Mega Corp: Difference between revisions

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*** Microsoft was almost killed overnight during the Crash but managed to hang on as the third tier cyberdeck software maker Microdeck (still run by the Gates family too); the third edition even made a plot hook out of them and possible ties to the Otaku. The company heir-to-be has been exploring the Matrix since his infancy. One story posted by a Shadowland runner says that he struck up a virtual relationship with her; for several weeks, he knew the exact right things to say, the right buttons to press to come across as her ideal man, etc., until she finally broached the idea of meeting in person. At that point, he abruptly ended the relationship and ceased contact. Pissed off at being played for a fool, she spent months tracking him down, eventually discovering that he was a pale, teenaged boy who had spent almost his entire life in the Matrix with absolutely no physical social experience. He had spent weeks studying everything about her on the Matrix and used that information to construct the persona of her perfect man, but panicked at the idea of speaking to her in person. Out of pity and/or disgust, she left him alive.
* Interstellar corporations in ''[[Traveller]]'', such as GSbAG, Hortalez et Cie, Sternmetal Horizons, Ling-Standard Products and SuSAG.
** ''Traveller'' Megacorporationsmegacorporations make good foils, and can potentially add drama to a [[Intrepid Merchant|Free Trader]] centered game. Alternatively in a court intrigue centered game they can be among the things a PC princeling has to take account of. The nobility and the Mega corporations are interlaced subtlely just as the nobility are interlaced with the Imperial government.
* The Alternity game's ''[[Star*Drive]]'' setting. The following Stellar Nations, which controlled large regions of space, all fall under this category: Austrin-Ontis Unlimited, Insight, the Rigunmor Star Consortium, the Starmech Collective, and Voidcorp.
** Although not all to the same degree- Austrin-Ontis have gone so far into [[One Nation Under Copyright]] that they are more nation than copyright these days, whereas Voidcorp is all about Profit.
* In ''[[SLA Industries]]'', the eponymous Mega Corp effectively constitutes a state; its numerous subsidiaries (some big enough to be Mega Corps in their own right) compete with each other in a kind of internal market. Real competitors Thresher Inc and DarkNight Industries are corporations in name only, operating as paramilitaries opposed to SLA.
* The Crysalis Corporation from ''[[Cthulhu Tech]]'', a game best described as an unholy lovechild of the [[H.P. Lovecraft|Cthulhu Mythos]] and [[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]. The corporation produces everything from household supplies to military hardware. In addition it secretly strives to dominate the world, supplying various cults and terrorist organisations and creating mutated creatures to fight for it. Furthermore, its CEO is actually an avatar of the god Nyarlatothep disguised as a mortal man. Talk about a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]!
* [[Tabletop Game]]/The ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' setting of ''[[Eberron]]'' has the 13 Dragonmarked Houses, [[Dungeon Punk]] equivalent to Mega Corps, each with their own specializations (Entertainment & Espionage, Banking, Consummer Goods, Private Security, Animal Breeding, Notary, Prospecting, Magical Detections, Overland Travel & Teleportation, Overseas & Air Travel, Hostelling, Healing). Each house descends from a bloodline blessed with a dragonmark, a unique set of birthmarks that grant them powers and skill bonuses relating to a particular theme. Each family used their advantage to corner the market on a particular good or service, as no non-dragonmarked could really match them.
** Elsewhere in D&D, the ''[[Mystara]]'' setting's Minrothad Guilds are an entire nation, made up of several islands, that's organized like a huge corporation. Each island, and each race that lives there, operates like a manufacturing division of the company, while the fully-incorporated "service guilds" are the equivalent of government departments (defense, etc).
* Hard-science RPG ''Blue Planet'' has several Mega Corporations that are states unto themselves called Incorporate States. Given that Earth itself is a [[Crapsack World]] in the Blue Planet universe, the Incorporate are very interested in the colony of Poseidon where the game is set.
* In ''[[Mutant Chronicles]]'', the big powers of the solar system are called "mega corps" and fit pretty well with this trope, but in a slight aversion they have by now evolved into [[Feudal Future]] noble houses of a sort. Exceptions are [[Eagle Land|Capitol]], which is still technically a corporation, and hence a democracy of sorts - you have one vote per piece of stock you own, and the company president serves basically the same role as an [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|American]] president. There's also Cybertronic which is focuses on creating electronics and cybernetics, it does have bits of an Orwellian society style.
