NR / Manadyne

ManaDyne

”Experience your reality”

Posted by: Winterhawk
Founded in 2049, Manadyne was built around a diversified magical consultancy firm led by Carolyn Winters and supported by members of Boston’s magical cognoscenti. The corporation grew on the back of these connections, first adding private education for Awakened youth to their list of services. The company has since expanded to include mainstays of magical servicing such as talis- mongering, metamagical patents, and magical lifestyle goods.

Manadyne Corporation became a media darling following the death of the great dragon, Dunkelzahn. The dragon left the corporation 80 million nuyen in accordance with a long-standing agreement regarding magical research. That influx of capital, and the fame it brought, sent investors scurrying to their brokers to discover what was so special about this corporation that someone would leave it a fortune.

Rumor has it ol’ Dunky left the corporation more than money. Manadyne is suspected to have amassed a large stock of dragon nail clippings and other genetic material over the years as part of whatever arrangement the great dragon had with the corporation. Several organizations have ordered raids on Manadyne facilities suspected to house this genetic cache. So far everyone has come up empty.

-- Nephrine

Elite multinational corporations have to be good at many things, even sciences that differ diametrically. Manadyne embraced this principle in 2066 with the purchase of Mangadyne, a technol- ogy corporation founded by Manadyne shareholder (and brother of former Manadyne founder Carolyn Winters) Cale Winters.

The acquisition provided Manadyne with a powerful technology arm that allowed the company to mount serious competition to Magicknet. Despite its growth, Manadyne promotes itself as the corporation next door, focusing on distribution models that limit the physical distance their goods are shipped. The company remains in the spotlight by providing specialized services to high- profile organizations such as the DIMR, the Illuminati, and the Dr. Faustus Society.

Those specialized services include database support, query scripting, matrix security, VR hosting, and, believe it or not, real estate management.

-- Mr. Bonds

Manadyne is led by CEO Malcolm Grant, a former Harvard and MIT&T professor, who succeeded founder Dr. Carolyn Winters. Dr. Winters vanished in March 2069, triggering a four- day stock tumble that nearly resulted in a hostile takeover by the Wuxing Corporation.

Grant’s awfully smart, but a little bookish. He sometimes gets caught up in the theoretical, and his board needs to force him to think about how the stuff he wants to do will actually make money.

-- Cosmo

Wuxing’s takeover bid was less a matter of absorbing the competi- tion than it was protecting its own interests. The corp has a large stake in the research that Mangadyne is doing into real-time, online simsense. Mangadyne is promoting the technology as next-level gaming, but my contacts in Wuxing told me they think there are some solid military applications to the technology.

-- Lei Kung

How would real-time simsense be any different than jacking in?

-- Baka Dabora

If it were possible, real-time simsense would revolutionize modern entertainment, pushing reality-based trids to a new level. Users would be able to jack into a live actor, and even provide instructions to tailor the experience.

-- Turbo Bunny

This stuff’s interesting enough that Wuxing isn’t the only one poking around it—Horizon has made a few overtures about acquir- ing Manadyne. Insiders say it’s about adding magical services and entertainment components to their operation, but I can’t see how Horizon would allow Wuxing to bring this technology to market before they can.

-- Cosmo

Pre–Crash 2.0, Mangadyne was a market changer, teaming up with smaller corporations X-Venture and Eastern Electronics to snap Renraku’s stranglehold on the Asian data market. But they were hurt badly in the Crash, and two years after the e-cataclysm, CEO Cale Winters went to the Manadyne board of directors hat in hand. The board agreed to absorb the failing company under the condition that he divest a portion of his twenty percent control- ling interest in Manadyne. Winters sold off five percent to Kazuko Yoshiyuki and split the remaining percentage with his nephew, a retired CIA officer. The arrangement allowed Mangadyne to survive and function with a significant degree of autonomy, though inevitably there are times when the parent company makes sure its preferences are carried out.

On the surface, Manadyne remains a diversified magical services corporation integrated into the circles of the world’s top aca- demics. Within the corporation there is a growing belief that magic is just the beginning of what it is capable of. With Mangadyne’s connections in the scientific community, Manadyne aims to brand itself as a leader in reality engineering. Whether it is working on the virtual realities of ARE and the Matrix, or the countless unexplored realms of the metaplanes, Manadyne believes that it can help shape how future generations interface with reality.

Magical Operations

The backbone of Manadyne is its work in the magical sector. Over the years it has diversified that work into five key units, three of which operate primarily under the Manadyne label. The remain- ing two services are provided through subsidiaries operating within the parameters of the parent corporation.

