re-theming an neo-feudalism

>>49859785
RE: heirs and marriages, how about genetic engineering, by which I mean that the feudal over-class are biologically superior to the average joe.
However, there's only so much science can do, so of course they turn to good old in-breeding to keep the superiorness from degenerating or something
Hence, they only tend to marry each other

>Morders among companies
>Sauron Ringworks Inc confirmed

>>49859929
Why would they bother with old-fashioned inbreeding instead of going full Gattaca?

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>>49859929
So since the castes are so genetically stratified making it a meritocracy would be pointless because your own children would come out the best anyway?
And you don't just allow equally superior people from other companies succeed you because they're probably more loyal to their family than to your company.
Over time the practice of hereditary positions becomes so ingrained people don't question it anymore.

>>49860084
Because genetic engineering is a dead end. Read God-Emperor of Dune.

All that "junk DNA" we're full of actually is useful in some situations and expressions. Pure optimization leads to a monoculture.

>>49860105
Blade Runner Spoiler: Tyrell was a clone in the original script of the movie. There was even a scene shot for it.

how would religion work in such a society?

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>>49859785
Good thread OP

I've been working on a similar concept for my setting, but where you seem to focus on the economic strength of polities/corporate states in neo-feudalism, I've always thought the concept works better when you think of things with a cultural focus.

In all cases, the powerful want economic power, but rely on the loyalty of a plebeian population to maintain it. In old fashion feudalism, this population was tied to you by land, you own all the land in an area and people need a lot of land to grow food, so they have to be loyal to you or starve.

In a moder/futeristic setting, reliance on land is not normally assumed, and while you could argue for it, it would conflict with the flavor of the piece anyway. As you said, borders among companies are abstract. So how do the powerful chain commoner loyalty to themselves? Sub-culture.

You are already seeing it in modern society, most massive companies manufacturing a culture for their brand. Starbucks, Apple, Vape compaines, Videogame companies. . . Clothing companies have been doing it for basically ever. If you can tie a culture to your brand, every 'member' of that culture is psychologically and socially obligated to be loyal to you.

How do you increase and maintain loyalty? Well there are a lot of ways, but one particularly effect and highly topical one is. . .

Celebrities. I should't need to go into detail on how celebrities can behave exactly like feudal royalty, complete with heirs and significant marriages and such forth. If the 'culture' is loyal to the celebrity bloodline, than that bloodline becomes so important to the brand that it is trivial for them to stay in power over the company, although there will likely be numerous cases where the beloved "prince" of a brand is actually a well-intentioned but foolish puppet of a board of powerful and ruthless businessmen.

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A king rules the land because the owner of nature (god) grants him the right.
A company owner rules it just because he rules it, he's the owner. It's naturally hereditary. Don't confuse ruling with managing though. You hire people to manage it for you. So the rich heiress doesn't need to succeed you as the CEO, but she succeeds you as the owner.

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>>49860226
It would be an independent, temporal power base. Sometimes shifting power from one feudal faction to another, or in turn being influenced or controlled by a faction for its own ends. Much like the Papacy in the middle ages was both a player and a pawn of various kings and dukes. That's for Christianity. In Islam the secular and ecclesiastical functions are unified; the caliph is both king and pope.

In a corporatocracy, the implication would be that the president would be the king, the board of directors would be the dukes and barons supporting him, the shareholders would be the landed merchant class, the common un-shareholding citizens would be the villeins, and the church would be a mid-sized corporation with cross-shareholdings across all the other megacorporations to various degrees of mutual control.

>>49859785
Why is it always corporations

>>49860259
>So how do the powerful chain commoner loyalty to themselves?
I would say permanent full-time employment would be the chain. It's the sine qua non of modern societies, from which all other power and benefits arise...for the middle and lower classes.

>>49860259
Everytime I see someone suggest CEO's should be legally responsible for the actions of their company I imagine a scenario like that. Where the "chief executive operator" is just a figurehead for anonymous shadow rulers.

>>49860311
Or perhaps a better example would be CHOAM in the Dune universe.

>>49860322
You feeling more for large-scale business partnerships?

>>49860322
Because we need more bodies.

>>49860322
Because we don't live in an agrarian economy. Food comes from stores, not from fields.

>>49860311
>In Islam the secular and ecclesiastical functions are unified; the caliph is both king and pope.

Eh, kind of but not quite.

It's mostly that I can't see corporations as fuedal governments

>>49860311
Building off your second point, the King/President would likely be risen through the political process and would once again arise from the BoD.

Meaning his position is highly unstable as he maintains his power only with the good will of the BoD who could remove him if he starts failing. And while he could make a motion to remove an individual from the Board and raise someone else up, it once again relies on the other members of the Board to back him up.