* In ''[[Eclipse Phase]]'' the mega corps that were unable to adjust to a post-scarcity economy died out while those that could evolved into the Hypercorps. Most are small and decentralized, often existing wholly in [[Cyberspace]] ([[We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future|as labor is almost fully automated]]), but hold a great deal of influence in the Inner System. Mars is run wholesale by the Planetary Consortium, which poses as a republican democracy, but whose power is divided proportionally among the hypercorps who own shares in it. Venus used to be under Consortium rule until the habitats formed the Morningstar Constellation almost by accident.
* ''[[Exalted]]'' has a high fantasy example in The Guild, a vast trading concern that uses mercenaries and assassins to dispose of its rivals, is the world's biggest trader in narcotics and slaves, sells live humans by the thousands to the Fair Folk who devour their minds for food. And because that wasn't evil enough, they buy the emotionless unfeeling husks ''back'' from the Fair Folk so they can be resold as obedient manual labourers.
** The Guild also distributes medicine (when it's profitable), and by selling the soul-eating trickster fairies meals, they hold back a second Balorian Crusade...well, except the one time they nearly started it, but that was an accident.
* ''[[Cyberpunk 2020]]'', of course, with Arasaka and Mili Tech as the two most prominent examples, the former pure evil and the latter unscrupulous but not ''as'' evil.
 
== Theater ==
 
* ''[[Urinetown]]'': [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Urine Good Company]]
 
== Videogames ==
 
* Where do we start with ''[[Borderlands]]''? Let's see now, the one that's probably coming to your mind now is Atlas. They make powerful firearms, maintain a private army outfitted with said guns and other Atlas Artillery, and control most of Pandora, notably T-Bone Junction.<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KjR0rneQH8 They also fail propaganda forever]</ref> Then there's the Hyperion Corporation, who owns the New-U and Catch-A-Ride stations, the Guardian Angel Satellite, Dahl Corporation, who also makes guns, (Unlike Atlas, they have an [http://borderlands.wikia.com/wiki/Dahl inspiring and awesome] [[Badass Creed]]. Also, they're the largest weapons producer on Pandora.) claptrap repair kits, wind turbines, and can finance the mining operations for an entire colony which, by the way, the also financed themselves.<ref>They seem to be [[Half Life|the Black Mesa]] to [[Portal (series)|Atlas's Aperture Science facility.]]</ref> Jakobs, aside from making Wild West-ish hunting-quality sniper rifles, [[Hand Cannon|high-power revolvers]], and [[Shotguns Are Just Better|shotguns]] seems to be in on the colony supply industry, making prefab housing and fuel tanks, and made a small town for the workers employed to make their guns. Tediore, like everyone else here, also makes firearms, including Outrunner artillery. We're not sure what Maliwan, S&S, Vladof, and Torgue do, though logic states that Maliwan, considering their involvement in incendiary weapons, may have had something to do with climate control in the cold years of Pandora.
* The Caldari State from the ''[[EVE Online]]'' universe. The entire faction is composed of a handful mega corporations. All aspects of society are run by the corporation. Citizens are born into a corporation and effectively work there for life. Getting fired is not much different that getting shunned from society.
** All the other space-based corps are also mega corps of varying shadiness from "very" to "not much" and wield significant pull; a group of Gallente megas recently stood up against an attempted government takeover and succeeded.
* ''[[Ratchet & Clank (video game)|Ratchet and& Clank]]'' - The [[Trope Namer]] is ''[[Ratchet and Clank Going Commando]]'''s Mega corp, which controls much of the Bogon Galaxy, and sells highly destructive weapons to anyone with enough coin. Along with anything else. (But don't worry, all of their products are tested and 100% safe.)
** Along with Gadgetron ([[Ratchet & Clank (video game)|Solana]] [[Ratchet and Clank Up Your Arsenal|Galaxy]]), Vox Industries ([[Ratchet: Deadlocked|Shadow Sector]]), and Grummel Net ([[Ratchet and Clank Future Tools of Destruction|Polaris]] [[Ratchet and Clank Future A Crack In Time|Galaxy]]). Slight subversion in that just about every game has at least ONE Mega Corp, but they're not necessarily the same Mega Corp - they just control different galaxies / portions of space thereof.
