# FASA Corporation - House: Game company - Date: 1980–2001 - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/fasa/ > The Chicago company, named for a Marx Brothers joke, that built BattleTech's giant robots and Shadowrun's cyberpunk elves, then closed its doors in 2001 while still solvent. **Why it matters:** FASA pioneered the cross-media game universe, spinning tabletop games into novels, video games, virtual-reality centers and animation, and its Shadowrun and Earthdawn showed that fantasy could be fused with science fiction. ## Quick answers **What was FASA Corporation?** The Chicago company, named for a Marx Brothers joke, that built BattleTech's giant robots and Shadowrun's cyberpunk elves, then closed its doors in 2001 while still solvent. **When was FASA Corporation founded?** FASA Corporation was founded in 1980 and was based in Chicago, Illinois; it closed in 2001. **Who founded FASA Corporation?** Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock III, fellow gamers at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy; Jordan's father, Mort Weisman, joined in 1985. **What is FASA Corporation known for?** Shadowrun and Earthdawn. **What happened to FASA Corporation?** Ceased active operations on April 30, 2001, without going bankrupt; it survives as an IP-holding company. BattleTech and Shadowrun passed to WizKids (later Topps) and are published under license by Catalyst Game Labs; FASA Games Inc. has published Earthdawn since 2012. ## History FASA was founded in 1980 by Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock III, who had gamed together at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, with starting capital of $350. The name was a joke: the Freedonian Aeronautics and Space Administration, after the imaginary country in the Marx Brothers' *Duck Soup*. Based in Chicago, the company began as a licensee of Game Designers' Workshop's *Traveller*, publishing starship plans and adventures, and made its name with the *Star Trek* roleplaying game (1982), whose sourcebooks gave fans details of the Federation and Klingon Empire that the official canon did not yet supply. Its original breakthrough was *BattleTech* (first published in 1984 as *BattleDroids*), a board wargame of giant piloted war machines in a feudal interstellar future. It spawned novels, the *MechWarrior* computer games, an animated series and the BattleTech Centers, networked cockpit simulators that were among the first virtual-reality entertainment venues. In 1985 Jordan's father, Mort Weisman, who had sold his publishing house, Swallow Press, joined to run operations, and FASA expanded into fiction and miniatures, eventually buying the figure maker Ral Partha. [Shadowrun](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/shadowrun/) (1989) was FASA's great fantasy statement. It imagined that magic returned to the world in 2011, bringing back dragons and turning some humans into elves, dwarves, orcs and trolls, just as megacorporations took over a cyberpunk future. Players were deniable criminals running jobs through a Seattle of neon, spirits and cyberware. [Earthdawn](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/earthdawn/) (1993) went back in time to the same world's distant, magical past, a post-apocalyptic fantasy in which the survivors of a demonic plague emerge from sealed underground shelters, framed as an explanation for the classic dungeon. Both became long-running lines with novels and video games. Babcock went with FASA Interactive when Microsoft bought it, and Jordan Weisman turned to new ventures, including WizKids. Then, on January 25, 2001, FASA announced it would close. It ceased active operations on April 30, 2001. The company did not go bankrupt; Mort Weisman wanted to retire, doubted the future of paper games, and chose to stop while the business was sound rather than divide it up. ## Notable work The *Star Trek* RPG, *BattleTech* and *MechWarrior*, *Renegade Legion*, *Crimson Skies*, *Shadowrun* and *Earthdawn*, plus the BattleTech Centers and the Ral Partha miniatures line. ## Legacy FASA's properties outlived it. BattleTech and Shadowrun were sold to WizKids, whose rights later passed to its parent, Topps, and they have been published under license by Catalyst Game Labs, which released Shadowrun's sixth edition in 2019. Weisman's Harebrained Schemes returned to both worlds in video games, including the *Shadowrun Returns* series (from 2013) and *BattleTech* (2018). FASA itself remains an intellectual-property company, and FASA Games Inc., launched in 2012 with Babcock on its board, has published new editions of Earthdawn. More than any other company of its era, FASA treated a game setting as a universe to be expanded across media, and its blending of elves with cyberdecks helped make [Science Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/science-fantasy/) a mainstream gaming genre. ## Facts - FASA stood for the Freedonian Aeronautics and Space Administration, a joke on the Marx Brothers film Duck Soup. - Jordan Weisman and Ross Babcock started the company in 1980 with $350. - It began as a licensee producing supplements for GDW's science-fiction RPG Traveller, then won the Star Trek RPG license (1982). - Shadowrun jokingly detonates a tactical nuclear device near FASA's real offices at 1026 W. Van Buren St. in Chicago. - Its BattleTech Centers, developed by a unit code-named ESP for 'Extremely Secret Project,' were among the first virtual-reality gaming arcades. - FASA announced its closure on January 25, 2001, and ceased operations that April 30; the owners chose to quit while still financially sound. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASA) - [Wikipedia: Shadowrun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowrun) - [FASA Games (official site)](https://fasagames.com/) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.