It would basically become a political cold war with back room deals and treacheries as each one tries to maintain their power and destabilize those of their rivals. I mean what threat would a company who produces a different set of products pose for industrial espionage?

In the end, it would be extremely messy while every member works to adhere to the two biggest rules of all of this.

1) NEVER GET CAUGHT!
2) Always present a unified front against external threats.

>>49859785
>A feudal system depends on the monopoly of violence, while a neo-feudal system depends on the monopoly of goods.
I don't think this is necessarily so. The point of neo-feudalism is that the logical endgame of capitalism is that it stops being capitalism and just becomes a rigid system where inequality is the defining feature rather than the supposed "free market".

In a neo-feudal system, corporations are no longer the defining power, ruling families are and they use corporations as mere assets.

>>49860311
The religious entity would probably claim non-profit status. Not a corporation per-se (can't have people thinking it's just like those sinful earthly rulers) but heavily immersed in the business world.
It can grant legitimacy to rulers, cementing their status. Important positions in their ranks are often granted to second sons of royal bloodlines.

so the common people are loyal to the corporate overlords for the same reason serfs where loyal to kings, they provide them with whats needed to live in that era(then farm land and now a minimum wage)

but what if loyalty was deeper even than that, imagine you where raised by wall mart, every scrap of food you've ever eaten, every piece of clothing you have ever worn was bought from wall mart by your mother who works at wall mart with wall-bucks(only redeemable at wall mart).

the indoctrination would be pretty intense dont you think?

>>49860460
Yeah, it's not a meritocracy anymore. It's all just families and inheritance.
But I think you can still talk about companies if they're cemented enough by brand recognition and culture. They're like the provinces of a feudal nation. They're ruled over by kings, but at the same time the kings rely on them for their power.

>>49860517
Patriotism = brand loyalty.
See also >>49860259

>>49860464
I can see that. Their non-profit status would prevent them from owning more than a certain percentage of the share-holdings and thus direct influence. But enough that that can shift things in certain directions or flat out prevent certain actions/votes.

That said, fully agree with what you've got there. Hell, those second sons are likely using their own position to try and help their families by talking with other second sons about business dealings and such.

It would definitely be home to those backroom movers. And even then would likely still maintain that position of "neutral ground" and often provide mediators and legal advice.

>>49860545
Is that even possible?

>>49859785
>Borders are a big deal in fantasy feudal europe, often a journey through multiple kingdoms is required to reach the special macguffin. Morders among companies are more abstract, the territory they battle over is consumer goodwill, exclusive contracts and intellectual property. How does that translate to obstacles for the main characters?

Keep in mind that territorial borders as we know them are a relatively recent development. In feudal states everyone who swore fealty to you and got your permission was under your protection, and all the land you had claims on and could defend were yours too. Most cyberpunk corporations are basically the same, any territory/product/goodwill you can hold/own/buy is yours, with no regards to where it is located geographically.

The mother of a dying child will pay good money to get a particular kind of medicine, only she's aligned with Corp Y and corp X holds the patent, with no intentions of selling. The PCs must get the formula and copy the medicine without being discovered as this would break the mother's oath of fealty to corp Y.

Maybe a particular dude is the heir to a grand estate. A corp wants to get his land and develop it, but he's not selling. Some pretense to rights over the land must be found - a bastard son, possibly one genetically engineered in secret by the party using DNA from the heir's dead father. Only then the corp can legitimately go to war over the land.

>>49860582
I think the comparison breaks down if it's merely brand loyalty. Serfs weren't loyal to their lords because they were ignorant sheeple, but because they were engaged in a social contract over the property of the land.

Neo-feudalism would either require some external threat (invaders? something to do with cyberspace, maybe) or heavy use of technology to ensure loyalty, at which point it's closer to futuristic slavery.

>>49860635

Touching on that last point, more for the sake of adding to the adventure. I would imagine any world where genetic engineering on a 'sentient' level would leave some sort of trace of it in the genome. Perhaps a side effect of the process or required by law to minimize things like this.

So you end up with corps doing Black Flags for it. Genetically engineer someone to put forward a claim, while raising it in an environment and with tech that would make it seem like another corp is doing it to make their shot at grabbing the land easier.

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>>49860582
With how rabid people get over sports teams, and then keeping in mind that every need is provided through the corp and all comrades and colleagues are met under the roofs of corp buildings I'd say yes. It's possible.

>>49860347
Different corps own different chains. So the equivalent of traveling through different realms is visiting different factories and offices staffed by people under different corps. They have their own company culture, way of doing things and way they talk.
If the system has been in place long enough they might even look different. Like ethnicities just developed from the social divide between companies.