* Crey Corporation in ''[[City of Heroes]]''. One bit of dialogue says that they have products in 90% of Paragon City's homes. Indeed, they're so large, they're able to fund their own massive army of "security personnel." One thing that doesn't quite make sense, though, is how they were able to achieve this level of market saturation in what is suggested to be maybe a decade at the most (extreme corruption notwithstanding).
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* The Mishima Zaibatsu and the G Corporation from ''[[Tekken]]''.
* ''[[First Encounter Assault Recon|F.E.A.R.'s]]'' Armacham Technology Corporation is a company primarily focused on aerospace technology and weapons development. However, said weapons development programs include [[Cloning Blues|armies of cloned supersoldiers]] and [[Psychic Powers|telepathic commanders]], and ATC itself maintains a series of ''massive'' [[Elaborate Underground Base|underground bunkers]] and a [[Private Military Contractors|private army]] that could probably take over a medium-sized country if it felt like it. A company with the same name and logo appears in the video game ''[[Shogo: Mobile Armor Division]]''. It is also heavily implied that Shogo is in the same timeline as ''[[First Encounter Assault Recon|F.E.A.R.]]'' making the two Armacham Corporations one and the same.
** The third game in the series gives a good look at the scale that Armacham operates on. The first two levels take place in an unspecified Latin American country where ATC operates a huge private prison, and ATC mercenaries walk the streets of the city in full uniform with armored personnel carriers, attack helicopters, and heavily-armed robotic weapons platforms engaging in a running gun battle withtwith hethe Point Man with total disregard for the local population. Later on, ATC has an entire army occupying the city of Fairport where the first two games took place.
* RED and BLU, the two mysterious organizations players in ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' work for, apparently each own one half of the world and are fronted by various companies, their main hubs being demolitions (RED) and construction (BLU). Further complicating the matter is the fact that the woman officiating the conflict [[War for Fun and Profit|not only owns and operates a weapons manufacturing corporation of her own]], but is also the CEO of both RED and BLU, ''[[NGO Superpower|putting her in control of every government on the planet.]]'' [[Its All There in the Manual|It's All There On The Official Website]].
* In ''[[Tachyon: The Fringe]]'' the mega corp GalSpan "The Galactic Spanning Corporation" does not have a monopoly on every product ever made, but it certainly eclipses the other companies featured. Those smaller ones make the parts of your ship. Galspan doesn't worry about such trivialities, despite maintaining it's own military fleet; they mine stars. For the main section of the campaign, they are one of your two options to take for exclusive employment as a contract pilot, and through morally dubious means, their game ending is {{spoiler|the only way your character can ever return back to Earth. Post-game Bora missions put you through some rigamarole towards the effect, but this troper has never found any definite mission or clue in the audio files that say the Bora get you back to Earth again.}}
* Concordance Extraction Company from ''[[Dead Space (series)|Dead Space]]'' specializes in [[Planet Looters|cracking entire planets open to get at the raw materials inside]]. Thankfully there's no [[Body Horror|alien plagues that resurrect dead people into twisted monstrosities out there]], and they [[Badass Bookworm|hire well-trained, albeit nontalkative staff people]] [[Improvised Weapon|capable of using every tool at their disposal]].
** It actually looks to be a rather okay business, and would've stayed that way had it not been for the Earth Military and their experiments and [[Church of Happyology|the Unitologists]] pulling strings and messing the business up.
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** ''[[Mass Effect|Mass Effect: Ascension]]'' introduced us to the Eldfell-Ashland Energy Consortium, one of Cerberus' shell companies and responsible for multiple "accidental" in-utero exposures to element zero. About 10% of foetuses exposed develops biotics; 30% develop fatal cancers.
** ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' gives us Elkoss Combine, a volus Mega Corp which produces, amongst other items, weapons, food, omni-tools, medical and beauty products. An ad on Illium advises users of one of their beauty products that uses sonic waves to cease using it immediately. Another ad mentions one of their weapons, which ''also'' uses sonic waves. Even better - Those two are the same ad, and its implied that the beauty project and the weapon are one and the same.
