Dark Seattle Corporates

COMMUNITY REPORTS
The remainder of this article contains lore created collaboratively by the Blaseball community.

art by @DericBindel

Background

Hailing from the unsettlingly bright and worryingly capitalist city of Dark Seattle, the Dark Seattle Corporates, an unusually large and unusually menacing Blaseball team, are a formidable opposite counterpart to their Lightside equivalent, the Seattle Garages.

Members of this uncanny combination-Blaseball-and-advertising-collective have largely been observed to directly correspond with members, past and present, of the Seattle Garages who exist in the prime universe. However, their comportment and ideals are far removed. The Corporates, though they have been proved to be sometimes easily foiled, are a ruthless and competitive bunch, known for their alarmingly fast rate of advertising and product output, for their constant squabbling with the other teams of the Mirrorverse, and for their deeply unsettling habits of speaking in perfect unison and creeping up behind their enemies for a surprise attack. They are not to be approached at all costs.¹

Recognizable by their telltale blue arrow markings and glowing eyes, the team is linked together by a synthetic blood type known as Synergy Blood. Synergy Blood is theorized to have been developed from the remains of the Arrow Sun in Dark Seattle, though the precise details of its origins have not yet been discovered. The blood type connects members of the Corporates telepathically and gives them the ability to resist Feedback trades, making them one-sided.²

History

Arrow Sun logo by Cori

Rumors and data gathered from visits to the other side of the Gum Wall have allowed researchers to piece together a partial history of the team.

At some point in the past, before Goodwin Morin speared the Sun through with the arrow that would doom the city, the original 14 members of the Corporates were a well-known underground music collective that supported the fight against the Sun. After the Corporation turned on Goodwin Morin, it set its sights on capturing the members of the Dark Seattle Garages, and trapped them in their stadium, subjecting them to the sonic power of the Sun’s soulscream. The Dark Garages fought valiantly against it by attempting to drown the sound out with music in an event known as the Last Gig, but the team eventually fell to its sheer force. Record, music, and memory of this group, beyond their name, was subsequently erased, and the team that emerged was known only as the Dark Seattle Corporates. As far as it is known, no members of the original Dark Garages escaped.

The Corporation experimented with a number of project ideas simultaneously while creating the team that would become the Corporates, including a number of cloning initiatives and experimental creation of restructured monster amalgamations. A number of these entities are known to stalk the sewers of the city of Dark Seattle. Somewhere in between its cloning mutant projects and its obsession with synthesizing ideal Blaseball players for purposes unknown³, the Corporation's effort led to the creation of what appear to be imitations of Lightside players, of varying levels of resemblance and uncanniness. These imitations shulk about alongside the more naturally multidimensional counterparts, and are sometimes numbered among the beings known to prowl the meeting rooms and corridors of the D.E.B.T. Tower.

The Corporates maintain a fierce and jealous rivalry with the Lightside Seattle Garages, especially after the Garages managed to steal their best pitcher, Goodwin Morin, on her way out of escaping the Mirrorside universe. The Corporates refer to the prime version of the city as “Shadow Seattle” and have expressed disgust at its amenities such as “clouds,” “nighttime,” “mutual aid,” and “punk music.”

DEBT Tower

Somehow both imposingly wide and tall, the D.E.B.T. (Dedication to Equality Ballpark Tower) Tower is the headquarters of the Corporation as well as the home stadium for the Dark Seattle Corporates. Its complex hallways, patrolled by all manner of frightening experimental robots, mutant projects, and accountants, stretch far under the city of Dark Seattle. The ball field portion of the stadium sticks out of the side of the tower, casting a shadow over the sun-washed city. Anyone down on the sidewalk who is hit by a foul ball that rockets off the tower is required to pay the Corporation back for exorbitant damages. It is rumored that the Tower’s AI security and management system was synthesized from the remains of the original Big Garage, which was destroyed during the Last Gig. Investigators haven’t been able to get far enough into the Tower before being repelled by security systems and a very angry robotic duck to find out.

Instead of a collective of mascots, the D.E.B.T. Tower manufactures a number of ghastly clones of Homerun Eric, whom lucky fans and those contractually obligated to attend Corporates games have the chance to “destroy, attack, and rend asunder” at the end of a match. Those who have observed this ghoulish tradition have noted that this seems to be “the sole time fans show any sign of fulfillment in or enthusiasm for anything that goes on at the Tower.” Researchers have attempted to take some of the pieces of Eric clone back to Lightside Seattle to observe and study, but all specimens have disintegrated into sun-bleached dust when they cross the barrier, even when kept in airtight hazard containers. A popular ballpark snack at the Tower is Jaylen Hotdogfingers Memorial Hotdogs. ⁴

Footnotes

¹ Unless you have a really good prank idea. I’m not your boss.

² It can be inferred that this is the reason for the Corporates’ unusual roster size.

³ Probably typical taking over the world stuff.

⁴ Origins unclear.

CLASSIFIED
THE FOLLOWING REPORTS ARE ONLY FOR EMPLOYEES OF LEVEL M RANK OR HIGHER.

ANY EMPLOYEE OF LOWER RANK CAUGHT READING THEM WILL BE TERMINATED.

Retrieved Documents

The following reports were retrieved from Corporation Databases by members of the Lightside Seattle Garages on periodic excursions of attempted disruption and espionage. The documents pertain primarily to the profile details of members of the Dark Seattle Corporates Blaseball team (who bear remarkable resemblance to current and former Seattle Garages team members.) The database also includes some other data about the hostile dimension. This time, the Interdimensional Rumor Mill reveals a Rumor from IF-97.002 out of its Rumor Registry...

NAME: ABBOTT, ALLISON

POSITION: BATTER

DATE ONBOARDED: SEASON 0 DAY 97 (████████)

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:

ABBOTT is a flagship member of the Corporation’s streaming content team as well as a high-level expert on RETRIEVAL and COMBAT techniques. ABBOTT’s battle loadout is often chosen by stream viewers.

ABBOTT’s signature NAIL BAT GUN has been modified by the RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT department to function in various hostile environments including DEEP SPACE, HIGH ALTITUDES, and PHILADELPHIA.

Fan Works

The following fics deal with the Dark Seattle Corporates:

if you would've told me how things are (i would have thought that we had won) by Cori

stop this world for five minutes (i'll tell you now) by Cori

Arturo Huerta (saves the world with a mixtape) by remi_wolf

• 

  The Corporates' original roster, by Cori