History Main / CorporateWarfare

* In Eoin Colfer's ''Literature/TheSupernaturalist'', the term "paralegal" has come to mean commandos with law degrees. ([[DontExplainTheJoke Presumably it's a pun on "paratrooper."]])

* ''Literal'' corporate warfare is seen in a section of ''Film/MontyPythonsTheMeaningOfLife'' when the disgruntled employees of Permanent Assurance Company turn their building into a pirate ship and launch a raid on The Very Big Corporation of America.

** While the Imperium as a whole doesn't have much influence from megacorps, on a planetary scale corporations are often the big players, with them often fighting over resources and influence. ''Creator/DanAbnett'''s ''Necropolis'' is one of the rare times this fighting becomes bad enough for the Imperium to take notice and send forces in to ensure manufacturing quotas aren't harmed [[spoiler:it turns out to be a Chaos cult uprising rather than the normal corporate infighting.]]

* In ''Literature/JenniferGovernment'', the corporate alliances [[spoiler:come to the brink of all-out warfare, and step slightly over the line a few times before coming to their senses]] due to John Nike's influence.

* In Eoin Colfer's ''Literature/TheSupernaturalist'', the term "paralegal" has come to mean commandos with law degrees. ([[DontExplainTheJoke Presumably it's a pun on "paratrooper."]])
* In Frank Herbert's ''[[Literature/ConSentiency Whipping Star]]'', Mliss Abnethe has such economic power (controlling a corporation that owns several worlds) that it's no surprise she has her own household troops.
* ''Uller Uprising'' by Creator/HBeamPiper has the Chartered Uller Company operate their own military forces on the titular planet. Many of its military personnel are former Federation regulars, and are well trained and equipped.

* In the ''Literature/AllianceUnion'' series the Earth Company built a fleet of warships to bring the rebelling stations back under their fold. But the Union was better prepared and Earth eventually decided to cut their fleet off from supply, too costly.
* The ''Literature/BlackTideRising'' series has the Bank of the Americas employing and organizing various gangs and mercenaries to capture or kill zombies to harvest their bodily fluids for the (technically illegal) vaccine as things take a downward spiral.
* ''Literature/SnowCrash'' takes corporate warfare to its logical conclusion following the [[BalkanizeMe collapse of most traditional governments]], resulting in hundreds of thousands of micronations [[OneNationUnderCopyright governed by corporations]]; two highway construction firms engage in a protracted campaign of sniper warfare when their roads intersect.

* ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'' references the covert side of this trope. Grandpa Joe mentions that Wonka shut down his factory because rival companies employed numerous spies to steal the [[SecretIngredient secret formulas]] that made his company the biggest, and wealthiest, candy maker out there.

* In ''Literature/TheFold'', a bureaucrat is so frustrated by a research project's unwillingness to divulge information that he finds a context to dispatch an auditor. The auditor has a photographic memory and can smuggle out enough technical information to rebuild the project elsewhere.
* ''Literature/AgentG'' by Creator/CTPhipps includes an organization called the International Refugee Society. It provides the world's richest corporations assassination, espionage, and sabotage services. The Society uses cybernetic assassins to make sure its patrons remain the richest corporations in the world as well as the governments that support them. This is arguably unnecessary because they already have access to technology far in advance of what is available to the public.

Compare MobWar. Contrast to OneNationUnderCopyright, where the corporations literally are nations. May involve an ArmyOfLawyers or CorporateSamurai. PrivateMilitaryContractors are a common choice for such security forces. May overlap with NGOSuperpower. If one company attempts a hostile takeover of another, it will likely invoke MajorityShareDictator.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Cyberpunk}} 2020'' is a prime example, featuring a full-scale Corporate War between two of the biggest megacorps as a world-changing event and others having taken place in the backstory.

* ''Videogame/AzureStrikerGunvolt:'' The Sumeragi Group deals with many kinds of things, from economics, security to entertainment, but they're primarily known for handling [[PsychicChildren Adepts]]. They also have their own private army (including ninjas), numerous robots to supplant their troops, unmanned tanks and aircraft and certain powerful Adepts as officers.

* A necessary evil in the world of ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'', where many augmentation firms need their armies as a reason for corporations to not have a war in the first place, in a form of MutuallyAssuredDestruction.

* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'': The MegaCorp DLC introduces corporations as a special government type that can build branch offices on the planets of conventional empires, and two related war goals. In a Hostile Takeover war one corporation attempts to seize control of another corporation's branch offices, while Expropriation occurs when a conventional empire attempts to eject a corporation from their planets.