* The Shai-Gen Corporation from ''[[Crackdown]]'' and also {{spoiler|the Agency itself}}.
* Houses in ''[[Imperium Nova]]'' can seem more like this than [[Feudal Future|feudal nobles]]. Especially those operating in the mercantile, transportation, technology, financial, geological, or [[Private Military Contractors|military]] spheres.
** To be more specific, in most Feudal Futures a house owns a planet or an area on a planet, in this game houses only rule planets if they enter the Politics sphere and have one of their members (or more often hired retainers) run for senate. In addition houses can build facilities on any planet within range of their homeworld. When you add that in at least one galaxy [[The Emperor]] is an elected position the eponymous imperium sounds more and more like a Federation run by corporations, like the U.S. except the CEOs have titles like "Duke" or "Marquis" and are allowed private armies.
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* The [[Big Bad]] in ''[[Fur Fighters]]'' sent up his own vast Mega Corp at some point and it's shown throughout the game at many points doing many different things. Presumably Viggo got the money for everything from getting advanced technology from the dinosaurs (don't ask) and then decided to bid massive air-craft-carries and submarines to conquer the world.
* The Post-Terran Mining Corporation in ''[[Descent]]''. All they do is mining, but they control dozens (that we see) of incredibly large mines in at least eight star systems (likely more). They also have their own mercenary force, which is large enough that the ''combined Sol System military'' considers it a legitimate threat.
* ''[[Raptor : Call Of The Shadows]]''? Your employer is even called Mega corp, and they run a private airforce, sending you against other corporations armed with the usual [[Shoot'Em Up]] hordes of enemies.
* The [[Meaningful Name|Zaibatsu Corporation]] from ''[[Grand Theft Auto|GTA2 II]]''. They are a massive multinational [[Yes but What Does Zataproximetacine DO|Pharmaceutical Company]] with prominence all over [[Where the Hell Is Springfield?|Anywhere City]] (and the world), they sell all sorts of products, have their own marked company cars, and even a small military who's weaponry ranges from Pistols to Rocket Launchers. They also get a mention in ''[[Grand Theft Auto III|GTA 3]]'', advertising various products on the radio, though not yet as large as [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future|they are in GTA2]].
* The Tokugawa Conglomerate in ''[[Policenauts]]''.
* In the ''[[Zork]]'' games, by the end of the reign of King Dimwit Flathead the Excessive, every single zorkmid of commerce in the entire country was controlled by Frobozz Co and its various subsidiaries, which were all named The Frobozz Magic <Insert Product Name> Company, which was run by Dimwit's younger brother, John D. Flathead.
* SynTek Megacorporation Incorporated from ''[[Alien Swarm]]''. They own an entire star system, including several mining colonies, a penal colony, and a space station. They also own several planets and mining colonies outside their star system and several fleets of starships used to transport employees (dubbed colonists) and materials to and from their colonies. OntopOn top of that, they make everything from medical supplies, to food and drink, to weapons. There is also United Industries and the Telic Corporation, both of which are just as big as SynTek.
* SynTek is also the name of the villainous Mega Corp in ''[[SiN]]'' and ''SiN Episodes: Emergence.''
* ''[[Deus Ex]]'' has Page Industries, a true Mega Corp with major roles in (at least) network communications, space mining, and heavy manufacturing; and its subsidiary Versalife, a massive pharmaceutical company with political power because it's patented the cure to [[The Plague]] {{spoiler|which it also produces}}. These accumulated their power, technology, and R&D expertise as {{spoiler|arms of [[The Illuminati]] before their owner, Bob Page, splintered off to pursue his own ends.}}
** Sarif Industries in ''[[Deus Ex: Human Revolution|Deus Ex Human Revolution]]'' is close but not quite a Mega Corp, as it loses in the bio-augmentation market to Tai Yong Medical, who has cornered the market and has performed a lot of illegal research. The latter also has ties to {{spoiler|the Illuminati}}.
