Ah, I've been waiting for this! Did you catch the idea for The Captain and The Triplets I posted last night?

>>1552485
Better. It's been archived.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/1538763/

>>1552492
Fucking win. Can't wait for more!

I'll dump a bit more and then I'll be back later, hopefully to wrap up the fluff and move on a little to technology level, adventures, etc.

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The McSphere is a big place. Even getting from one city in, say, Maxx to another is a challenge that could take weeks, months or years; what if you're a Makka heading to the Kremelin? Good luck. Have some kids on the way, maybe they'll get there...

If you're wealthy, lucky or something you could just take portals, but most common folk have only one option: SphereWay.

SphereWay isn't so much a corporation as a network (or "a state of mind", if you listen to the Footlongs). Trains whizz constantly through the SphereWay at amazing speeds, completing journeys in a fraction of the time it could take on foot. It's all run and operated by the Footlongs, short Customers who live in cities they refer to as Depots where you can stop for a rest or to buy souvenirs from places you've never been. Only the Footlongs know for sure how far the rails go; some say that they go into deep, long-lost places of the McSphere, maybe even lost civilisations.

Nobody knows, partly because the Footlongs are quite secretive and suspicious for people with a public fucking rail network and partly because they're pushy, annoying health-conscious preachers.

A journey on SphereWay starts in a Depot, or a Station (a small town usually just outside a Corportation's borders, but Footlongs can be convinced and allowed to build them in safer cities) where days can be spent being searched, stripped, interrogated, re-searched, and given full medical scans by the Footlongs while their luggage is searched, screened, re-searched, re-screened and occasionally "repossessed indefinitely" or burned. At the end, passengers are herded into their train where they are "encouraged" to read pamphlets noting the results of their scans and advising them on good eating choices and watch educational videos on the benefits of healthy eating and exercise.

One wonders what the Footlongs are so worried about, considering they're aided by the Subz, levitating spherical botz of their own creation claimed to be "dedicated to ensuring a fun and healthy ride for everyone" but armed with combat abilities that could give a Klorkwerk or even an Apoklippy from Tetrasoft a run for its money. The Footlongs are happy to explain, though: terrorists and Quiznos, malicious Botz nobody has ever seen.

>>1552636

Despite all this, many Footlongs are corrupt; enough Credits paid to the right people and you can transport anything on the SphereWay, no questions asked. Some Footlongs even keep the personal records of Customers on file, usually for sale; the Klux Klux Klan will sometimes slip a Footlong a few credits to see if there are any particularly tasty-looking or troublesome chimerickens on the Sphereway. Luckily, Footlongs can be paid to alter or erase those records; most just bribe their way out of the scans and the interrogations to start with.

SphereWay's only known enemies are Maxx and Dominance, for similar reasons; Footlongs have turned a profit escorting Makkas out of Friend Grimace's clutches since St. Ronald disappeared, and they helped Huttons avoid the Noid as well. Footlongs are good friends with McNuggets and other Footlongs.

OP here, I'm back for a bit. I think it's worth backing up a bit to lay down an idea for how the corporations actually work. I have no idea if this is good or not:

- Each Corporation covers a giant area. The actual size is pretty much unknown but includes cities the size of states, the few remaining planetoids from a forgotten area, hydroponic farms, animal reserves... and that's not including those stretches of corridor or deep pits that could take weeks to cross.

- Corporations have countless states and colonies all over the place, but around half of their territory is clustered around about the same point. This can be millions of miles from anywhere. (This is why the invasion of Huttania by Dominance was a huge blow but it didn't wip them out.)

- Most people never even leave the place they were born. They have everything they need, they don't know much of foreign parts, and they're just so damn FAR. Sure, there are portals and teleporters and SphereWay, but the first two are usually rare, restricted to the wealthy, short-range only or a combination of the three and the latter is a convoluted pain in the ass (because nobody likes SphereWay preaching health to them). Those with money or influence can cover distance fast, though.

