle, Terra.
These are the four core pillars of design for the project
Establish believable futurism:
Corporations, cultures, and organizations should be modeled on direct real-life examples or a mix of several real-life examples. Technology should be an extension of real-world technologies and an advancement of the current forefront of science.
Documented history for easy callbacks:
Historical documentation, especially for corporate activities, should be dense and well established. This includes items that might not be key to any central plot but serves the GM or storyteller when establishing detail.
Metaphysical reality:
Incorporate metaphysical ideas that take the setting from the expressionless reality of corporate Terrestria into the multiverse and the essence of reality itself. Do this without ruining the setting's cohesiveness with the implementation of "magic" or the supernatural.
Plot hooks:
Create an underlying mystery from which the order of things stems. Add central events that are extensively detailed that drive passions for and against the corporatocracy.
Establish believable futurism:
Corporations, cultures, and organizations should be modeled on direct real-life examples or a mix of several real-life examples. Technology should be an extension of real-world technologies and an advancement of the current forefront of science.
Documented history for easy callbacks:
Historical documentation, especially for corporate activities, should be dense and well established. This includes items that might not be key to any central plot but serves the GM or storyteller when establishing detail.
Metaphysical reality:
Incorporate metaphysical ideas that take the setting from the expressionless reality of corporate Terrestria into the multiverse and the essence of reality itself. Do this without ruining the setting's cohesiveness with the implementation of "magic" or the supernatural.
Plot hooks:
Create an underlying mystery from which the order of things stems. Add central events that are extensively detailed that drive passions for and against the corporatocracy.
The Setting
Terra is an earthlike planet situated somewhere in the vastness of space. It has an orbiting moon and the solar system it's situated in fields planets much like our own. Terran society evolved from a hunter-gatherer, eat and be eaten kind of world, and on through the cradle of civilization and eventual modernization. Now, its hypermodern citizenry is fixed in the caressing arms of an ever-booming market economy and nonstop dopamine rewards through limitless recreation. All provided by yours truly, the megacorporations.
With the governments of the world paralyzed by conflicting loyalties and the newsmedia's overt partisanship and sensationalist streak, corporate consolidation could proceed mostly unchecked. Acquisitions, followed by mergers, followed by more acquisitions — an obvious pattern and a recipe for a slow-creeping redistribution of power. Companies like the Hellion Group, UAC, Kraznom, Nac Medical, Perusahaan, and VW came out on top in the consolidation-race, all of them following a similar evolution. From their breakthrough as a single company to the formation of a corporate conglomerate, and to eventually grow so large that any one of them dwarfed the continental government in sheer size and influence. By the time regulators began questioning their indifference to the situation it was already too late to act on that afterthought.
Side alley from Berget Lane, Terrestria City.
A Summary of History
Two connected events set the wheels of corporate dominion in motion. The first put society out of balance in such a way that governments were made desperate enough to invite the corporate class in and relinquish control of sectors traditionally held within arm's length. And the second, the resolution of the first event, supercharged corporate power to such an extent that the state could no longer contain it.
After worrying signs that climate change was spinning out of control were made public an initial summit on the issue was held at the Northern Academy in 2016, attended by world and corporate leaders alike. After extensive measures were put in place the issue lost its urgency and public perception of climate change was that of a past problem that had been efficiently dealt with. The strategy for combating climate change (by ways of reflecting sunlight) that was put in place was effective, but it was a tactic that did little beyond containing the problem and failed to address the root cause. Roughly 40 years later researchers of the same institution make catastrophic discoveries of large cracks in the earth that had spread all over the planet. These cracks were emitting toxic gasses into the atmosphere at an irreversible rate and it's consensually understood that a catastrophic climate crisis had been knocking and was about to break down the door.
In response to this more summits were held. And after several years of deliberation, it was decided that every single person on the planet would migrate into an expanded Terrestria City, a continental megacity of half a billion inhabitants. This would allow the construction of a controlled environment inside the city and allow people to survive when the outside world became unlivable. To make this unprecedented global transition possible the governments of the world, spearheaded by the continental government, drew upon the immense resources of the private sector in exchange for contracts detailing the distribution of the commercial opportunities that would arise in this new world. The corporate sphere responded in full force and the jousting for position among them created tense, deep-rooted rivalries between individual megacorps and allied groups.
