Ultimately, all power rests with whoever controls the water of your world...but there are many steps between those and the desert waster without a drop to his name. Somewhere in the middle are the corps: Vast businesses that are not water guilds, but which rely on their product and patronage to fill niches the guilds don't want to fill, themselves. In other words, all corps have to have water, just like everyone else, and they likewise secure access to it in the same manner as everyone else: With credits. The difference is that corps rake in credits by producing entertainment, specialized luxury goods, housewares, clothing, repair services, and the like—or by operating detainment facilities to house guild-declared undesirables, and other, similarly unpleasant activities.

Some corps are bigger than others, but they all generally follow the same hierarchal model of wage slave to specialist to executive, with better benefits as you climb the ladder. The average nobody in an entry-level position, for instance, probably lives barely above the squalor of a waster outside guild geobounds—but at least, in the cities, they're safe from raiders (if not from muggers and other, more urban criminal types) and have a steady income that pays for enough water to live on. Compare that to the execs at the top, who live in corp housing and can afford nice things, and you can see why so many are willing to sell their souls in the cutthroat scramble for a high-paying corp job.

Somewhere in there, too, are the corps' security forces, which—while no comparison to the private armies of their guild overlords—are paid professionals who either work directly for a corp or, in the case of smaller businesses with more limited resources, are contracted out from a different corp that specializes in security work. They're licensed either for limited access to milspec gear or to use civspec weaponry and armor in a lethal manner, which makes them just as dangerous as a guild enforcer to anyone who crosses the corp. It can be nasty work, and you don't find a lot of good people choosing it as a long-term occupation.

Regardless of whatever else they do or create, corps are essentially miniature versions of the guilds to whom they kowtow, sucking the life out of the people beneath them to oil the credit machine.


Aetherbilt
A civspec landship manufacutring conglomerate formed from mergers between several smaller corps. There's no such thing as a cheap landship, so Aetherbilt has made their fortune on utility and luxury hoverbikes and hovercarts. They now use said fortune to make overpriced vessels for rich jerks, and the occasional "budget" vehicle for the downtrodden independent merchant.

Ariaki Mitigation
Specializing in civspec defense gear, Ariaki is a household name among city folk for their affordable shields and ablative body armor. Their warranties are about as good as you'll get from a corp; unfortunately, so is their customer service.

DigitALL
A popular mainstream computer corp that produces reliable slate and mobile computers, as well as a variety of communication, gaming, and other network-ready digital devices. Their middling pricepoints make their wares attractive to a broad audience, and their bloatware isn't too difficult to strip out of common operating systems. Currently, they're most famous for their N-Zone gaming console, which nine out of ten critics agree is the hottest mass-market entertainment device available.

Emergen
A subsidiary of Teledyne (see below) specializing in dateline reporting and with a slick netsite. Newscasters like Aliss Mafyooz are familiar faces throughout Aster territory, ubiquitous enough to wear down the average person's resistance until they know longer care or know for certain what's true and what isn't.

EveryWear
While there aren't realistically any innocent corps, there are at least less objectionable corps, and EveryWear is one of those. They tend to stick to manufacturing budget utility clothing for wage slaves, wasters, and desert merchants and keep their noses clean when it comes to commercial politics.

Free Traders' Union
Not actually a corp, but not legally a guild, either, the Free Traders' Union (abbreviated FTU) is the single most powerful independent force in the global marketplace. An inevitability even in a world of extreme greed, the FTU consists of hundreds of local cells or chapters that together comprise a worldwide organization with near-guild-level mercantile power. Independent merchants join the FTU to avoid paid membership in a corp or guild, and instead pay dues or percentages to the Union to negotiate trade rules, tariffs, and the like on their behalf. This kind of collective bargaining has enabled an incredibly diverse array of small-time entrepreneurs to escape the insidious politicking of corp life.

Much of the FTU's resources are spent on navigating the venomous legalities of operating outside guild control, which leaves them constantly running to keep up with ever-changing policies designed especially to bring them down. Their counterefforts take many forms, from encrypted computer operating systems to a credit union that can issue valid credchits.

GeneTech
Elegant advertising is the GeneTech standard, and you'll find it plastered on soft holo displays, netsite banners, and sponsored product packaging pretty much everywhere. In the cities, especially, you can hardly swing your arms without hitting a slick and tasteful advertisement for cutting-edge prosthetics or luxury implants. The corp's cybernetics cost what they're worth, but are also arguably worth what they cost, insofar as anything is. Of course, they're also a self-serving engine of commerce, and there are no guarantees in the fine print of their end-user license agreements that prohibit them tracking their merchandise after it's been installed—or killing the operating firmware with a callous update when you miss a payment.

MaxLite
Now defunct, MaxLite manufactured civspec landships with a tonnage of up to 1000, until they were acquired by Aetherbilt (see above) in a hostile takeover a few years ago. Aetherbilt still makes a handful of parts for discontinued MaxLite models, and circulates printer specs for a few more—both with prices carefully calculated to make people want to buy a new Aetherbilt landship instead of repairing and maintaining their old MaxLite vehicle.

Pax Secundus
Specialists in pharmaceuticals, Pax Secundus make a good chunk of the world's meta-gel. Their branding can be found on triage kits, emergency first aid supplies, assistive devices, and preventative care treatments all over; they make certain of that by doing enough charity work to keep up the illusion that they're in it for the common good, rather than the credits.

Raser Solutions
Raser is known for their civspec melee weaponry, which runs the gamut from collapsible staves to gauntlets fitted with inertial dampening emitters and kinetic amplifier arrays, sufficient to make a jackrig take notice of a good left hook. The truth is that their products run about as close as a corp can get to milspec without paying some hefty fines; a number of contemporary weapons technologies began life as a Raser protoype, which makes the brand a must-have for the average person expecting to get up close and personal. As the slogan enthusiastically proclaims, "If it's bleeding-edge, it must be a Raser."

Rugged Systems
Chances are good that most people who own a corp-manufactured tool or toolkit probably know the Rugged name. Spanners, sockets, pliers, flashlights, plasma torches, travel cases, camping gear—if there's some kind of mundane task that requires it, Rugged probably makes equipment for it. They live up to their branding, specializing in paratactical-level items that can take a lot of punishment before needing replacement. The corp's leading gimmick is quality, but not far behind is their second-biggest selling point: They actually stick to the terms of their warranties.

Tagg Industries
Not being in direct competition with Raser Solutions (see above) doesn't stop Tagg from taking every opportunity to smear the other corp on social media. "Why bring a knife to a gunfight," their advertising asks, "when you can bring a Tagg?" To be fair, it's a reasonable question; Tagg sidearms are among the best in their weight class for the price, although they don't edge as close to milspec technology as their rival corp's gear does. Guns are much more heavily regulated, after all, and the goal is to make money, not attract unwanted attention from entities like the Silence.

Teledyne
A shell corp that produces propaganda for the Aster Hydraulic Distribution Syndicate, thinly disguised as "news." It's not really a well-hidden secret that Teledyne is just another arm of the Aster sprawl, but no one can deny their effectiveness, either; they're equally good at spinning stories in Aster's favor and running smear campaigns against competing media corps that ruin their reputations and prevent independent reporting from disrupting the Aster public relations machine.