Talismongering

Presently, Manadyne is ranked eighth among the multina- tionals as a magical goods wholesaler. Other suppliers sell more, but the quality of goods that Manadyne provides allows it to hold its place in the rankings. When possible, Manadyne relies on local manufacturing to create the magical material it provides. This distribution model limits the distance their materials travel to sale, and Manadyne has turned this limitation into a selling point by talking incessantly about its “local investment.” Often, this helps it squeeze some concessions out of local governments in exchange for basing operations in a certain place. In the run-up to getting these concessions, Manadyne often hires shadowrun- ners to collect information on targeted government officials.

The talismongering business provides leverage for the corporation in its side business of buying government officials. It’s a well- established routine for it now—Manadyne can turn to a government official and offer five hundred new jobs in exchange for a vote. Once it has those votes, Manadyne uses them to gain hold of what the corp is really after: land.

-- Sunshine

Security consulting

Manadyne provides astral security to a handful of third-world governments. The work is mostly handled by spirits summoned by off-site personnel. When a larger security presence is needed, Manadyne subcontracts the work to local shadowrunners and mercenaries vetted through reliable fixers. Because it is government work, everything is done on the books, meaning that in order to get paid, workers need to have an established SIN.

Sometimes Manadyne will establish fake SINs as part of the advance payment on a mission. If it does that for you, take a careful look at what the corp provides—it’s not above constructing SINs that fall apart under careful scrutiny, leaving you hanging high and dry once they do.

-- Fianchetto

Paracritter Breeding and Training

Manadyne holds controlling interest in more than a dozen paracritter breeding businesses, and it has been battling Mitsuhama for leadership in this growing field. All of their breeders serve as suppliers to the company’s ZenPet subsidiary. ZenPet is a high-end chain store specializing in the sale of Awakened animals. The company advertises anwuma bavole, devil rats, storm crows, and even hell hounds as pets that can be trained to meet your needs. For an additional fee, the company hires out trainers who can transform your pet into a home defender. This is especially popular with young, rich corporate types who see having a hell hound as a status symbol.

I’ve heard about runners being contacted to clean up the scene of a “pet” attack. Remember, these Awakened breeds have been in existence for a very short time. We don’t know enough about them to be certain that they can be domesticated. When something goes wrong, it’s much cheaper for the company to sweep it under the rug than to deal with the lawsuit and bad publicity.

-- Dr.Spin

Thaumaturgical research

Dunkehlzahn’s 80-million-nuyen bequest helped expand this area of the corporation. Manadyne’s research arm covers everything from proprietary formulae to advanced astral studies, and it remains the corporation’s primary moneymaker. Its close relationship with the DIMR has opened a lot of doors, providing access to rare magical sites as well as top university thaumatur- gists. The research division operates out of Boston, UCAS, under the leadership of shareholder Chandra Patel. The corporation has satellite research offices all over the world, but, after Boston, most new patents come out of the Kuala Lumpur site.

The company does a lot of formula hacking as well. It hires shad- owrunners to steal proprietary work from private magicians who aren’t willing to sell. There’s plenty of that kind of work in Boston.

-- Cosmo

Medical Services

Asclepius International is Manadyne’s medical services division. Under the Asclepius brand, Manadyne offers what it calls “mana-based medical solutions.” In essence, the company contracts magic users to provide magical healing to its wealthiest customers. For the average customer, Manadyne offers a wide selection of supplements supposedly infused with Awakened flora, though not all of the drugs it sells fall into the category of BADs. In fact, most drugs sold through Asclepius are placebos. The handful of drugs that are effective generate enough revenue to keep Manadyne’s profits soaring. This division is also tasked with the recovery of rare Awakened flora and discovering new medical applications for them. The majority of Awakened flora grow in places like Amazonia and West Africa, where the gov- ernments often aren’t interested in dealing with multinational corporations. This creates a lot of work for recovery specialists who can be hired off the books to go into these nations and retrieve valuable flora.

Network Services

Post–Crash 2.0, Mangadyne has served as the Matrix face for Manadyne. The company continues to provide hosting and land- scaping services throughout Asia and Eastern Europe. Recently it launched a media push to break into African and American markets. The services it provides are not new, but the company’s image appeals to a new generation of consumers.

Data Management

This branch designs advanced data storage algorithms meant to improve how data is stored in a nexus. The corporation sells proprietary agent programs keyed to encode and decode data with a unique algorithm that only you, and your employer, know. Manadyne customers tend to be small businesses that can’t afford the more sophisticated systems offered by Mitsuhama or Renraku. The division’s research centers throughout Central Asia are often targeted by shadowrunners, since the data management divi- sion creates the encryption software for the company’s popular sculpted hosting suites.