* Pepsi briefly owned one of the largest navies in the world. Subverted though, despite all the jokes about the company attempting to finally win the cola wars. The Soviet Union decided to finally give up on its many failed attempts to make a cola that could compete with Coca Cola and just buy some Coke's major stateside competitor, Pepsi. Only Soviet currency was almost completely worthless internationally so the USSR and Pepsi had to barter. The agreement is that the Soviet Union would give Pepsi Russian Vodka, which at the time had been attributed almost mystical properties stateside similar to [[ItsCuban Cuban cigars]] now, and in exchange the Pepsi company would provide its signature beverage for the Soviet proletariat to enjoy. It worked well for a while and [[TeethClenchedTeamwork Pepsi and the USSR made a surprisingly effective team.]] However several factors, including the UsefulNotes/SovietInvasionOfAfghanistan and other Vodka's made outside of Russia increasing in quality, suddenly global demand for Russian Vodka became a lot less. Instead the Soviet Union started trading off old warships it didn't need to Pepsi for their scrap metal value. Pepsi did scrap them, but it hasn't stopped rumors that Pepsi still has a ballistic missile submarine hidden somewhere just in case.

* ''Videogame/AzureStrikerGunvolt:'' The Sumeragi Group deals with many kinds of things, from economics, security to entertainment, but they're primarily known for handling [[PsychicChildren Adepts]]. It also has their own army, with robots as footsoldiers and certain powerful Adepts as officers.

* In ''Franchise/StarWars Episode I: Film/ThePhantomMenace'', the antagonist faction was the corporate army of the Trade Federation, secretly controlled by [[BigBad Darth Sidious]]. In ''Episode'' ''[[Film/AttackOfTheClones II]]'' and ''[[Film/RevengeOfTheSith III]]'', and ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', the Separatist army was also created as an amalgamation of several corporate armies.

* In ''ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures'', [[PrivateMilitaryContractor colonel Neopard]]'s two appearances feature it: during his debut his ship is attacked by the fighters of a group of corporations hostile to his previous client, only for them to back off when Neopard tells them he dumped said client because they didn't pay (why the corporations went at war with them in the first place: they weren't being paid for services either), and when he returns he's involved in a dispute for control of an industrial artificial planetoid, with the builders having sent a mercenary army to take it back because the committent decided not to pay for it when construction went overbudget and Neopard working for [[spoiler:the committent]] and the opposing army being led by ''his fiancee''. The second conflict ends early when [[spoiler:Paperinik, summoned by Neopard, unleashes a demolition vehicles that smashes half the planetoid, making its value decrease and having Neopard's client give up]].

** The 2009 ''TabletopGame/RogueTrader'' RPG de-emphasizes the war aspects of the setting (ironically), but given the player characters start out flying a kilometers-long starship that can fit multiple mercenary companies and enough firepower to level a small continent feuds between Rogue Trader dynasties can get [[{{Understatement}} bloody]].

* 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 ([[TropeNamer and in fact popularized the term]] "BananaRepublic", as it held a monopoly on the banana trade in the region). 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. It didn't take long for [[DirtyCommunists Communist movements]] in the region to spring up and push back.

* 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 (and in fact popularized the term "BananaRepublic", as it held a monopoly on the banana trade in the region). 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. It didn't take long for [[DirtyCommunists Communist movements]] in the region to spring up and push back.

* ''Film/{{Congo}}'' by Creator/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, in what's essentially a corporate version of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar.

* One of the measures the {{Megacorp}} can use against the [[TheCracker Runner]] in the card game ''TabletopGame/{{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 ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' version as well.
* A staple (and the main source of employment of the [=PCs=]) in ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}''. There are also the Desert Wars where megacorps pit their troops against one another to test their weapons and for publicity. For the most part though, most corporate warfare is of the "cold war" variety, fought in lots of small skirmishes conducted by deniable proxies. {{Player Character}}s, the titular Shadowrunners, find employment as those proxies.

* ''TabletopGame/MutantChronicles'' had several Megacorps duking it out for supremacy in the solar system before and after the release of the Dark Legions.

* The ''TabletopGame/{{MERCS}}'' skirmish game is based entirely around this.

* The players in ''TabletopGame/FleetsThePleiadConflict'' are interstellar corporations duking it out for dominance of the Pleiades.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'' features the spin-off game ''The Great Rail Wars'', in which six companies fight to be the first to build a transcontinental railway and thus win lucrative contracts from the Union and Confederate governments for transporting the superfuel known as ghost rock (which is most abundant on the west coast). Each company has its a private army of "rail warriors", and that's before you factor in [[FantasyKitchenSink the witches, undead, supernatural martial artists and automata with human brains]].

* Some of the main conflicts in ''VideoGame/UrbanGalaxy'' are between 4 major corporations; the GIG, U50, P&C, and Star Chapman. They regularly employ the use of both Alliance and Outlaw [[HiredGuns mercenaries]] in order to pursue their goals. There is even an entire district about the conflict between U50 and GIG.

* A necessary evil in the world of ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'', where many augmentation firms need their armies as a reason for corporations to not have a war in the first place, in a form of MutuallyAssuredDestruction.

