WORLDBUILDING WEDNESDAY: Five Random Facrs, and Corporate Warfare

Album is coming THIS FRIDAY, so here's a little bit more BG stuff:

FIVE RANDOM FACTS ABOUT THE WORLD OF STATUS QUO RADIO:
1. Lead Bastard's real name is Leonard Banks. His name was the only coincidence that the initials lined up.


2.  May Cinder is a sophmore at Teufort Technical University, and is studying robotics, with the intention of learning how to build and develop androids.

3. Beat Bastard's dad, Frank Pritchard Jr., is an accountant with R.E.D.

4. Lead Bastard and Bass Bastard played baseball for their school during the spring.

5. In their high school marching band, Rhythm Bastard played the trumpet, Lead Bastard played the flute, Bass Bastard played the trombone, and Beat Bastard played the tenor drums.

CORPORATE WARFARE:
It would seem to be the logical conclusion of corporate capitalism that everything would be under the purview of one large company, with the government acting as a protector, the reality is that two titans stood among the rubble, having grown large through an orchestrated series of mergers and acquisitions, to avoid direct conflict with the other as much as possbile. While the larger corporations go by many names to avoid looking like they have a monopoly, to those aware of the situation, they are known by R.E.D. and B.L.U.

At first it started out going into separate industries, one going into to train transport, the other going into delivery, mining different minerals, etc. Still with nothing left to gain than the other, the CEOs began to grow weary of the Cold War that had grown between them. Financial and business advisors both advised them that direct conflict would be unprofitable, and a merger between the two was out of the question, as the CEOs were very prideful of the empires they had acquired, and felt a merger would be a concession.

The cold war grew hot, when each company would hire their own private group of mercenaries to sieze key control points, such as mining areas, towns, etc. by force, but their efforts provided little net results for either side. Over time, the mercenaries became the defacto law enforcement of whatever region they happened to be in.

Cooperation was out of the question, and competition had been rendered useless, so the for the two CEOs to settle their rivalry was through complete and total segregation.

At first, with the regions divided due to whomever was providing services such as electric and cable, it was a simple task. Then it became to who's territory lived better. Once spending money on infrastructure was no longer seen as profitable, the homeless were executed in the middle of the night, the poor sent off into an exile, to live at farms in the middle of nowhere. Then the comparison only focused on the rich ("Well, we can't let the lazy bums decided our fate, now can we?"). Eventually the middle class began to move out of the cities and the wealthy led more and more decadent lives. Some are able to make do, but those who don't make 7 figures a year, they experience the stress firsthand, as those with money are in no rush to part with it.

The general attidue the average citizen has or rather, is supposed to have, is complete disgust and hatred for the rival company. Any sense that one may be "better" than the other, or the notion of going for whatever is convenient at the time is laughed at. Cooperation is severly punished.

Any break in the illusion is silenced ASAP, such as a band's biggest song...

Echo Chamber Post Game Episode 97

THE ECHO CHAMBER DRINKING GAME (vers. 1.1)!!!

Take a drink:

• Any time the video game Rock Band is mentioned
• Any time Rhythm Bastard does an impression
• Any time wrestling is mentioned
• Any time someone says "Owen"
• Any time Mystakin says "Word?"
• Any time game development is discussed
• Any time speedrunning is discussed
• Any time a podcast member plugs their music outside of personal outros
• Any time someone says Anime
• Any time someone says "Hashtag _________"
• When the phrase "For those of you further behind" is uttered 
• Any time an earlier episode is referenced

Finish your drink:

• When someone says "Die in a fire"
• When The Dead Kennedys are mentioned
• Any time the podcasts "acts out" a scene or elaborates on a stupid thing they made up (e.g. Rockhead)
• When the episode name comes up. 
• If any of the podcast members have 3 or more picks for the week.  
• When someone says "My uncle works at Nintendo"

DOWNLOAD ECHO-SODE 97

-We're getting a Deadpool movie!!! YES! YES! YES!

-Seriously, if you're not hyped, READ THIS ARTICLE. Fun fact: Tim Miller was the special effects director for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and became a director JUST FOR THIS MOVIE. If there is any movie I'd want Deadpool to rip off, it'd Scott Pilgrim.

-Just sayin' Fox. I too can wear a green shirt over black DP-T and stand next to a guy dressed as Deadpool:


-Real Footage of Nicholas Cage's Agent:



-Athreos and Erebos are two of the Gods from Magic: The Gathering's Theros block. Erebos is the God of the Dead, who is in charge of the underworld, and Athreos is the God of Passage, that ferries the dead to the underworld.

-Vault of Glass, Destinypedia entry. WARNING: SPOILERS.

-There's a Wiki here for Final Fantasy speedruns. A breif look at some of the run times show that the runs get the longest at around Final Fantasy X/X-2, and are shortest around 3/4. There's also a strategy guide here for some of the series, which gives credence to the theory that sometimes speedrunners know the game better than the people who made it.

-Wikipedia article on the Koopalings. Like the Katt and Falco shipping war from last week, there's been a very tumultuous debate on if they're Bowser's children are not. 

-Godfuckingdamnit U2. BONO YOU ARE NOT PUNK ROCK. Bono Koopa would be rejected from the Koopaling because Bowser would immediately wreck his shit. This marketing move goes with Bono's definition of punk rock, as it "stirs things up and annoys people", but it is also very against the populist ideals of punk rock by serving the very people that deserve to be annoyed.

U2 claiming the Songs of Innocence release is punk rock is like saying that cable companies holding monopolies over territories and practicing harmful anti-consumer policies are punk rock because "it annoys people".

-I TOOK IT, AND THREW IT ON THE GROUND


-The whole discussion on "Corporate Trust" thing is very odd, and mired a lot of bad blood. It's akin to whatever happens when upper-middle class white people discover a new word like MSG, or gluten, where they become hyperaware of things they've been enjoying the whole time. Remember when all the info about the Xbox One came out during the same time all those NSA leaks occured?

But, this should be the thing that makes people more savvy and cautious to these types of situations, and look for alternatives that you are more comfortable with. Or you can complain and fall into the same traps. Whatevs.