*** [[Game Mod|Mods]] for ''DX'' ''[[The Nameless Mod]]'' and ''[[2027]]'' feature WorldCorp and Human Horizon. In ''TNM'' you can either join or fight WorldCorp. Human Horizon in ''2027'' is hunting you down for a better part of the game.
* ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' gives us Abstergo, a pharmaceutical company on the surface which functions as the modern day front for an [[Ancient Conspiracy]]. Lucy Stillman mentions that her inability to be taken seriously after she finished college - and thus her inability to find a job until she was approached by Abstergo - was likely a series of failures specifically designed ''by'' them so she would have nowhere else to go for employment. She further assures Desmond that while this may sound ridiculous, they ''can'' do it. They also trace Desmond via his motorcycle's registry, apparently without going through the police.
** This is taken even further in the [[Assassin's Creed II|sequel]], where through a series of mad revelations, you gradually find out that Abstergo, under one name or another, has been manufacturing ''all'' important technological or political progress for ''centuries''.
* ''[[Whiplash]]'' has Genron, which produces the main characters, a crazed weasel chained to a [[Nigh Invincible]] rabbit, through animal testing. [[Rewarding Vandalism|Your job is to bankrupt the company by smashing everything in sight.]]
* The Hadden Corporation, source of paranormal-detection gadgets in the ''Dark Fall'' game series. Not nearly as big as most examples, yet its director's influence over events is vastly out of proportion to this company's modest size {{spoiler|due to his apparent access to prophetic powers and/or time travel}}.
* The Patriots of Metal Gear Solid fame count as this. They are a secret organization that runs the American Government from behind the scenes deciding everything from who gets elected into Congress to who gets to be the President of the United States and have a firm control of the CIA and the Pentagon who conduct their secret Military operations and projects funded with massive stashes of secret cash that can't be tracked by the legal government. They control all the media that the American people consume, everything from literature, TV, movies, and Internet is all filtered by them for your enjoyment and have all the major corporations in their back pockets which influence the government and the average citizen. They are also implied to have international reach as they have secret bases which are mentioned in the story in China and Russia. Not to mention all the technological achievements they have accomplished, they have engineered clones from Big Boss's DNA which Solid Snake and his two brothers are the result of, have conducted genetic engineering which is capable of improving a human being into a super soldier, created super-powered exoskeleton suits that are akin to Iron-Man that can give a man super-human strength and speed, and massive bi-pedal, walking, nuclear-launch capable battle tanks known as Metal Gears. Stuff like this would run the U.S Government's economy into the ground but the Patriots seem to have no trouble funding these projects.
* ''[[Xenosaga]]'', and by extension, ''[[Xenogears]]'' has Vector Industries (simply called "The Company" in the ''[[Xenogears]]'' ''[[Word of God|Perfect Works]]'' book). Vector makes everything from starships to cellphones, has a branch on every inhabited planet in the galaxy, holds conciderable sway over both the local and federal governments of the [[The Federation|Galaxy Federation]], and has been around for (at least) 7000 years. They have a rival corporation called Hymas, but {{spoiler|Vector actually owns them too!}}
* ''[[BioShock (series)|BioShock]]'' has Ryan Industries, Fontain Futuristics and Sinclair Solutions.
* ''[[Nexus the Jupiter Incident]]'' has a number of Mega Corps, and the game's [[Backstory]] reveals a war between the corporations and the [[One World Order|IASA]], which the corporations won, essentially abolishing all regulation beyond the Moon. The protagonist, Marcus Cromwell, works for SpaceTech, a relatively minor Mega Corp. On one occasion, two OSEC ships ambush an IASA ship in deep space, proving that they can do whatever they want without repercussions. The most powerful Mega Corp is the Kissaki Syndicate, a Japanese corporation that has managed to make enormous advances in the recent years (thanks to {{spoiler|[[Imported Alien Phlebotinum]]}}). The status of the Mega Corps is unknown after the events of the game.
* Facebook's ''Wasteland Empires'' has Omega Corp. They were involved in pretty much everything before the [[Depopulation Bomb]] and released a virus that turned some of the population into slime coated mutants-in fact, they likely caused the destruction of the world in general.
