Today we are diving into the corporate war history including the first, second, 3rd and fourth corporate wars, the corporations involved & how they have impacted the cyberpunk world and night city.
The first corporate war which lasted from August 2004 to February 2006 began simply. Eurobusiness Machines was attempting to buyout struggling corporation Transworld Airlines. Negotiations began to sour after an unfriendly interaction with Transworld’s CEO.
Orbital Air, who had interest in Transworld saw this as an opportunity to jump in to obtain TWA’s air traffic facilities for their own uses. Orbital Air blocked EBMs buyout attempt with sly tactics, and thus the first corporate war had its foundation.
Orbital Air sent a negotiations team to try to sweeten the pot for Transworld to sell to OA instead of EBM. EBM dispatched terrorists to kidnap this team en route, but the terrorists compromised their identity embarrassing and exposing EBM.
Orbital Air recruited Zetatech as an ally who unleashed a massive wave of net attacks against EBM, and although they were initially crippling, they were quickly halted forcing Zetatech out of the war.
The ripple effect of the first corporate war was vast and set the standard that corporations can obtain favorable deals and assets by using brute force and military scale tactics.
The second corporate war is typically known as the most globally devastating and took place between April of 2008 and August of 2010 between oil giants Petrochem and SovOil.
This conflict started when a merger deal fell through, and a drilling accident at a Petrochem platform accelerated the confrontation to a fully blown war.
Each corporation crippled one another’s oil facilities in a few weeks, although SovOil experienced a greater bout of initial success. Petrochem expended millions of Eurodollars to fight back & regain the upper hand. This peaked when Petrochem captured and assassinated the SovOil founder and CEO Anatoly Novikovo.
The third corporate war lasted from February 2016 to November 2016 and was fought almost entirely on the Net. Hostilities began when financial examiners uncovered a confidence scheme being designed by investment counselors at Merrill Asukaga and Finch against private investors.
This enraged the Rothstein Fund, and they turned everything over to the District Attorney’s office for an investigation. They also hired local netrunners to begin infiltrating MA&F’s data fortress in search of the truth. MA&F fired back, increasing their security and launching their own netrunners against the Rothstein Fund.
Netwatch stepped in and responded by limiting net access and making sweeps which resulted in arrests as well as flatlines. With the net being heavily watched, this is where the conflict moved to the streets. Both corporations started hiring mercenaries, and during a 12-hour period, battles were fought in low earth orbit and earth to destroy the opponents net communications gear and infrastructure.
The fourth corporate war took place between 2021 and 2025 and began in a similar way to some of the prior corporate wars with rival Megacorporations butting heads over a financial objective. In early 2021, IHAG a megacorp specializing in underwater shipping and tech went bankrupt. Two rival aquacorps CINO and OTEC entered the picture to pick up the pieces and both were vying for a takeover of IHAGs remaining resources.
After years of fighting however, neither of the Aquacorps were able to deliver the final blow to one another, and thus, both of them hired external help in larger Megacorps to provide resources, equipment and military gear to aid in battle.
OTEC hired Militech an armaments and security company based in the US, and CINO hired Arasaka, a security Megacorp based out of Japan. As they are both two of the largest paramilitary corporations in the world, with thousands of troops, Arasaka and Militech had been rivals before these contracts with the AquaCorps and were ready for any excuse to be back at each other’s throats.
Both Militech & Arasaka are incredible big megacorporations with an incredible amount of sophisticated technology, so much so that if they decided to wage war, no entity on planet earth would be able to stop them. Small pools of conflict effectively turned into large scale battles that took over entire cities and states such as Tokyo, Yokohama, Washington, Chicago and Night City.
By mid-2022 battles involving aircrafts, AVs, tanks, power armor and thousands of troops was the norm. Cyberattacks disrupted banking, international trade, and media.
On August 20th, 2023 a strike team led by Elite Solo Morgan Blackhand & Rockerboy Johnny Silverhand detonated a pocket nuke in the Arasaka Towers complex in Night City, reducing the building to rubble and wiping out thousands of people. Silverhand was killed at the hands of Cyborg Arasaka Solo Adam Smasher.
