Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!hoptoad!ptsfa!pyramid!decwrl!labrea!rutgers!rochester!PT.CS.CMU.EDU!SPICE.CS.CMU.EDU!skh From: skh@SPICE.CS.CMU.EDU.UUCP Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk Subject: Story ideas Message-ID: <323@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> Date: Sat, 7-Nov-87 17:49:08 EST Article-I.D.: PT.323 Posted: Sat Nov 7 17:49:08 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 8-Nov-87 18:44:08 EST Sender: netnews@PT.CS.CMU.EDU Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 62 While flaming out Ray Frank, I got a great idea for cyberpunk. I haven't read any (?) cyberpunk novels, but I hope to get to it soon. Well, ok, I've read some P.K.Dick, and actually this was probably implicit in Bladerunner. Anyway, here it is: COMPANIES AS GANGS Some time in the distant dusty legal history of our society, some jerk came up with the idea that COMPANIES WERE INDIVIDUALS. Therefore, they have all the rights of individuals. (with none of the responsibility -- no ONE PERSON is responsible for the company's actions. Or maybe that's the president or something, while the chairman is who makes the decisions...) Basically it's getting harder to survive without belonging to some company. This "join or die" philosophy naturally links in with gangs, gang warfare, etc. Companies already have "industrial espionage" -- and the CIA is practically a political extension of the american corporate interests. Push this further. Make it really gross (as if it isn't already). Company headquarters/land will be heavily armed -- there may be times when your apartment isn't safe (or should you just live on company land?). There is a problem with "who do they sell to?". I suggest that based upon the idea of replacing centralized government with "company policy", that towns, maybe even cities, will be replaced with local companies, which have absolute power in the lands they own. They sell to eachother, I suppose. But what? Maybe they don't even do that any more, and the novel is set in the aftermath. Basically a return to feudalism? Yeah, people might want to investigate this political "de-evolution" in the face of decreasing (personal) frontiers. It's happening. Remind us. You might want to have the novel progress from individual freedoms to company freedoms to not even that. Like when your company gets bought out and disbanded/dissolved ... sorry, but we need the land... Try taking the bill of rights and applying it to companies. Take your favorite view of the future and make a company that did it and succeeded (as a legend, of course). I think they were working toward FTL drives... Group makes time machine and goes forward to where everybody else has died off... mostly 'cause they wanted to... I think this is necessary to get the desired effect -- that while some eroded the freedoms of their workers (and themselves), others banded together to try to get out of the mess. Might be cool to have one chapter per "individual" right... How is "fair trading" enforced? The SEC is another gang, of course, but... -- Steve -- Steve Handerson Carnegie-Mellon University Computer Science Dept. ARPA: skh@spice.cs.cmu.edu UUCP: ...!spice.cs.cmu.edu!skh (I think) Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible. (Monsanto ad?) 4 lines? I'll have to make it up in the body...