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] 3: Morrowind'' has House Hlaalu, a high fantasy megacorporation that belongs to the Dunmer royal house. The other Houses are less mercantile and don't resemble corporations, they are respectively a warrior aristocracy (Redoran), a feudal magocracy (Telvanni), a church (Indoril) and plantation slave owners (Dres).
* ''[[Killer Instinct]]'' has Ultratech, a megacorporation that has replaced all world governments. They kidnap an alien to extort his participation in a fighting tournament, bring demons to earth from other dimensions, manufacture evil-looking military cyborgs, and are bioengineering a velociraptor-human hybrid, among other things.
* The original ''[[Hyperdimension Neptunia]]'' had Avenir, which had the economy of Lastation so firmly under their control even their resident Goddess found it hard to outright deal with them {{spoiler|especially since they worked rather hard to keep her in the dark about their shady side for awhile}}, even possessed such considerable considerable economic power they had factories churning out entire armies of [[Humungous Mecha]] that gave them the military power of a nation state. By the end of the game they still retain most of this power, but under the much more firm oversight of the Lastation CPU to much more benign ends.
** The entire society of Gamindustri functions as a 70-30 mix of this and a [[Theocracy]]. The theocracy comes from the fact the Goddesses/Console Patron Units (CPUs) literally live or die based on the faith of the populace. The commercial aspect comes from the fact society is based on production of various video game hardware and software as government sanctioned enterprises (and which society is primarily geared towards supporting), to the point the lands of Planeptune, Lastation, Lowee, and Leanbox are video game console companies and their associated developers, only with the power and functions of a nation state.
** Oddly averted in ''[[Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart]]'', as the world of Gamarket more resembles four nation states, and each nation state has their own associated territories under the care of a general in a feudal lords and vassals arrangement.
 
 
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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* The closest ''[[Freefall]]'' has is Ecosystems Unlimited. They control most of the colonized planet, own most of the robots, and even one of the main characters' ''species'' (and they owned her too until they sold her). This may be due to the planet not being totally [[terraform]]ed yet, so it's not very populated, and E.U. ''has'' to be there for the [[terraform]]ing to be done: It's their job, after all.
* The Maytec Consortium of ''[[SSDD]]'' essentially owns [[Divided States of America|California]], has a standing army, and claimed all of Mars (until the Anarchists went there and found better mineral deposits). They're essentially the third greatest superpower in the solar system, due partially to their selling weapons to both sides of the CORE/Anarchist cold war.
* Creed Corporation in ''[[Friendly Hostility]]'' and it'sits spin-off/sequel/thing ''[[Other Peoples Business]]''
* HeretiCorp from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]''.
** The current arc deals with other corporations run by supervillains such as Nofun corp and Crushestro industries, though they are more specialized (mutagens and weapons in the case of the two stated.)
* [[Sarah Zero]] has [[Fun with Acronyms|PISSS]].
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== Web Original ==
* ''[[Nexus Gate]]'' has the Kovolis Corperation.
* Goodkind International, in the ''[[Whateley Universe]]''. They make a big deal about taking care of the 'little people' and being a responsible corporation. But the CEO disinherited and disowned his own son when the boy became a mutant, and ''turned the kid over to a company mad scientist for experiments''. Kind of makes you wonder about the company now...
** Since they're also behind the highly anti-mutant "Humanity First!" organization and the main backer of the anti-mutant paramilitary Knight of Purity, as well major funders of the international Mutant Commission Office, we probably don't have to wonder all that much. It's pretty clear now.
* BIOCOM of ''[[Broken Saints]]'' fame fits the bill.
* ''[[Open Blue]]'' has Remillia, essentially a nation whose main political parties are basically competing Mega Corps.
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130617171826/http://sosdan.conforums.com/ Suzumiya Haruhi no Yaku-Asobi]'' has TsuruyaCom, which spans multiple star systems in ''[[The Multiverse|multiple dimensions]]''. Its products include everything from [[Carrier Battleship|interstellar warships]], to [[Memetic Mutation|smoked cheese]], to clones, to dimensional gateways.
