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Chapter III

The Board

Every colour on the map has an owner, and so does the sea.

The map of the world in 2126 and the corporate states that divide it: the big five and the lesser ones that fill the gaps. Each ESTEMP has its own sin. None of them is the main villain, because all of them are villains.

The world map

Fiction The board in 2126: who owns each piece, and how many army pieces they have.

The world board, 2126 World map in pixel art. Each colour is a corporate state (ESTEMP); the sea belongs to Thalassa Corp. Small numbered squares are the twenty REGESTs; a skull marks the flooded Djibouti Triangle and a rocket marks Alcântara. To orbit · First Asteroid, 2046 1 · Brazil — Federal District (Brasília) 1 2 · United States — The Great Plains, over the spent Ogallala Aquifer 2 3 · Mexico — Mexico City, sinking and dry 3 4 · Canada — The Canadian Shield, burnt forest 4 5 · China — The Loess Plateau, eroded land 5 6 · Japan — Inland Tōhoku, empty villages 6 7 · South Korea — Gangwon, against the demilitarised zone 7 8 · India — The Thar Desert 8 9 · Indonesia — North Jakarta, below sea level 9 10 · Australia — The arid interior, around Alice Springs 10 11 · Germany — Lusatia, craters of old lignite mines 12 · United Kingdom — The Fens, flooded 13 · France — The empty diagonal, in the Massif Central 14 · Italy — Basilicata, the inland south 15 · Spain — Emptied Spain, around Soria 16 · Netherlands — The polders Thalassa has not flooded yet 17 · Switzerland — Valais, valleys without glaciers 18 · Russia — Kalmykia, steppe turning to desert 18 19 · Saudi Arabia — The edge of the Rub' al-Khali 19 20 · Türkiye — The Konya basin, ground sinking over a dry aquifer 20 WESTERN EUROPE ×2 11 · Germany — Lusatia, craters of old lignite mines 11 12 · United Kingdom — The Fens, flooded 12 13 · France — The empty diagonal, in the Massif Central 13 14 · Italy — Basilicata, the inland south 14 15 · Spain — Emptied Spain, around Soria 15 16 · Netherlands — The polders Thalassa has not flooded yet 16 17 · Switzerland — Valais, valleys without glaciers 17 Gulf of the Dismissal (2111) Alcântara · First Corporate War OmniTerra 38 Kuro-Tech 31 Aegis-Med 24 Petro-Vanguard 22 Severa Combine 12 Monsoon Workforce 18 Great Rift Holdings 14 Sahel Solar Trust 10 Thalassa Corp 30 THE BOARD · 2126
Each colour is a corporate state. The sea belongs to Thalassa Corp, whose red pieces sit in every ocean. Numbered squares are the REGESTs (Western Europe is enlarged in the corner). Hover a REGEST to see its name. On a phone, drag the map sideways. Open the map full screen →

Cinco conglomerados dominam o planeta e funcionam como monarquias de acionistas. Em volta deles, Estados Empresariais menores fecham os espaços que sobraram. O mar inteiro é de uma única empresa.

ESTEMPTerritoryPieces on the board
OmniTerraOne of the big fiveThe Americas38
Kuro-TechOne of the big fiveAsia-Pacific31
Aegis-MedOne of the big fiveEurope and Mediterranean Africa24
Petro-VanguardOne of the big fiveMiddle East and Central Asia22
Severa CombineLesser corporate stateRussia and the Arctic12
Monsoon WorkforceLesser corporate stateSouth Asia18
Great Rift HoldingsLesser corporate stateEast, Central and Southern Africa14
Sahel Solar TrustLesser corporate stateWest Africa and the Sahara10
Thalassa CorpOne of the big fiveEvery ocean30

As peças no mapa são uma piada com fundo de verdade: elas mostram, mais ou menos, quanta segurança privada cada ESTEMP mantém em seu território. As fronteiras entre ESTEMPs não são guerras abertas; são tratados comerciais, pedágios, quarentenas e, de vez em quando, uma sabotagem.

OmniTerra

Fiction The Americas: logistics, extraction, synthetic farming and space.

Territory: the Americas, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, plus Greenland. Headquarters: Chicago. Space base: Alcântara.

OmniTerra is the largest company in the world and the first to become a country. It moves cargo, tears out ore, grows synthetic food on a continental scale and, since the First Asteroid, mines space.

What living there is like + contribute

It is famous for how rigidly it relocates labour: nobody has a fixed career, and an accountant can wake up as a harvester operator three thousand kilometres from home. In exchange, its propaganda is the most upbeat on the planet.

Its sin + contribute

It started the First Corporate War and lies about the colonies. Its slogan, Work for the Colony Dream, promises a paradise in space that does not exist and never will (see The Colony Dream).