Basically any Corporation can be dropped in at any time if you feel like it. Hooray! Anyway.

>>1554172

Among the countless trillions of Customers in the McSphere, most of them aren't worth talking about.

For millennia, society has catered to what is charitably described as the Lowest Common Denominator. You know who they are. The people who spill hot coffee on themselves and sue the restaurant, who firmly believe there's no such thing as negative numbers, who think poop jokes are the height of comedy... and what do they get? Helpful warning signs, remedial math classes, and every other "comedy" movie ever made.

After so long, roughly 80-90% of McSphere is now populated by people whose intellect would be compared unfavourably with that of a wicker basket. They're Consumers, McSphere's lower class. They love what TV tells them they love, know more about sport and the Almighty Dollar than, say, spelling and their average IQ is somewhere in the low seventies... in particularly gifted vities.

These guys do the grunt work, tirelessly working for Credits with which to spend on cheap, terrible food (a lot of which probably consists of recycled waste products or, sometimes, dead Consumers) or save for one of the highly-treasured Meals. While their goal in life is to enjoy as much of the Beloved Food as possible, queues are harsh - most people don't queue to get themselves meals, but to get meals for their GRANDCHILDREN. Families specifically raising extra kids for lining up has just made it worse.

>>1554289

Above them are the middle-classmen, usually referred to as Vendors. They run stores, are vaguely discerning in what TV they watch, and share the dubious honor of the lowest class to not need sippy cups. They're not smart, but they're smarter than most, and that's enough. Since there aren't enough of them to fill most of the jobs you think would require a halfway competent Consumer (like, say, doctors), they're able to charge lots of Credits for their services and enjoy a decent life with a distinct lack of "slop" for dinner. They usually share a queue with the lower-class, but are slightly better; a Vendor might enjoy a few Meals in his life, and one or two that he set out to get himself.

Adventurers usually fall into this category; wanderlust and a pinch of smarts makes them ideal for the task of rising above the masses to do mercenary work for money.

>>1554303
Not that it works like other settings, though. I don't even know if they'd be called that. Whatever they are, all you to do to be one is be able to fight, cope with foreign cultures and not be retarded.

Adventurers are often lower- or middle-class men, and take their payments not only in Credits but in Meals, which some desire more than a mountain of cash. I had the mental image of a wealthy man calling a group of low-level adventurers to his mansion, tasking them with a dangerous job, and his reward? A Whopper. For each of them. If they do it well, they may even get... fries. (I giggled.)

(TL;DR GOD)

>>1554326
Above them are, well, the Producers. They're the haves in a world of have-nots, the rich and the influential and the halfway smart. They can own things and know stuff! Most of them are content to sit at home enjoying the one or two Meals he gets every YEAR or so (holy shit, he said) and enjoying the finest foods with almost no recycled poop. Many of them help to run Corporations in some form or another, although ultimately they bow to the will of their wealthier peers, Celebstars and...

>>1554393

The Leaders.

Almost every Leader isn't a Consumer at all - rather an extremely powerful, ancient and intelligent AI that controls the Corporation like a king controls his subjects. They come in a wide variety of styles and personalities, from the schizophrenic Friend Grimace to the human-machine hybrid Wendy to the mysterious King.

Some might have their own AI subjects (e.g. Mac Tonight the propaganda master), and still more are said to roam the McSphere, silent and Corportation-less, ruling imaginary worlds and dusty, empty corridors.

Most Consumers will see a Leader in their life, usually from Corporate-wide announcements plastered on every TV screen, but some have a personal touch that extends beyond the most powerful - Wendy touches minds with every Psyon sooner or later, and Friend Grimace and his horrible visage demanding your clearance level is almost a certainty in Maxx.

Phew. Okay, so did any of that make sense outside my head? I was going for some kind of crazy Oddworld-Idiocracy... THING, it looks like.