>>49860657
Perhaps I need to ask This are corporations the government in this setting?

>>49860657
How about the external threat of a harsh job market?
Just like it's not really an option for a serf to just head out and start his own farm in this world start-ups have a hard time getting of the ground because of immense scale benefits for large companies.
And you can't just join another company. They'd never trust you.

>>49860732
Well, at this point they'd only be corporations in name only - the real struggle has ceased to be over economic competition to become political (and possibly military) competitions. So either the corportions morphed into neo-feudal overlords, or they turned into tools for the latter.

>>49860774
It's just when o think of neo fuedalism I think it's something that came out of the idea of that government is beast that governs least

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>>49859785

I'm going to use this for my sci-fi setting. For me though it's considerably easier since I've moved out into the stars, so the neo-feodalism is simply a result of nepotism combined with the immense wealth of planets.

The corporate literally solar systems, with the whole family in charge of different planets and space colonies depending on how trusted/close they are with the main branch.

As society moves into early post-scarcity, their corporate culture also starts morphing (since they are so rich that earning money is no longer important for them to ensure the highest quality of life imaginable). Thus focus shifts from the accumulation of wealth to the protection of wealth, and the neo-feudal corporates start building armies to protect their systems and increase their power.

Knights are the result of a need for armies and the effect of medicine extending human life span. Ambitious young people will have a hard time advancing in the corporate ladder because the "nobles" live so long. So, how do you find fast promotions? By becoming a military "knight" and commanding your own space ship (which becomes the substitute for your knight's armor and stead). Thanks to battlefield deaths there's a constant demand of the able bodied in this field, and if you show brilliance on the battlefield you can get easy promotions after your tour of duty.

If you want to be even more on the nose with this, exchange space ships and realistic space combat with mechas.

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>>49860774
There's still economic competition, there's just a ruling class that's just like royalty.
The idea is essentially a feudal fantasy setting where competition over land using troops is replaced by competition over value creators using corporate rivalry but that strikes all the same beats.

It's not about underhanded methods between corps to one-up each other (although it could certainly feature those) because it's not a cautionary tale about corporatism. It's re-themed fantasy and should set the scene for classic fantasy adventures but with different fluff.

>>49859785
>knighthood
Being a manager can be as cool as you make it. Remember, it's fiction, you can play fast-and-loose with the rules.
>There's an inefficiency in the supply line, this wing is sub-optimal.
>>How big is the loss?
>You can eyeball it or you can invest in research but that goes into your overhead.
>>Well, my character derives status from high detail reporting so I guess I'll invest.
>It turns out there's a middle-high sub-optimality in your supply tree.
>>That high?
>It's affecting other departments because it's bottlenecking the suply chain.
>>I guess I'll budget a taskforce to re-align it.
>Are you sure? You'd have to halt production. A level 3 expense.
>>Yeah, I think it'll pay off in the long run.
>Well, in the short run your rival is calling on you to justify yourself in front of the board.
>>Noooo, corporate intrige is my dumpstat!

>>49861107
Except a "dragon" would be a corruption scandal or something.
That's not heroic or inspiring at all.

>>49860084
One possibility is that you still need the best possible genes to get the best possible outcome. The most simple genetic engineering is simply sequencing the genome of both parents and selecting the genes that would result in the optimal offspring. In other words the better the genes of the parents the better the genes of the children still holds true, if a genetically engineered man marries a genetically engineered wife his children will be more fit than if he married a regular woman.

Alternative options
>Genetic modification was later outlawed to keep the plebs from joining the elites
>There is no genetic modification, instead active selection is used to breed the best possible children
>Good old fashioned political marriages

>>49861107
>>Noooo, corporate intrige is my dumpstat!
I like this.

>>49859785
There was that recent remake of John Carter set on Mars which was basically highly technologically advanced feudalism, complete with warring nations, political marriages, etc.

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>>49860084
>Let's rapidly approach a genetic bottleneck the likes of no species has ever seen
>I mean other than maybe prehistoric plants we re-created from frozen remains found in permafrost muck

Yes, yes. This is a smart idea.

>>49860084
>>49860127
>the concept put forth by this sci-fi work won't pan out because of a separate sci-fi work

Brilliant, you should teach astrophysics.

>>49860084
Probably the same reason society is feudal instead of being run by mega-corporations.

Technology and social organization declined due to some catastrophe a few centuries ago. Maybe Earth was destroyed by a large asteroid impact or nuclear war in the early stages of colonization of the solar system or something.

The great-grandparents of the current nobles were genetically engineered ubermensch-tier rich people, but the tech needed to do that kind of engineering is no longer available so the only way to preserve this genetic superiority is with arranged marriages among their descendants.