CEO: This episode of Terrible Writing Advice
is brought to you by Megacorp! And I guess Skillshare helped. Are you struggling to write a compelling villain? Is it just too much work to create a nefarious
baddie to properly challenge your main characters? Is there a way to cheat and create an easy,
faceless antagonist to oppose the good guys with near zero effort on the writerās part? Writer, what you need is a Mega corporation. Here at Megacorp we provide all of your antagonist
needs so all a writer need do is sit back and rake in that cash for the cheap cheap
price of your ethics and self awareness. Concerned about the upfront world building
cost of creating a Mega corporation? Donāt worry. Megacorp makes its easy. Just follow our guide and soon any writer
can find themselves building better worlds. Megacorp is the best solution for menacing
the heroes with a wide variety of sinister assets. Are the empireās storm troopers failing
to impress? Megacorp has its own team of high tech private
military contractors on call and ready to deploy in a momentās notice. These cutthroat mercenaries are as well armed
as they are ugly and they are very ugly complete with savage ābad guyā scars and psychotic
dispositions. Yes these soldiers were likely veterans who
served their country faithfully before being forced to join the PMC due to hard economic
times and yes they likely suffer from untreated PTSD, but we will overlook that as the main
characters mow them down without remorse. These PMCs also come equipped with the latest
combat drone technologies because what we fail to spend on PTSD treatment for our mercenaries
we spend on high tech robotic weapons instead. Our PMCs are so powerful that they can wage
multi front campaigns to conquer entire nations despite the absolute crippling expense of
waging modern war. Should our PMCs not be enough of a threat
then Megacorp has a far more terrifying weapon to wield against the heroes. Lawyers! Even the most deadly of heroes can easily
be mired in red tape and petty bureaucracy. See you in court goody two shoes heroes. Why do would we resort to litigation after
extra legal death squads? I uhā¦ it was in the memo somewhere. Our crack legal teams keep Megacorpās public
record spotless and anyone who says otherwise will be sued into the stone age faster than
you can say ālibel and slanderā. Megacorp does this just for fun since we own
the government anyway. We could just make it illegal to post negative
review of our products and save ourselves a ton of legal fees, but that would cost the
story the writerās poorly researched court room scene. Speaking of money down the tubes, Megacorp
is so expansive that we run everything. From the government, military, economy, education,
colonization, every aspect of life is under Megacorpās control. But how can the audience know that a sinister
megacorp has taken over the world? Well they wonāt miss it because our slogan
and logo is pasted onto pretty much everything. Will this dilute the value of our brand? Of course not. We trademarked the concept of ābrandā
after all. It is important to remind everyone that we
are everywhere and that our sole goal is to turn a profit from everything. We own the police. We own the hospitals. We probably own you. Sunlight? We purchased that a few years ago. Great investment. We now have an autopay feature to make sure
you donāt miss a payment for your sunlight and oxygen bill. We even own the bio engineered plague that
is ravaging the population as well as the cure which we will withhold giving the virus
plenty of time to mutate and further kill off our customer base as well as drive up
wages in the plagueās aftermath. Should we have thought this out further? Of course not! The highly skilled board members of Megacorp
would never second guess themselves, mostly because the actual hierarchy of Megacrop is
suspiciously absent minus the odd corrupt CEO. Megacorp is not a dynamic organization filled
with a plurality of perspectives and individuals with their own motives and goals. We are a nebulous and monolithic organization
that exists solely to commit evil acts and sometimes to act as a strawman. We are here to let the audience know that
money is bad and that you should give as much of it as possible to the author. Creating a multi tiered organization full
of intrigue and power plays would only distract from the authorās soap box. Having the heroes try to navigate the ruthless
world of cutthroat corporate politics, trying to distinguish friend form foe and stay one
step ahead of the endless web of betrayals, sabotage, and the duplicitous charisma of
ambitious corporate officers might sound like an interesting story element, but doing so
would only create problems for the writer. This is where Megacorp can really shine as
its monolithic nature saves the writer from coming up with a justification for why any
of these āextremely intelligentā corporate officers thought that the military would totally
pay top dollar for a zombie bio weapon. A bio weapon that converts potential customers,
investors, and share holders into more zombies. Clearly we can all see the value in that. In addition to zombies, Megacorp also has
a wide variety of other useful products. Our bio-weapons division has an extensive
xeno biology project as we strive to turn a captured alien creature into a weapon. We will continue our attempts to turn this
creature into a bio-weapon even after it escapes and destroys our multi billion dollar starship
before forcing us to nuke our off world colony complex along with our expensive secret lab. I mean we canāt stop trying to weaponize
the alien now. Weāve sunk too much money into this project. Does this alien life form do anything that
a human weapon cannot? Not really, but Iām sure we can sell it
to the military anyway. Just like we sold them that super powerful
death robot that did instantly turn on them, but surely theyāve forgotten about that
now. Yes we could sell the military a cheaper war-machine
that is basically a lemon and thus make bank on all of the replacement parts, but that
