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| CHOM (Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles) | |
|---|---|
| Name | CHOM (Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles) |
| Formation | 20th century |
| Type | Commercial syndicate |
| Headquarters | Fictional (literary and speculative) |
| Region served | Global (fictional settings) |
| Leader title | Directorate |
CHOM (Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles) is a fictional commercial conglomerate originating in speculative literature and science fiction that appears in multiple works across novels, role‑playing games, television, and film. The entity functions as a megacorporation and syndicate within narratives that include corporate feudalism, interstellar commerce, and dystopian capitalism, often intersecting with themes explored by authors, designers, and filmmakers. CHOM frequently appears alongside fictional states, private military corporations, and transnational cartels in settings that echo historical empires and corporate cartographies.
CHOM was introduced in mid‑20th and late‑20th century speculative contexts by authors and creators influenced by Ayn Rand, William Gibson, Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Alfred Bester, and subsequently adapted by game designers associated with Gary Gygax, Marc Miller, Jordan Weisman, Richard Baker, and Keith Baker. Early prototypes of CHOM‑like firms appear in the tradition of corporate antagonists found in Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty‑Four, Neuromancer, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and Foundation‑adjacent pastiches. The syndicate concept migrated into role‑playing game modules and tabletop game settings produced by companies linked to TSR, Inc., Wizards of the Coast, FASA Corporation, Games Workshop, and West End Games. CHOM also features in fan‑fiction, shared universes, and transmedia projects connected to producers and distributors such as BBC, HBO, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros..
In fictional portrayals, CHOM is represented as a hierarchical corporation with a central Directorate, regional governors, and franchisee houses analogous to organizations like East India Company, United Fruit Company, Hudson's Bay Company, Royal Dutch Shell, and Standard Oil. Leadership models echo bureaucratic arrangements depicted in narratives associated with Napoleon Bonaparte‑era corporatism, Imperial Japan‑style zaibatsu, and twentieth‑century conglomerates such as Siemens, General Electric, Mitsubishi, and BlackRock in speculative analogies. Corporate governance in CHOM narratives is often examined through legal conflicts with institutions like International Court of Justice, World Trade Organization, United Nations, European Commission, and national regulators exemplified by Securities and Exchange Commission and Competition and Markets Authority. Internal divisions are named in homage to historical guilds and merchant houses comparable to Medici, Fugger, Hanseatic League, and Hudson's Bay Company‑style commercial monopolies in fiction.
Fictional operations attributed to CHOM span resource extraction, interstellar shipping, mercantile banking, mercenary contracting, and plantation management, mirroring enterprises like Rothschild family banking, Vanderbilt family shipping, ExxonMobil, British Petroleum, Lockheed Martin, DynCorp, and Blackwater. In game and narrative settings CHOM controls assets comparable to Sierra Leone concessions, Congo Free State‑style extractive zones, offworld colonies akin to Mars (planet) settlements, orbital habitats reminiscent of International Space Station, and trade routes that evoke Silk Road analogues. Financial mechanisms described in CHOM stories borrow from instruments associated with J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of England‑style central institutions, while logistics echo operations of Maersk, FedEx, DB Schenker, and Union Pacific Railroad.
Narratives place CHOM at the nexus of cultural production and political power, interacting with figures and institutions comparable to Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Margaret Thatcher in allegorical contexts. CHOM influences fictional elections, coup d'états, and policy through proxies resembling CIA, MI6, KGB, Mossad, and FSB in plotlines. Cultural patronage and propaganda in CHOM tales reference media conglomerates such as The New York Times, BBC News, CNN, Fox News, and The Guardian as narrative analogues, while soft power exploits artistic circles akin to Hollywood, Bollywood, Comédie‑Française, and Royal Opera House‑type institutions. CHOM’s role in shaping identities and labor relations draws parallels with historical movements like Labor movement, Chartism, Solidarity (Poland), and Suffrage movement within fictionalized social struggles.
Fictional controversies surrounding CHOM include monopolistic practices, environmental devastation, human rights abuses, and clandestine interventions attributed to corporate entities comparable to Enron, Union Carbide, Shell (Nigeria) controversies, Monsanto, and Bhopal disaster‑style tragedies. Critics within narratives cite investigations by analogues of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Legal and ethical challenges in stories invoke tribunals and inquiries reminiscent of Nuremberg trials, Senate hearings, Watergate scandal, Panama Papers, and Panama Canal disputes. Public backlash often mobilizes fictional civic coalitions paralleling Occupy Wall Street, Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter, and Arab Spring‑style uprisings in plotlines.
CHOM appears across media including novels, short stories, role‑playing modules, board games, video games, television series, films, and comic books associated with creators and publishers similar to Penguin Books, Tor Books, Dark Horse Comics, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Bethesda Softworks, and Blizzard Entertainment. Adaptations reference aesthetic and thematic lineages from works by Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Denis Villeneuve, David Lynch, and Stanley Kubrick in visual treatments. Fan communities, conventions, and academic studies treat CHOM analogues alongside scholarship linked to Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Noam Chomsky, Donna Haraway, Fredric Jameson, and Gilles Deleuze in cultural criticism. CHOM’s recurring role as a shorthand for corporate power places it in comparative lists with fictional entities such as Weyland‑Yutani, Tyrell Corporation, OCP (Omni Consumer Products), Buy N Large, and InGen.
Category:Fictional companies