Two connected events set the wheels of corporate dominion in motion. The first put society out of balance in such a way that governments were made desperate enough to invite the corporate class in and relinquish control of sectors traditionally held within arm's length. And the second, the resolution of the first event, supercharged corporate power to such an extent that the state could no longer contain it.
After worrying signs that climate change was spinning out of control were made public an initial summit on the issue was held at the Northern Academy in 2016, attended by world and corporate leaders alike. After extensive measures were put in place the issue lost its urgency and public perception of climate change was that of a past problem that had been efficiently dealt with. The strategy for combating climate change (by ways of reflecting sunlight) that was put in place was effective, but it was a tactic that did little beyond containing the problem and failed to address the root cause. Roughly 40 years later researchers of the same institution make catastrophic discoveries of large cracks in the earth that had spread all over the planet. These cracks were emitting toxic gasses into the atmosphere at an irreversible rate and it's consensually understood that a catastrophic climate crisis had been knocking and was about to break down the door.
In response to this more summits were held. And after several years of deliberation, it was decided that every single person on the planet would migrate into an expanded Terrestria City, a continental megacity of half a billion inhabitants. This would allow the construction of a controlled environment inside the city and allow people to survive when the outside world became unlivable. To make this unprecedented global transition possible the governments of the world, spearheaded by the continental government, drew upon the immense resources of the private sector in exchange for contracts detailing the distribution of the commercial opportunities that would arise in this new world. The corporate sphere responded in full force and the jousting for position among them created tense, deep-rooted rivalries between individual megacorps and allied groups.
Lower Centrum, Terrestria City.
The expansion of Terrestria City began in 2060 and is still ongoing in the year 2210. The steep shift in power from the government to the corporations set the stage for an eventual conflict between the public and private sectors. But as stated previously, the regulatory slumber from which the Continental government awoke had derailed the situation so far that any attempts at standing up to the corporates were fruitless. The government was finally dismantled in 2137 with the Parliamentary Committee for Corporate Oversight (PCCO) remaining intact as the highest-ranking governmental body.
During the onset years, before the shakeup, corporate tensions had been growing exponentially and some of the "smaller" megacorporations, acting in the shadow of the Hellion Group and its allies, were growing tired of their nonchalant behavior. And just as the government had fallen and public unrest was setting in, these tensions grew into a full-scale conflict of armed private security companies confronting each other in the street and cyber-warfare attacks crippling society for years.
When the dust had settled, the corporations came together to form the Terrestrian Council, a regulatory body of common policy where certain aspects of Terrestrian society would be "neutralized" (meaning they were in the common good of all corporations and should serve each equally), and certain crime would be investigated by the continental police (now under the guardianship of the PCCO) and not by private actors who were easily corruptible or under the direct influence of private interests. They also established "corporate protocol" a document that's the de facto law in corporate areas, and created a new set of regulations for the PCCO which concerned only criminal acts that the PCCO was set out to investigate (mostly violent crime).
Terrestria City in 2210
It's now the year 2210, 73 years past the fall of the Continental government and the beginning of the new age of corporate dominion. The Terrestrian corporatocracy has the 15 billion people of Terra divided into two camps. The corporate loyalists, people of all echelons and backgrounds, who are so indoctrinated with the inherent value of the system (order and a high standard of living) that they suspend their critical faculties and eat corporate dogma for breakfast. And on the other side, the anti-corporate movements of activists and subcultural youth who believe that the only way to retain their freedom is to dissent and fight the system from the outside.
With 15 billion people, these polarized sides are highly varied and don't act as cohesive units (especially on the anti-corporate side of the equation). Corporates are divided among megacorporate lines with conflicting loyalties towards their employer(s), their industry, their social circle, their political beliefs and so on. Anti-corporates encompass anything from hacktivists trying to sabotage corporate networks and make some money in the process, to religious revivalists who believe the corporate class is suppressing an emergent truth about the nature of existence itself or simply that humanity has lost its way by losing sight of the divine.
During the onset years, before the shakeup, corporate tensions had been growing exponentially and some of the "smaller" megacorporations, acting in the shadow of the Hellion Group and its allies, were growing tired of their nonchalant behavior. And just as the government had fallen and public unrest was setting in, these tensions grew into a full-scale conflict of armed private security companies confronting each other in the street and cyber-warfare attacks crippling society for years.