* Corporations are the equivalent of player guilds in ''VideoGame/EVEOnline'', and they're able to go to war with one another.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T84nrp08MWo The old storyline video]] stated that before the discovery of the EVE wormhole the megacorporations of earth fought one another when they reached the practical limits of stargate expansion.
* ''VideoGame/DarkOrbit's'' ExcusePlot is that three mining corporations don't get along and your job is to kill everyone not working for your corp.
* The {{Mega Corp}}s of ''VideoGame/TachyonTheFringe'' each maintain a private SpaceNavy, theoretically to protect their supply chains from piracy. They're not above using them in inter-company squabbles, however, and the central conflict of the game is between one corporation, [=GalSpan=], and the Bora settlers.
* The whole plot of ''VideoGame/AceCombat3Electrosphere'' revolves around a war between two megacorporations, General Resource Ltd. and Neucom Inc.; although there are two more sides in it ([[UnitedNationsIsASuperPower peace-enforcing UPEO]] and the [[NebulousCriminalConspiracy terrorist conspiracy Ouroboros]]), they are much smaller in scale and influence.
* The background of ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' is that the playable characters are mercenaries hired by one of the two corporations that secretly run the world to fight over gravel pits, driven by SiblingRivalry of truly epic proportions between the [=CEOs=].
* ''VideoGame/{{Syndicate}}'' has corps warring over control of the planet, mostly via small teams of highly skilled {{Cyborg}} agents.

* ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'': Morgan Industries, like all the other factions, could just build a army and conquer everyone else. Then again, Morgan could easily win through economic means as well.
** According to the background information, Nwabudike Morgan (leader of Morgan Industries) managed to get his start by hiring mercenaries to take over some diamond mines. Morgan's Earthly businesses also included funding "mercenary forces, U.N. escorts... and creating Morgan [=SafeHaven=] Hotel Fortress chain 'for the discriminating executive'."
** The same applies to both of the game's {{Spiritual Successor}}s: ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth'' (the American Reclamation Corporation led by CEO Suzanne Marjorie Fielding) and ''VideoGame/PandoraFirstContact'' (the Noxium Corporation led by Director Eric Preston).
* ''VideoGame/{{Hawken}}'': Player Characters are pilots that fight for Prosk and Sentium, the two dominant corporations on the planet. There was originally a third, but its downfall led to the GreyGoo outbreak threatening the planet.
* The mega corps of the ''VideoGame/{{X}}-Universe'' series all maintain hundreds of fighters and a couple capital ships apiece, mainly to protect their supply chains from SpacePirates, [[AIIsACrapshoot Xenon]], [[BeePeople Kha'ak]], and sometimes raiding fleets of rival governments. [[AnEntrepreneurIsYou The player can engage in this as well]], and can also be hired as a contractor by the corporations and be sent on (among other things) station defense and assassination missions.
* ''Roleplay/CerberusDailyNews'' told a story of this happening in the War on Garvug story arc, between ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' and ''[[VideoGame/MassEffect3 3]].'' The war started when a bunch of galactic mega corps invaded the planet Garvug for supposed Prothean artifacts. The krogan and vorcha that made up most of the world's population fought back well and eventually the corporate forces pulled out...[[TrojanHorse only to return in the middle of Garvug's victory celebrations]], killing most of the government officials with bombs and assassinations after coming out with a well-publicized "debate" over whether to pull out from the planet or not.
** Early during Galactic history, the mostly-company-owned planet of Anhur effectively legalized slavery in the system, which resulted in a civil war between the pro-slavery batarians and the anti-slavery humans (and their hired guns from the mercenary company Eclipse) that populate the planet. Eclipse would later spin the positive publicity gained from defeating the slavers for all it was worth.
* In ''VideoGame/NexusTheJupiterIncident'', anything beyond the Lunar orbit is under the control of the {{Mega Corp}}s, after they won the war against the [[OneWorldOrder IASA]]. Each MegaCorp has its own private fleet that is frequently deployed against rival corporations and even IASA ships that stray beyond their space. The PlayerCharacter, Marcus Cromwell, is hired by [=SpaceTech=] to captain one of their corvettes. An early mission involves saving a friend of Marcus's, who is a captain in the IASA from two OSEC ships that ambush his ship.
* 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.

* The goblin homeland of Kezan in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' is ruled by many cartels. One character's backstory mentions that they warred against each other many times in the past, during "Trade Wars" which were apparently fought with bombings and ambushes in tunnels and storerooms.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'', there are five [[{{MegaCorp}} gigacorps]] that essentially serves as pseudonations. Each has a private army of mercenaries and robots that it uses to protect its assets and eliminate anything that might pose a threat to their status. One of the biggest events in the backstory of the game, the [[TheWarOfEarthlyAggression Mutagen Wars]], was instigated by a corporation inciting a cluster of worlds into rebellion so they could then take over.

