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...