Kuro-Tech

Fiction Asia-Pacific: cables, chips, utilitarian biotech and pacification weapons.

Territory: East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania. Headquarters: Osaka.

Kuro-Tech makes the floor of technology: cables, chips, industrial implants, practical biotech. Nothing is pretty; everything works. It also makes internal pacification weapons: batons, containment ammunition, gas, riot vehicles.

Security as a service + contribute

Kuro-Tech hires out security to other corporations. An ESTEMP that does not want to keep troops hires a Kuro-Tech unit by the quarter, in grey uniforms with the black logo on the shoulder. They appear in Audit at Descoberto.

Its sin + contribute

It sold weapons to both sides of the First Corporate War and profited from every death. To this day, every war between companies is a good quarter for Kuro-Tech.

Aegis-Med

Fiction Europe and Mediterranean Africa: medicine, life insurance and the illusion of wellbeing.

Territory: Europe and the Mediterranean coast of Africa. Headquarters: Basel.

Aegis-Med is a pharmaceutical and insurance empire. It sells the feeling of being looked after: corporate health plans, mood apps, wellness campaigns and, for those who can pay, longevity.

Its sin: Tolerin + contribute

Nearly every implant in the world needs an anti-rejection drug so the body does not attack it. Aegis-Med holds the patent on the most used one, Tolerin, and sells it to every other corporation. The price is calibrated to fit a collaborator's salary. Whoever is dismissed loses their health plan, and with it their Tolerin (see The implant is yours, the title is the company's).

Petro-Vanguard

Fiction Middle East and Central Asia: synthetic fuels and crisis containment.

Territory: the Middle East, Anatolia, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Headquarters: Doha.

Petro-Vanguard controls the synthetic fuels that still drive ships, planes and rockets. It pioneered the harshest crisis containment policies: when something goes wrong in a territory, it isolates, fences and waits.

Its sin + contribute

It took part in the Great Dismissal by poisoning the Arabian coast of the Bab-el-Mandeb strait. Its containment manuals are still used by other ESTEMPs.

Thalassa Corp

Fiction The oceans: shipping lanes, automated fishing and desalination. Every new inch of sea is hers.

Territory: every international water on the planet. Headquarters: a platform in the North Atlantic that moves around.

Thalassa owns the shipping lanes, the automated fishing platforms and the desalination plants. In a thirsty world, that makes it the water supplier for half of the planet's coasts.

The law of the sea + contribute

Under corporate law, salt water belongs to Thalassa. When the sea rises, its territory grows. Its red pieces sit in every ocean on the map.

Its sin + contribute

It sank the Djibouti Triangle in 2111 (see The Great Dismissal of the Djibouti Triangle). In the Netherlands, the polders left to the Dutch REGEST live in fear of being next.

Severa Combine

Fiction Russia and the Arctic: the thaw as a business.

Territory: Russia and the Arctic coast. Headquarters: Murmansk.

Severa lives off the thaw: Arctic sea lanes opening up, ores the permafrost used to hide, gas. It is locked in a legal question with Thalassa that has no answer: is melting ice land or sea?

Its sin + contribute

It works dismissed people in quarantine in its northern mines, on contracts they sign because nowhere else will take them.

Monsoon Workforce Solutions

Fiction South Asia: the largest legal market for renting people.

Territory: the Indian subcontinent. Headquarters: Mumbai.

Monsoon makes nothing: it rents out collaborators. Call-centre shifts, accounting, data triage, nursing, construction: any ESTEMP can hire a batch of Monsoon workers by the quarter.

The loophole + contribute

The Corporate Quarantine stops a dismissed worker from being hired by another corporation. But a worker leased out by Monsoon is never hired by anyone: they stay Monsoon's. It is the most used loophole in the world, and Monsoon charges for it.

Great Rift Holdings

Fiction East, Central and Southern Africa: geothermal power, cobalt and lithium.

Territory: from the Horn of Africa to the Cape, including the Congo basin. Headquarters: Nairobi.

Great Rift sells geothermal energy from the Rift Valley and the ores in the world's batteries: cobalt, lithium, copper.

Its sin + contribute

In the Great Dismissal, it levelled and poisoned the inland side of the Afar Triangle to contain the crisis. The residents were its own collaborators.

Sahel Solar Trust

Fiction West Africa and the Sahara: sunlight sold by cable to Europe.

Territory: the Sahara and West Africa. Headquarters: Dakar.

Sahel Solar covers the desert in panels and sells the power through undersea cables to Aegis-Med. It is the youngest ESTEMP and the fastest-growing.

Its sin + contribute

The panels need water to be cleaned, and the Sahel has little. Whole wells have been fenced off, and herding routes that are centuries old now end at a fence with the sun logo.