* G-Corp from ''[[Gaia Online]]''. Founded by death-fearing megalomaniac Johnny Gambino, and [[Badass Grandpa]] Edmund, G-Corp was responsible for a majority of Gaia's technological, scientific, and medical advances. Unfortunately, when Edmund left the company, things took a turn for the worse. Now everything G-Corp makes (from pet dinosaurs to hair growth formulas) has a penchant to [[Gone Horribly Wrong|go horribly, horribly wrong]]. (To put this in perspective, G-Corp has caused the [[Zombie Apocalypse]] ''twice''. In fact, zombies seem to be their chief product). Ironically, G-Corp is actually the ''good'' company. {{spoiler|1=The evil company is NeXus, run by [[Big Bad|Labtech X]]. NeXus's sole purpose is to provide X with the means to take over the world. Their most famous achievement is using [[Applied Phlebotinum|G'hi]] to create a self-replicating, almost invincible army of [[Everything Trying to Kill You|Animated]]. They also build a cool [[Underwater Base]], a [[Humongous Mecha]], and a [[Scarf of Asskicking]].}} G-Corp also has a copy in S-Corp, which consists of "Elftechs," and is owned by the Claus family.
* The Triptych Corporation in ''[[Strange Little Band]]'' is an example of one of these.
* Precision Horizons in ''[[Above Ground]]'' is an all-powerful corporation ruling the underground human community. The Guild plays a similar role on the surface of the planet.
* ''[[JibJab]]''{{'}}s Big Box Mart counts in regards to big box stores like Wal-Mart and their negative effect on people
* In ''[[Orion's Arm]]'' the solar system was ruled by Megacorporations led by transapient [[A Isup]] until the [[Grey Goo|Nanodisaster]]. Now [[Deus Est Machina|Archailects]] control most of the population of Terragen space but Mega Corps still have a great deal of influence in the Non-Coercive-Zone ([NoCoZo]) and the Periphery.
* TOAST Industries, from the ''[[Netland]]'' series. A rare heroic, or at least protagonistic (that is, they're against universal annihilation) example.
* Crockercorp from the new {{spoiler|post-Scratch}} timeline in ''[[Homestuck]]''. It's Betty Crocker expanded from baking goods to superscience, with handheld teleportation devices and telepathic personal computers. Rumors circulate that Betty Crocker herself is an evil alien "Batterwitch" controlling it all and trying to brainwash the population. {{spoiler|They're right; she's actually Her Imperial Condescension from the trolls' ancestors' timeline.}}
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* Surely Acme, makers of innumerable [[Warner Bros]]. cartoon products, must qualify? Certainly they're the only company big enough to arrange [[Product Placement]] whenever the coyote makes a purchase.
* Misery Inc. of ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]''. It's CEO, [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Lucius Heinous VII]], is identified as the mayor of [[A Hell of a Time|Miseryville]] on the [[Disney XD]] website, which still accuratly describes his position.
* Depending on how one looks at it the Irken Empire of ''[[Invader Zim]]'' could be this, or at least striving to be.
* Possibly [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in the ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' episode "Got Game" where we see a company named "Mega[[My Nayme Is|lo]]corp" in passing. [[One of Us|Knowing the creators, it wouldn't be a surprise.]]
* AlomstAlmost every product in ''[[King of the Hill]]'' is made by Mega-lo-Mart.
 
 
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== Real Life ==
* Cracked gives us [http://www.cracked.com/article_18845_6-secret-monopolies-you-didnt-know-run-world_p2.html "Six secret monopolies you didn't know run the world"].
* The British and Dutch East India Companies, as already noted in the ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' example above. Until the Sepoy Rebellion in 1857, the BEIC owned India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (all of which was simply called "India" at the time). The Dutch company owned Indonesia until 1800, when it went bankrupt. Both were among the very first joint-stock corporations, as well.
* [[Your Mileage May Vary|Depending on what you personally believe]], Thethe Church of Scientology can be viewed as an organization that, at least, ''aspires'' to achieve this.
** Some have classified the [[wikipedia:Sea Org|Sea Org]] as a paramilitary organization, keep that in mind.
* [[Disney]] maintains self-government over the large chunk of land in and immediately surrounding the Walt Disney World Resort (a.k.a. the "Reedy Creek Improvement District") in Florida. According to [[wikipedia:Megacorporation|that other Wiki]], "Within this district, the Disney corporation has the legal authority to establish its own building codes, power plants and utilities, fire departments, and to seize land outside the district under eminent domain." They do, however, still lack anything comparable to a standing army. ''Yet.''