* Ultor Corporation in ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2'' has it's own security force responsible for policing the district its headquarters are located in, the Stillwater Nuclear power plant, and a few other locations. This security force responds to crimes with APCs, attack helicopters, and their own special forces unit the Masako. The Masako are also used for targeted assassinations of potential enemies of the corporation. Various characters when faced with them describe Masako as a "Private army" and a "SWAT Team from hell" for a reason.
* The Shai-Gen Corporation from ''VideoGame/{{Crackdown}}'' rules over their section of Pacific City with an iron fist. All citizens there are subjected to constant surveillance by Shai-Gen's intelligence branch looking for any discontent, constant propaganda and emotion suppressants to brainwash the citizens into compliance, and ruthless purging by Shai-Gen's Enforcers should any discontent arise. Shai-Gen's Research Division is also heavily invested in genetically engineering super soldiers, frequently kidnapping citizens to use as test subjects.
* This is half the conflict in ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}''. The Corpus are a MegaCorp that control half the Origin System, and spend their time fighting the [[TheEmpire Grineer]] for superiority (whenever they're not being assaulted by Tenno, of course).
* ''Videogame/MegaManZX:'' Slither Inc is a MegaCorp that, among other things, provides energy for the whole city, and also employs an army made mostly of robots, primarily as peacekeeping agents.
* ''Videogame/AzureStrikerGunvolt:'' The Sumeragi Group deals with many kinds of things, from economics, security to entertainment, but they're primarily known for handling [[PsychicChildren Adepts]]. It also has their own army, with robots as footsoldiers and certain powerful Adepts as officers.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''VideoGame/CrashTeamRacingNitroFueled''. In the [[AstralFinale Gasmoxia Grand Prix]], the Drive-Thru Danger track has two restaurant chains, Nuclear Pizza and Toxic Burger, hoping to get a sponsorship from CTR TV. They do this by hiring a fleet of warships to battle it out in the background of the track.

* The backstory of ''VideoGame/BioFreaks'' is the growth of technology-focused {{Mega Corp}}s in the United States began to outpace the US government's ability to control the country as a whole, leading to government bankruptcy and the companies (called "GI-Corps", short for "giant corporations") becoming self-governing entites that were powerful enough to declare their home states as independent territories. This led to massive ethics violations and eventually outright violence and terrorism, termed the "Techno-Industrial Civil Wars", which were only quelled with the institution of the Secret Games Commission -- the sanctioning body in charge of the fights that take place in the game itself. The games replace large-scale conflicts with one-on-one duels between genetically modified clones that represent the states held by the GI-Corps.

* Background to one arc of ''Webcomic/ExterminatusNow'' is a [[http://exterminatusnow.co.uk/2012-11-11/comic/drink-the-cool-ade/the-smell-of-soda-in-the-morning/ conflict between cola companies]].
* Parodied in one arc of ''Webcomic/{{Newshounds}}'' where AOL attempted a military takeover of Starbucks, which failed as their troops were no match for stressed out baristas.
* The R&D wars of ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' in the "4U City" AlternateUniverse between a number of weapons manufacturers with strong ties to organized crime. In the prime universe Torg has been trying to take them down, [[spoiler:but all his efforts have done is consolidate them into Hereti-Corp against everyone else.]]
* In ''Webcomic/QuentynQuinnSpaceRanger'' the Empire of the Seven Systems declared [[http://rhjunior.com/QQSR/QQSR0000.html#Comic=54 war on the RIAA]] thirty years previous, by then they owned the copyrights and patents to just about everything but what set the rather libertarian Empire off was their [[BrainUploading brain-stripping]] of elderly artists and scientists, which is highly illegal for a [[AndIMustScream damn good reason]]. And apparently there were earlier skirmishes over things like [[http://rhjunior.com/QQSR/QQSR0000.html#Comic=100 laying patent claim over a species genome.]]

* WesternAnimation/WhatsNewScoobyDoo: The episode ''Recipe for Disaster'' has several ClassyCatBurglar ties breaking into the Scooby Snack factory through the skylight and sliding down on ropes to look around for the secret recipe.

* The premise of the original ''Film/{{Rollerball}}'' was that corporations had taken over for governments and waged wars on each other, until they decided wars were too expensive to their bottom line and instead invented the game of Rollerball where the companies could battle it out in the arena.

* ''Film/OnDeadlyGround'': Jennings the oil executive has a few hitmen on standby, and whole teams of armed mercenaries to bring in when that isn't to clear the way for his new oil rig.

* ''Film/{{Goldstone}}'': Furnace Creek Mining has security contractors armed with machine guns for some of their dirty work, and hires a local biker gang for the rest of it.

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[[folder: Western Animation]]