would undercut the heroās victory. Speaking of those pesky heroes, they wonāt
be able to do anything to stop Megacorp in spite of our many many weaknesses. Our corporation doesnāt need a PR department
because Megacorp is always willing to fight no matter how bad it makes us look. We all know real life corporations are just
the textbook definition of brave and will always fight to the end and never just instantly
fold when faced with even a small vocal minority of negative opinions. Megacorp is beholden to no one. How do we keep our shareholders happy? We donāt because we are far too busy running
the government in spite of how little profit there were be in having to act as a nation
state bloated by crippling defense spending, social programs, and other services that do
not generate revenue but are still required for a society to function. We will of course brutally oppress the population
meeting rioters with expensive tanks and death squads rather than really cheap bread and
circuses. How do we keep in the black? Weā¦ umā¦ well we own a monopoly on contrivium. Hopefully the revenue from our contrivium
sales will be enough to prop up the rest of our imploding pet projects as we continue
our relentless quest to convert all of our capital in zombies. Megacorp is all about profit even though all
our evil acts would cut into the bottom line. It is important for the audience to think
Megacorp is evil in order to distract from their own contributions to an unsustainable
and gluttonous consumer economy that promotes a culture of short term thinking and praying
at the alter of savings. Any nuanced discussion of the topics of environmental
destruction and ecology should be simplified for the consumer into ātrees good, industry
badā. Iām sure the irony will be lost on the paperback
reader. After all āresources exist to be consumedā. And if you act now, Megacorp will throw in
a free mercenary miniboss to hound the heroes until at least the halfway point or your money
back. Act now. Remember, never blunder always plunder. Megacorp, the only villain you will ever need! Side effects may include zombie outbreak,
xeno-parasites, author soap boxing, and poor reviews. Consult with an editor if soap boxing continues
for longer than three paragraphs. Ask your beta reader if Megacorp is right
for you. CORPORATE STOOGE: Sir, we secured this videoās
sponsor, Skillshare, from the ancient conspiracy. CEO: Right, right. How much did we pay that hacker? CORPORATE STOOGE: It was six figures at least. CEO: Right. Double his pay. Then shoot him. But use a cheap bullet. No sense in wasting money. DARK LORD: There it is. At long last I shall recover what is rightfully
mine! Which come to think of it is everything, but
especially Skillshare. CEO: Ah. There you are, Dark Lord. Assistant. Cancel my 3oclock. School is session. DARK LORD: I will now take this power for
myself andā¦ CEO: Yes yes. Look, DL. Can I call you DL? Im gonna call DL. Leāme ask you DL. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his
brow? Well if you ask me he needs take a shower
and then hire someone to do the manual labor for him. Listen, DL, you wanna know how I got to the
top? I earned it through hard work! I got up early in the morning and murdered
baby seals with an oil taker every day! That made me richā¦ somehow. You wanna know how rich I am? Iām so rich I cloned Karl Marx just so I
could shoot him. Ha! Take that you union sympathizer. DL: Is there a point to your ramblings, pudgy
man. Also your cat is quite overweight. CEO: Yeah, my cat is pretty fat, but thatās
not the point. See, you think Skillshare with its over 20,000
classes in writing, design, technology, and most importantly business is the key to unlimited
power. You think that getting a premium membership
will open the door on unlimited access to high quality classes to improve your skills
like this class on making fantasy maps. And you would be right. But doors open both ways. You and the other worlds in the Terrible Writing
Advice expanded universe donāt understand what these sponsorships really are. And much like my ex-wife, some things are
best left buried. Which is why Iām not going to tell anyone
that the first 500 TWA fans can get 2 months of Skillshare for free if they go to skil.sh/twa9. I mean the link is in the description below, but no one ever checks that Oh, and DL. Iām sorry, but Iām going to have to you
go. DL: What! You cannot fire the Dark Lord! You will feel the wrath of my legions of darkness
that will march forth from my bleak dungeons. CEO: Oh that? Yeah, we already sold your wasteland to a
developer. Gonna turn that into a fantasy themed golf
course. Anyway, we are done here. Security! Donāt feel too bad, DL. After all, Iām playing a bigger game.
Interesting watch, as SR seems to avoid a lot of those tropes.
Mega corps in SR have not over thrown the governments, as explained, there is no profit in welfare programs or infrastructure (ie roads), which society needs to a degree.
There is a lot of internal politics in mega corps, from family feuds like Shiawase, the literal popularity contest of Horizon, Ares being made up of people that don't like each other, etc.
Also, something else that helps SR isn't that there is one all knowing all seeing Mega, but dozens of them, from the obvious Big 10, to countless AA and single A corps. So a single mega can't literally make the law, as other megas will be also constantly countering each other to make everything in a pseudo balance.
"I cloned Karl Marx just so I can shoot him! Take that you Union Sympathizer!"
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I am currently working on a street level campaign that will get the party in over their head, and this is exactly the type of advice I need.
Who flagged this as a drekpost? This is a genuine worldbuilding YouTube channel, even if it's done in a comedic, critical style.
Iām not sure who this guy thinks heās owning with this video but Iām pretty sure it didnāt land.
Was the plot of original Deus Ex in there or was it just me?