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20130511060048/http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/362/emerson.pdf A citation] for those who like such things. Disney does have that sort of legal authority but the Florida legislature can remove it.
* The Hudson's Bay Company owned the vast majority of the land now known as western Canada up until the late 19th century. It acted as the de facto government for the area, issuing its own currency and enforcing a monopoly on trade. The company survives into the present day, though it's no longer the Mega Corp it once was, being best known as the owner of several Canadian department store chains. It lost its independence after being bought out by the Zucker family in 2006, having lasted for more than ''three hundred and thirty years''.
* Inco, subsidiary of the Brazilian mining company Vale, can sometimes look like an evil Mega Corporation right out of a Cyberpunk story. Richer than whole countries, it buys and takes lands away from their people to mine metals (mostly nickel), bribing politicians to pay the least possible amount in taxes and fees. Once on their land, the union and employment laws of the country do not even apply anymore, and things have sometimes gone so far that the company was removed from the FTSE 4 GOOD index for failing to meet their human rights criteria. It also created a lot of problem for the environment, for example their plan to let go of their acidic waste directly in the Unesco UNESCO-classed lagoon in newNew caledoniaCaledonia (a "coincidence" when the UnescoUNESCO decided to enter the coral barrerbarrier reef on the World Heritage List means that the part where their waste pipeline leads is one of the few not under the protection of the List).
* [[The New Russia|Russian]] company Transmashholding doesn't make ''everything'' but it does own all the locomotive, wagon, and other railway-related manufacturers, so it's only competing with itself. It acts like a cross between a close subsidiary and business partner of Russian Railways, itself technically a large corporation, albeit one owned by the government and whose president is a political appointee.
** [[The New Russia]] is, in fact, chock full of Evil Mega Corps; during the 90's, they were bigger than the government. The most notorious is certainly Gazprom, which produces natural gas used to heat most of Europe; other ones include LukOil (oil), RusAl (aluminium), MTS, BeeLine and MegaPhone (cell phones; MTS is in fact a subsidiary of the much larger but lesser known AFK Sistema, a Mega Corp that makes everything but is most known for telecommunications and a recurring egg-shaped logo that comes in various colors for its various subsidiaries).
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** They have only gotten bigger, too; they are now the majority partner in [[NBC]] [[Universal]].
** A lot of ISP companies in general. The only reason they even ''have'' customers was the aforementioned lobbying and making sure they are the only options available instead of just ''providing better service''.
* The [[wikipedia:IG Farben|IG Farben corporation]] was a German chemical conglomerate that consisted of such present day firms as Bayer and BASF to name a few. By the 1930s, it had grown to become the 4th largest corporation in the world behind Standard Oil, General Motors and US Steel, but more importantly for this trope it had become intimately involved with [[Those Wacky Nazis|the Nazi party]], providing much of the German economy's exports as well as a sizable amount of its domestic industrial base. This economic importance buttressed the Nazi party through taxes, jobs and war material, and IG Farben worked hand in hand with the Wehrmacht taking over the chemical industries of conquoredconquered territories, becoming one of the largest users of slave labour in the process. Some of IG Farben's wartime low-lights were the construction of a synthetic rubber plant next to the Auschwitz concentration camp making use of over 80,000 slave labourers, and the patent on the Zyklon B poison gas that killed millions at the same. After the war, the company was deemed to be too corrupt due to the high number of war crimes that it committed and was broken up into its constituent firms.
* The [[wikipedia:United Fruit|United Fruit Corporation]] came to dominate the economies of several Central American countries in the early 20th century due to its near monopoly in the Caribbean fruit trade. At one point United Fruit took effective control of the entire nation of Guatemala, giving meaning to the term [[Banana Republic]] in the process. Or, in other words: Chiquita is the devil. Seriously.
* Costco has become a variant of the "makes everything" in that it sells almost every single thing a human being needs to live, from cradle to [http://money.cnn.com/2004/08/17/news/fortune500/costco_caskets/ grave]. One could theoretically go one's entire life on Costco-sold products except for the textbooks you take to school and the tux/dress you are married in.