Trade Companies?

[kalos72]

Has anyone put an y thought or story line into how trade companies might develop?

I am thinking evil Weyland style companies that strip a town clean and ship it back "home" at the expense of the locals.

Even to the point of trading things like narcotics, creating junkies and then forcing the habit to get the locals to sell their souls...figuratively.

Or maybe something less sinister and just details/thoughts on how trade would start in your own campaigns?

[RN7]

Originally Posted by kalos72

Has anyone put an y thought or story line into how trade companies might develop?

I am thinking evil Weyland style companies that strip a town clean and ship it back "home" at the expense of the locals.

Even to the point of trading things like narcotics, creating junkies and then forcing the habit to get the locals to sell their souls...figuratively.

Or maybe something less sinister and just details/thoughts on how trade would start in your own campaigns?

I'd say a few of the corporations in the 2300AD game system may have started out this way, as the 2300AD world of the 24th Century is a spin off from T2K.

[kalos72]

Well, my guys still debate the "just save Texas or the whole country" line pretty often but they know they want to have "fingers" in certain places but dont want to have to clear the 1000 miles between them.

Things like mines or production facilities or ports.

So how do you influence those regions without a massive troop movement? Trade...

But you dont simply roll up to Mobile Alabama with a freighter and say "Hey I want to buy your salvaged electronics. We pay in food and fuel..." right?

[Tegyrius]

Subcontract route clearance, or use it as a training mission for the local militias you're raising. After a couple of cycles of expansion, it becomes self-perpetuating. Ideally...

- C.

[unkated]

So, area A produces some good - cotton, grain, or more ideally some mineral wealth, or perhaps a factory that can be restarted with outside help - and not much else.

The (bad, nasty) Company comes in and sets up shop. Indeed, may even at first seem like good guys - they bring in armed troops to defend the town; organize food deliveries (repayable in work).

The troops may add to the town militia. And learn which of the members of the town can be bought, and who has what arms.

After the first few shipments, the rate of exchange between work and food may begin to slip (running the mine is proving more expensive than management thought. So they say.)

Then one day, a lot of the town is disarmed and finds they are in serfdom, dependent on the company thugs for protection and food, with little capability of changing the balance. Perhaps there is a fire, and the company provides a tent camp for temporary residence, behind a wire fence for the workers own protection...

This could have been...

• the company's plan all along; they are doing similar things elsewhere.
  
• a plan cooked up by the resident manager and the head of security to live off the fat of the land (what fat there is); their reporting structure is remote and unmindful as long as the local manager produces.

Uncle Ted