History Main / CorporateWarfare

One common feature of {{Mega Corp}}s, both real and fictional, is the possession of private armies and the ability to wage war.

* Happens throughout the Periphery in ''Literature/TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'', with the various {{Mega Corp}}s vying for market and resource control. Most corporations have small fleets of their own. One novel even deals with a corporation, whose CEO plots to taken on the [[TheFederation Confederacy of Suns]] itself after finding out that he's about to be indicted. As expected, the corporations are against any attempts by the Confederacy to regulate them.

Examples:

-->-- Flavour text of the ''Corporate War'' card, ''[[NetRunner Android:Netrunner]]''

* One of the measures the {{Megacorp}} can use against the [[TheCracker Runner]] in the card game {{NetRunner}}. Aside from using malevolent software to fry the Runner's brain, if the Megacorp manages to trace the location of the Runner, he can use anyting from [[http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/android-netrunner/genesis-cycle/cards/freelancer.png saboteurs]] and [[http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/android-netrunner/genesis-cycle/cards/dedicated-response-team.png paramilitary forces]] to [[http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/android-netrunner/core-set-cards/scorched-earth.png bombing entire city blocks]] in order to [[DeadlyEuphemism flatline]] the Runner. The page quote refers to a scoring card where the player's Megacorp goes to war against another corporation.

* Although the United States never created an East India Company, its closest equivalent would have to be the United Fruit Company, an American MegaCorp capable of dictating terms to ''entire'' {{Banana Republic}}s in Latin America. At its peak, United Fruit wielded enormous control over port and rail infrastructure in several Central American countries, owned the world's largest private navy (even if it were a merchant fleet), and strong-armed national governments into granting it unlimited access to local land and labour. Most importantly, however, United Fruit controlled the regimes themselves, and installed or deposed political leaders according to its interests—it is strongly implied to have a hand in the 1954 coup d'etat that overthrew President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman of Guatemala and installed a CIA-backed dictator in his place.

* In ''{{Film/Avatar}}'', the soldiers under [[ColonelKilgore Colonel Quaritch]] are part of [[=SecOps=]], the corporation's private security force. Though they do indeed protect mining colony [[MeaningfulName Hell's Gate]] from Pandora's [[EverythingTryingToKillYou megafauna and other threats]], they're also used to fight the native Na'vi if they get in the way of operations, going so far as to [[spoiler:blow up the Omaticaya's Hometree because it's sitting on a massive {{Unobtanium}} deposit.]]

* {{Gargoyles}}: In the pilot, Xanatos Industries' headquarters is literally invaded by mercenaries from a rival company [[spoiler:except they was actually his own mercenaries, hired as part of a [[XanatosGambit guess what]].]]

* ''Film/{{Congo}}'' by MichaelCrichton. Although they don't engage in open warfare, the corporations racing to discover the lost city of Zinj engage in constant espionage and sabotage to hinder each other's efforts.

** Not just pirates and natives; for much of the 18th century, whenever Britain and France went to war, the British and French East India Companies [[note]]the ''Honourable East India Company'' and the ''Compagnie des Indes Orientales'' respectively[[/note]] would dutifully declare war on one another as well. The Carnatic Wars in particular were fought largely by Company forces on both sides, with the British East India Company eventually emerging as the dominant of the two before the French company was eventually forcibly liquidated during the FrenchRevolution.

* One of the measures the {{Megacorp}} can use against the [[TheCracker Runner]] in the card game {{NetRunner}}. Aside from using malevolent software to fry the Runner's brain, if the Megacorp manages to trace the location of the Runner, he can use anyting from [[http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/android-netrunner/genesis-cycle/cards/freelancer.png saboteurs]] and [[http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/android-netrunner/genesis-cycle/cards/dedicated-response-team.png paramilitary forces]] to [[http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/android-netrunner/core-set-cards/scorched-earth.png bombing entire city blocks]] in order to [[DeadlyEuphemism flatline]] the Runner.
** The page quote refers to a scoring card where the player's Megacorp goes to war against another corporation.
* Classic ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' supplement ''The Traveller Adventure''. When Imperial {{MegaCorp}}s decide to get rough they engage in "tradewars". They send out military forces to attack the other corporation's offices, factories, starships and other property. This can involve killing the other company's workers and management.
** This is known in the {{Gurps}} version as well.

* Played with in the ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' series. In the first game, it seems like a case of non-corporate individuals rebelling against an overpowering megacorp, [[spoiler:until you realize that the main characters are being manipulated by another megacorp.]] In the second, there is one megacorp that is friendly (or at least one CEO that is friendly) to the Vault Hunters, but he doesn't take direct part in the conflict against Hyperion. [[Videogame/BorderlandsThePreSequel The Pre-Sequel]] plays it the straightest, with the core conflict between Dahl and Hyperion, though in this case it's a rogue Dahl fleet. The Pre-Sequel even makes mention of a "Corporate War" sparked by Hyperion that destroyed the central government of the galaxy, causing each of the corporations to be superpowers in their own right.

* The 'verse of the first ''VideoGame/GroundControl'' game has any warfare on Earth outlawed under the threat of nuclear annihilation. As such, {{Mega Corp}]s tend to fight their issues out on other worlds. The focus of the game is on a habitable faraway moon called Krig-7B that is being claimed by both the Crayven Corporation and the Order of the New Dawn. While the Order is more a religion than a corporation, they are officially registered as a MegaCorp (for political purposes), and their [[ChurchMilitant Pax Dei]] ("Peace of God") branch is, in some ways, superior to Crayven's mercenary army. For that matter, the Order's military tech is way more advanced than that of Crayven, but Crayven has managed to take BoringButPractical to new heights, so they're evenly matched.

* Played with in the ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' series. In the first game, it seems like a case of non-corporate individuals rebelling against an overpowering megacorp, [[spoiler:until you realize that the main characters are being manipulated by another megacorp.]] In the second, there is one megacorp that is friendly (or at least one CEO that is friendly) to the Vault Hunters, but he doesn't take direct part in the conflict against Hyperion. [[Videogame/BorderlandsThePreSequel The Pre-Sequel]] plays it the straightest, with the core conflict between Dahl and Hyperion, [[spoiler:although Jack is technically acting against the wishes of the Hyperion CEO.]] The Pre-Sequel even makes mention of a "Corporate War" sparked by Hyperion that destroyed the central government of the galaxy, causing each of the corporations to be superpowers in their own right.