When the dust had settled, the corporations came together to form the Terrestrian Council, a regulatory body of common policy where certain aspects of Terrestrian society would be "neutralized" (meaning they were in the common good of all corporations and should serve each equally), and certain crime would be investigated by the continental police (now under the guardianship of the PCCO) and not by private actors who were easily corruptible or under the direct influence of private interests. They also established "corporate protocol" a document that's the de facto law in corporate areas, and created a new set of regulations for the PCCO which concerned only criminal acts that the PCCO was set out to investigate (mostly violent crime).
Terrestria City in 2210
It's now the year 2210, 73 years past the fall of the Continental government and the beginning of the new age of corporate dominion. The Terrestrian corporatocracy has the 15 billion people of Terra divided into two camps. The corporate loyalists, people of all echelons and backgrounds, who are so indoctrinated with the inherent value of the system (order and a high standard of living) that they suspend their critical faculties and eat corporate dogma for breakfast. And on the other side, the anti-corporate movements of activists and subcultural youth who believe that the only way to retain their freedom is to dissent and fight the system from the outside.
With 15 billion people, these polarized sides are highly varied and don't act as cohesive units (especially on the anti-corporate side of the equation). Corporates are divided among megacorporate lines with conflicting loyalties towards their employer(s), their industry, their social circle, their political beliefs and so on. Anti-corporates encompass anything from hacktivists trying to sabotage corporate networks and make some money in the process, to religious revivalists who believe the corporate class is suppressing an emergent truth about the nature of existence itself or simply that humanity has lost its way by losing sight of the divine.
The Shenzhiwu flower crescent.
This is a brief description of the history of the world. In a couple of weeks, I will add a more in-depth look at the world as it stands in the year 2210, going into the multifaceted culture of Terrestria City and the forces at work. Be it megacorporations, the senate of organized crime, armed socialist revolutionaries, exploitfarmers, stilyagi fashionista, and much more.
Progress is as of August 27, 2019. I update the progress bar about 1-4 times a month. Currently, 80 of 205 items completed. Check the roadmap for what I'm working on at the moment. Please leave advice or any ideas you might have in a reply to this thread. Any comments are appreciated! And yes, this setting will eventually become an active roleplay but it is still quite aways in the future. If you are interested in more information about that please send me a message here on RPN or reply to this thread.
This thread has evolved from a simple advice thread to a general development log for my setting, but I am still actively looking for advice and other perspectives and will ask for it in future replies to this thread. At the bottom of this post, you can see the original post which is related to the first replies to the thread.
Remember that this is a statement of concept and is subject to change during development.
This project is in no way a criticism of cyberpunk and should not be read as such.
Thank you and enjoy!
MDL
This thread has evolved from a simple advice thread to a general development log for my setting, but I am still actively looking for advice and other perspectives and will ask for it in future replies to this thread. At the bottom of this post, you can see the original post which is related to the first replies to the thread.
Remember that this is a statement of concept and is subject to change during development.
This project is in no way a criticism of cyberpunk and should not be read as such.
Thank you and enjoy!
MDL
Thread History:
- The original post, industries of the future.
- Economic theory with
Idea
, back-and-forth starting here. - Hacking. How it works and corporate relationship to hackers
So I am fully invested in dystopian world-building at the moment and am looking at corporate structures and various industries, trying to establish a corporate landscape for a future where there are about 8-12 different corporations that monopolize the entire economy. Right now I am trying to think of various industries that need to be covered by these companies. So far I have thought of:
I know that's a big list, but they will be bundled into a few corporations that have conglomerated many different industries under one banner. I would welcome any suggestions of industries or sciences I haven't thought of. Or just businesses that might be cool to represent.
I also am trying to get to grips with how a basic corporate structure would look like. While browsing Wikipedia, I have come up with this basic structure:
Any ideas on this?
- Communications
- Consumer Electronics
- Energy
- Entertainment
- Biotechnology
- Media
- Manufacturing
- Automation
- Construction
- Pharmaceutical
- Retail
- Food/Alcohol Manufacturing
- Restaurants
- Energy
- Mining
- Tourism
- Farming
- Nutrition
I also am trying to get to grips with how a basic corporate structure would look like. While browsing Wikipedia, I have come up with this basic structure:
- President
- Board of Directors
- Chief Executive Officer
- Chief Financial Officer
- Chief Legal Officer
- Executives from subsidiary divisions
- Committees
Any ideas on this?
Please report any spelling mistakes!
Last edited:
