One Nation Under Copyright: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:Caldari State 104.jpg|link=EVE Online|frame|Yes, their flag is a copyright sign. (Or a euro sign, depending on which way you look at it)]]

 

A [[Mega Corp]] is often a large, shadowy organization with a power base and structure that rivals even [[The Government]]. When you take it one step further, with the Mega Corp actually ''being'' the government, you get '''One Nation Under Copyright''', or a "corporate state."

One Nation Under Copyright may employ [[Law Enforcement, Inc.]], or even own them outright as a subsidiary.

 

 

Very common in the [[Cyberpunk]] genre. If the story is set [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]], then it more likely than not takes place in either a [[Divided States of America]] or [[Japan Takes Over the World|Japan]].

{{examples}}

 

== [[Film]] ==

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* ''[[Snow Crash]]'' has the United States being split into thousands of micronations, each one run by a different franchise company. Everything, from roads, to jails, to the Mafia, is now run like McDonald's. Neighborhoods are called burbclaves, a portmanteau of "suburban enclave", and act as autonomous nations with their own laws and currency set by the owning company. An American might encounter dozens of "Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong" neighborhoods scattered about his nearby area just like any other business chain. Of particular note is the Mafia, which now runs out in the open as a legitimate business, complete with marketing slogan ("You've got a friend in the family!") and friendly mascot (the reigning don, Uncle Enzo).

* In the dystopian novel ''[[Jennifer Government]]'', not only do corporate states run America, but every citizen takes the last name of their business. The heroine is a government agent; the villain, John Nike, works for Nike, and children take the last names of the corporation that owns their school. The central point of the novel was that this was where we'd be eventually headed if deregulation continued the way it was going.

* In ''[[The Pendragon Adventure]]'', Blok functions like this on Quillan. They own ''everything'', even art.

Yossarian: What difference does that make? He's dead.

Milo Minderbinder: Then his family will get it.

Milo Minderbinder: Then his parents will get it.

Yossarian: They don't need it, they're rich.

* The Sullustan homeworld Sullust, in the ''[[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]'', is this. The SoroSuub corporation owns the planet and employs most of its inhabitants. Unlike most examples, SoroSuub is depicted as rather benign, working for the well being of the Sullustans.

* Both Beowulf and [[Big Bad|Mesa]] in ''[[Honor Harrington|Honorverse]]'' are run along the corporativist lines, which is hardly surprising, as Mesa was settled essentially by a group of rogue Beowulfers. Both are controlled by the board of directors, with votes arranged corresponding to the owned stock, though Mesa muddles the water a bit, {{spoiler|being secretly run by the [[Ancient Conspiracy]]}}. Manticore initially was also envisioned in the same way, though it mutated into [[The Kingdom|something]] [[The Empire|else]] [[The Federation|entirely]]. It's also mentioned that such political arrangement isn't anything unusual in the galaxy.

 

 

* The Blue Sun brand is omnipresent throughout ''[[Firefly]]'', appearing on everything from coffee cans to neuroimagers; [[Word of God|Word of Joss]] says that "practically half the government was Blue Sun." They're also hinted to have backed said government's [[Break the Cutie|mind-shattering experiments]] on River; she attacks the logos on their products in two different episodes.

* According to background materials and the official tie-in CD, the Brakiri in [[Babylon 5]] are an example of this.

 

== [[Tabletop RPG]] ==

* In the original ''[[Traveller]]'', a number of planets were controlled by corporations. Because of the way ''Traveller'' stats were set up, the corporate planets were most likely to be small, low-population planets, more of a company town or trading post than a full-fledged corporate republic.

* Naruni Enterprises in ''[[Rifts]]'', who are considered a major political power in the Three Galaxies setting. They have been known to equip entire planets with military gear... then repossess them if they don't pay up on time.

** The game's background mention precise examples in the game-universe's history. The Earth-based First Republic was really a governmental figure-head, with a number of [[Mega Corp|MegaCorps]] holding the only real power. After the fall of the First Republic, both era known as The Diaspora and to a lesser extent during the Second Republic, some planets were openly owned and operated by corporate entities.

* The [[GURPS]] ''Terradyne'' setting is named after the first off-planet [[Mega Corp]], which eventually gained enough raw muscle to secede from Earth and dictate terms to the rest of humanity.

* The Corporation RPG features a world run by five mega-corporations.

* ''Blue Planet'' has the Incorporate, corporations who bought "failed states" after a global famine with the consent of the UN to restore governance in those areas. They are run like corporations, but have their own armies, issue their own money and sit on the GEO (UN replacement) council just like nations.

* Much of the inner solar system in [[Eclipse Phase]] is governed by the Planetary Consortium, which is a confederation of the major inner-system corporations.

 

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Star Control]] II'''s Druuge of the Persei system take this trope to a ridiculous extent: The Crimson Corporation is not only a government substitute, but owns all the natural resources and inhabitants as well. Druuge who quit (or are fired from) the corporation are instantly found guilty of stealing air and are sentenced to death. Druuge who are no longer useful, cannot work, or are in debt are tossed into the reactors of the nearest power station to be used as fuel.

* ''[[Galactic Civilizations]]'': The Korx would sell you their own mothers if they hadn't already sold them to someone else.

** The reason for that is likely that if you could, Morgan Industries could be a [[Fridge Logic|non-corporate state]]. As it stands, the available choices [[Alternate Character Interpretation|can be seen]] as representing different ''variations'' of One Nation Under Copyright (Democracy: ''One Man, One Share'', Fundamentalist: ''God, Incorporated'', Green: ''A green economy is a sustainable economy'', Power: ''Power is the shortest path to wealth'')

* On the [[Older Than the NES|old]] BBC Micro there was a space-trader game called ''[[Elite]]''. This featured some planets that were corporate states.

* The Shin-Ra company from ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]''. Ostensibly, there is a mayor to the city of Midgar, but his offices are in the company building, and he does not have any real power. His only real job is managing all of Shinra's archived files.

* The Czerka Corporation from ''[[Star Wars]]: [[Knights of the Old Republic]]'', while functioning like a normal mega-corporation in Republic Space, actually has complete control over at least two known planets, Tattooine and Kashyyyk, in the first game.

** One of the loading screens says they and other mega-corps police themselves, being too large for the Republic to control. Czerka seems to still be in The Reblic's good graces in the second one despite openly dealing arms to both sides.

** Since the death of [[Only Sane Man|Otro Gariushi]] and the recapture of Caldari Prime, the glue holding the State together has increasingly become [[Putting on the Reich|Tibus Heth and his underlings.]]

* With the possible exception of ''[[Armored Core]] 2'' and its successor, Another Age, the world is dominated not by one, but multiple corporate states.

* The ''[[X (video game)|X-Universe]]'' series of games have the Teladi, a race of [[Petting Zoo People|anthropomorphic lizard-people]] with [[Planet of Hats|an almost religious devotion toward profit.]] They even refer to their race as 'The Teladi Company' and their ruler's official position is chairman.

** Whose name in the first game is Ceo. [[Lampshade Hanging]], much?

* The Vector corporation in the ''[[Xenosaga]]'' series fits this trope to a T. Almost to the degree of being ridiculous, given certain revelations in the third game {{spoiler|such as the fact that Vector's CEO is the head of a religious organization hell-bent on Vector's destruction too}}.

 

== Web Original ==

== Real Life ==

* The Italian city-states of [[Venice]] and Genoa. Aside from the usual practices of a maritime trading state, both cities also respectively specialized and profited from otherwise private enterprises like shipbuilding and banking. Pretty much anyone in government was either a merchant or a noble, although some posts required applicants to forgo all business practices for the duration of their office.

** Their Russian counterpart, the Russian-American Company, owned and ruled [[Alaska]].

* Going eastward: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (known in English as the Dutch East India Company). The first stock-based, multinational corporation that controlled parts of [[Indonesia]] for almost 200 years. They had their own military, minted their own currency, and had the right to establish colonies, negotiate treaties, even wage wars! Their rule made an everlasting impression to locals even after they went bankrupt and the official Dutch government took over. So much that their legacy lives on to this day; the local word for colonial forces is still "Kompeni".

* The emirate of [[Dubai]] is run very much like a business enterprise based around tourism, trade, and finance.

* [[Anarchy Is Chaos|Anarchists]] and left Marxists say that so-called "socialist" or "communist" states are nothing of the sort, instead terming both them and fascist regimes State Capitalist, because they become this. In fact, both Marx and Lenin ''admired'' large monopolistic business for increasing efficiency! Basically, they just did this with the state, coming at it by the opposite route. This seems true, because workers are for damn sure ''not'' in control of those states.

* In the USA in the 19th century, [[wikipedia:Company town|Company Towns]] were commonplace. They had their own money (chits) their own stores, and their own lenders, among numerous other things. Their excesses helped fuel the rise of Labor Unions. And inspired the song "Sixteen Tons" (with a part of the chorus going ''"St. Peter don't you call me/'Cause I can't go/I owe my soul/To the Company Store."'') They were forcibly publicized after one entire company town (Pullman, Illinois) disrupted pretty much the entire rail industry during its riotous strike.

* The old [[wikipedia:Belgian Congo|Congo Free State]]. The people of [[Belgium]] were adamantly ''against'' joining the imperialism game, so King Leopold pulled some strings to have the whole thing done as a private enterprise initiative, turning the land into private grounds with a captive workforce that took in chains, ammo and mercenaries and churned out ivory and corpses.

 

{{reflist}}