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Walking casually out of the boardroom you nod at your associates, politely greeting and wishing a good day to each of them in turn. You don’t really mean it. You could care less about whether they have a good day or get hit by a bus. The name of the game is self-promotion. And you’ve dedicated yourself to playing that game as if it were you who’d written the rules and just as importantly, knows when to break them.

Knowledge IS power.

You catch yourself thinking. It's knowing that your former division head liked to go to sleep with classic sim-sense playing in her head-ware, a true romantic, that had given you the in to take her job right out from under her. Investing a few thousand creds into black market snuff Bliss chips and hiring a Lancer to drop by her place unannounced and replace her usual sim-sense with the snuff chips had done the trick easily enough. Running all night, Ms. Tellerman was addicted by dawn. The physical ticks that accompanied her addiction had helped cinch the deal. It had only taken a week for her performance and appearance on the job to deteriorate to the point of investigation, and only a matter of hours at that point for the in house Corp-Sec team to ferret out the orgy of evidence your Lancer had secreted within her corporate loft. Hiring a filthy Edger via an intermediary, you'd had her accounts wiped out and enough accompanying evidence for even the bungling muscle heads in Corp-Sec to come to the conclusion you desired.

Two days and as many private meetings later, you're in your new office and Ms. Tellerman is partially lobotomized and out on the streets with a voracious Bliss chip addiction, her 12 year career and once promising future washed down the drain and already forgotten. Twelve years, unless you're the CEO or in some other top tier position, lingering that long without rising simply indicate you don't have enough ambition.

That’s life in the Corporate tiers of society. Do unto others before they do unto you. Infighting is encouraged as long as it's never sloppy or obvious, to assure that the fittest sit in the most powerful positions. It’s Darwinian Law at its finest and you love every second of it.

True some among the Corporate echelon of existence are sacrosanct. The necessary drivel of talent; tech heads, scientists, and other fodder who are the foundation that any Corp builds upon, but managers and administrators are a cred every two dozen. That’s why you watch everyone like you’ve got eyes in the back of your head, and you'd better if you don't want a proverbial knife in the back. The lax get shafted and they deserve it.

As you walk toward your new office and ignore the hot little dish that is your new secretary, you feel like you're on top of the world, and you are.

For now…
 

Corpse

 

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. A few idealists slip into the system, usually naïve souls who are of the firm belief that as the world emerges from the darkness of recent decades it is the Corporations that will light the way. That to truly effect important change you have to work from within the system itself. Sadly, even these fail to realize that however faintly this might be the case, the infrastructure of the corporation could care less about what's best beyond what will earn them the most return at the lowest cost. In most cases these idealists end up spiraling down a sluiceway of politics and compromise that after a month they wouldn't even recognize themselves anymore. The reason Corporate types are known as Corpse (a word both singular and plural), is that Corporate personnel are considered to be a hive entity, rather than individuals focused on a common goal and thus aren't really living in the same sense as most people.

 
Vying for the edge in all aspects, every Corporation has its own degree of infighting and while the dance of Corporate and Mega-Corporate intrigue and subterfuge is varied and wide-spread even the greatest Mega-Corporation must keep the big picture in mind. It’s all well and good to nab this or that tech or bio-genius under the guise of Corporate defection rather than abduction. But piss too many rivals off, and the Corp in question may find itself on a systematic regimen of political, social, and financial extortion, power plays, and simple sabotage that will bring it to its collective knees.

The Governments have each in turn bowed their respective heads to the most powerful Corporation in their geographical boundaries, with the rare exception. Making the modus operandi of these Corporations just short of dictatorial. Charging what they want, exploiting as they see fit, they wind and wriggle serpentine-like toward that enviable position of being large enough to gain the favorable attention of one of the Mega-Corps.

This is the sea into which you have cast your line. Whether a Corporate appointed liaison or the governor of a district yourself, you’ve got to keep your ear to the ground and your eyes open. A happy Corporation equates to a happy you. The perks are countless, drugs, tech, stocks, credit, power, sex, bliss-chips… the list goes on and on. If you can match the pace and keep an eye on those around you there's no reason why you can't stand at the pinnacle of modern day existence.

It is amazingly enough, relatively true that a Corpse who dedicates themselves purely to hard work and Corp-Minded intentions and duty, is usually immune to the nefarious politics that fill any and all Corporations. However such individuals usually find their careers crashing and burning if their boss is on the losing end of a power struggle and they haven't saved for a rainy day. Duty and dedication are all well and good, but mindless loyalty to someone can get you screwed and tattooed in a heartbeat.

The positions vary as widely as society itself. CEO’s, secretaries, accountants, lawyers, judges, sanitation-engineers, special-forces, Mil-Guard, Sec-Police, Black-Ops, Corp-Sec, sciences, arts and medicine etc… As many as are necessary to confidently manage and run the dominion that you or your Corporation preside over. The vindictive eyes and all too ready hands watching and waiting to push you back down in your attempts to rise higher are only outnumbered by those seeking to claw their ways up and beyond you, usually involving watching you crash and burn as they rise.

The Corporation is the Mecca of the modern day. The Corpse Mantra, “The Corporation's success is my success,” though many reverse the equation. The two go hand in hand in the eyes of those deeply involved in their protective, even  if harsh and unforgiving masters. This is life amidst the sky challenging Mega-Corps, life above the poverty and squalor of the streets. What's the alternative? There is none in your eyes...
 
Like both Edger and Lancer archetypes, Corpse have very diverse views and methods of fighting to improve their personal standing in the grand scheme of things. Most have been raised with all things Corporate, their minds filled with the propaganda of choice since they were toddlers, and each has their own reason for why they do the things they do. Educated among their peers, within Corporate sponsored schools and universities most Corpse have been raised to vie for every conceivable edge; and the gifted ones learn to make edges. With the whole process playing a large part in most of their lives from the tender age of 4, it's no wonder that they're as a whole; largely blind to the circumstances and conditions that exist beyond the limits of their dangerous world of infighting and back-biting.