Ares Macrotechnology
THE military-industrial complex, which somehow can't stop creating Insect Spirit crises. If you shoot a gun at a bug, Ares was probably responsible for both halves of the equation. Notably responsible for killing Chicago.
Also notable is that they own Knight Errant, the largest competitor to Lone Star for policing services, which made them the law in Seattle for the 2070's until Lone Star stole their contract back.
After a lot of will-they-or- won’t-they, Ares Macrotechnology’s global headquarters recently announced a departure from Detroit, UCAS, with plans to quickly move to Atlanta in the CAS. As it turns out, they’d already bought and built a shiny new complex that will serve quite nicely as their new HQ, as if they’ve been secretly planning this for a while. The complex unsurprisingly resembles an army base, like Fort Benning. Hell, many of the buildings within their perimeter resemble Quonset hut–style airplane hangars, and other structures appear to be prefabs rather than permanent construction. Will they build more permanent structures? Are they anticipating some other move? Is the board keeping their options open? Ares still owns the real estate in Motor City; they’ll just stop using it in the near future. The big question, though, is why the corp decided to detach itself from the UCAS border in the first place. Whose idea was it for the big move? And was this truly what was best for the company, or was this yet another decision dictated by the bugs? Until only a few years ago, Ares enjoyed a close and lucrative relationship with the UCAS. Almost all UCAS military personnel were outfitted in Ares-made materiel, be it guns, bullets, tanks, fighters, body armor—even field rations. But something happened to that rapport, something far bigger than the UCAS military buying defectively dangerous Ares-branded weaponry Excalibur . (I’m betting some of our shadowy brethren out there will take the credit for souring Ares-UCAS relations, but if there’s a story there, I’ve not heard of it.) And lemme tell ya, this is not going to be an easy divorce. It’s gonna get nasty. Like, “Ares military battalions fortifying all Ares-subsidiary HQs across the UCAS, and being a pin drop away from going to all-out war with the UCAS military” nasty. Part of me wishes they’ll actually escalate into war. I can just envision the lunacy on Capitol Hill if Congress tried to declare war on a megacorp that has not only perfected the art of warfare, but also boasts better-trained and better-equipped personnel than the UCAS could ever hope to muster. So, Ares is hoping the move will put them in a better place now than they were five-plus years ago, mostly thanks to the infusion of cash that the CAS has agreed to pump into the corp’s coffers after the relocation. The grand irony of this whole situation? If the UCAS and the CAS do eventually go to war—which each day is looking more and more likely, as hackles rise on either side of the Mason-Dixon line—then both sides will be heavily outfitted with Ares-manufactured weapons and kit, riding Ares tanks, flying Ares jets, eating Ares rations, watching Ares-made entertainment, enjoying Ares-sponsored USO shows, and getting patched up by Ares-owned biotechnology—all while Ares’s corporate military remains on standby in case either nation decides to hire some of Ares’s soldiery. No matter who wins a coming conflict, Ares will end up winning: they’ll be laughing all the way to the Zurich-Orbital Gemeinschaft Bank. This is how Ares will conquer the world, one war at a time. Too bad there’s a decidedly non-zero chance that the winner in this war will ultimately be the bugs. And if that happens, we probably won’t be around to care.
Assets
The average person thinks Ares Macrotechnology just makes guns—and they do make guns, so that’s fair—but that’s only part of their business. It’s like thinking that McHugh’s only sells soyburgers, but they also offer side items, soymilk shakes, kids’ meal prizes, etc., and—here’s the real kicker—they also own a few other companies that have absolutely nothing at all to do with food or its production. So burgers get them the lion’s share of press and public image, but it’s not the only thing that makes them tick. Same thing with Ares: Guns get the most column space in the press and adver- tising campaigns, but they account for less total revenue than Ares Heavy Industry, AresSpace, and Knight Errant Security Services. So what really makes Ares tick? Well, some folk say it’s bug spirits. At some point in Ares’s sordid history, they started tangling with bug spirits of all kinds. I don’t need to remind you about the Cermak Blast, which led to the formation of the Chicago Containment Zone.
Their FireWatch teams smoke out bug hives wherever they find them, and shadowrunners often get jobs taking out bug-spirit infestations. The corp’s worst boondoggle in recent memory, the Excalibur Battle Rifle, arose from a failed—sabotaged?—attempt to create weapons specifically designed to combat bug spirits and their minions. And if you believe certain rumors, Ares was also cultivating bug spirit hives in an effort to use them as attack dogs in the covert war against the bugs—a fight- fire-with-fire approach that might’ve worked had Ares’ board ever watched any horror movies as instruction manuals to learn what not to do when subjugating spiritual entities you don’t entirely understand. But, as is often the case with Ares, it was too little too late. CEO Damien Knight and the board of directors voting to hire Horizon to reshape the corp’s image helped curtail the worst of the fallout, but a smiling face doesn’t matter much if there’s a malevolent spirit behind it.
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