Manadyne has been financing data runs on the HR databases of Evo, Renraku, Mitsuhama, and NeoNET. Popular opinion is they’re looking for employees with a specific skillset in order to improve their data-encryption speeds. Manadyne encryption algorithms are average at best—their encryption time is much slower than any other major provider.

-- FastJack

AR/VR Landscaping and Management

The popularity of Mangadyne’s sculpted hosting suites has provided another significant vein of profits for the parent company, one that, if Mangadyne had hit on it earlier, might have helped them avoid the Manadyne buyout. The division thrives on the forward thinking of their chief technology officer, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, and under her leadership, Mangadyne prod- ucts have focused on the user experience. As a rule, Mangadyne’s suites are simple, aesthetically pleasing interfaces that a layman can customize in order to have their unique environment sur- rounding them at all times.

Yoshiyuki was the target of multiple extraction attempts before she bought a five percent stake in the company. Some say that rivals within her own corp initiated the extraction attempts because they wanted her gone, either to clear the way for themselves or just to get her to leave them alone. My theory is that Yoshiyuki was trying to extract herself, either to gain leverage or to move to a better situ- ation at a larger corporation.

-- Snopes

Network Security

Mangadyne was never big on producing network security protocols. In fact, the division only sprang into being after Manadyne bought it, because some of Manadyne’s larger clients felt that they wanted to deal with a company that understood them. Once the corporation began to produce IC, it discov- ered that there was a niche market it could exploit. Manadyne understands that there is a market for simplicity, especially in the magic industry where technology is often seen as antithetical to the pursuits of magic users. The company takes advantage of these presumptions by offering simplified commercial tools for personal defense. Its strategy has been to convince individual users to purchase security software geared toward defending mesh networks, then gently lead these customers to purchase the more expensive business IC suites that Mangadyne markets as “Intrusion Killers.”

Manadyne IC follows Greek creature nomenclature. Early warning IC is called Harpy 18, and the deadliest defensive software they offer is Cerebrus 7, which is loaded with an advanced version of the blackout program.

-- Glitch

Other Services

Manadyne holds on to the services that carried them to success. Though some have been compartmentalized into subsid- iaries, the board of directors closely watches all of these services. educational Services

Manadyne started out as an educational provider in the Boston sprawl. The company targeted children with magical apti- tude and helped hone those abilities into practical magic. Since that time the company has taken this hometown brand of magical tutoring and turned it into an international franchise. Manadyne Learning Centers are located all over the world in cities where Manadyne has a significant presence. The centers function like charter schools—children generally attend from kindergarten through high school, and 71 percent of Manadyne Learning Center graduates go on to higher education.

The growth of these learning centers is a great example of public- private logrolling. Manadyne was pivotal in the Chicago bug war, and after Mandyne’s mages helped turn the tide, government officials were in a particularly giving mood. The corporation received financial incentives to buy up Universal Brotherhood sites and turn them into Manadyne Learning Centers.

-- Kay St. Irregular

Electronic Gaming

Online role-playing gaming is a staple of youth culture. Mangadyne holds the rights to eleven gaming franchises ranging from sports simulators to shoot-‘em-up gorefests. The gaming market is extremely volatile—if a game doesn’t get good feedback on release it’s not likely to ever sell much. This means that game-market competitors often resort to corporate espionage, blackmail, and even bribery to ensure their product gets the top buzz.

Evo’s Killsquad has been the market leader since ’69 (a remark- ably long reign for a game), but Manadyne’s Maelstrom had a strong showing at the E3 conference. The game uses the same AI engine as Killsquad, but the storyline follows a team of magic users from different disciplines as they navigate the astral realms.

-- Sunshine

Manadyne Central

Boston Main Office

Bostonin keskusta-alueella sijaitseva Manadynen päätoimisto. Keskustan toimistossa on pääosin PR-toimintaa ja hallinnollisia palveluja.

Boston Main Research Center

EXTRATERRITORIO

Manadynen isoin tutkimuskeskus Bostonin teollisuusalueella. MRC:n alla toimii kolme tutkimusyksikköä - Manadyne Magical Research Center, Mangadyne Scientific Research Center ja Pharmadyne Medical Research Center. MRC:ssä sijaitsee myös Manadyne Boston Office

Manadyne Magical Research Center

Manadynen suurin tutkimuskeskus.

Department of Magical Materials

Maagisia eläimiä, kasveja ja materiaaleja tutkiva osasto. Junior Researcher Braylen Cosgraven entinen työpaikka.

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Page last modified on 2011-09-21 20:39