Ah, I see what you're focusing on. I was referring more to how they operate, rather than what they produce. Aztechnology is a master of the public propaganda machine. They conduct flagrant naughtiness, (Yucatan, *cough*) but the general public remains blissfully unaware. Perhaps more than any other Megacorporation that's considered "evil" in Shadowrun - Aztechnology manages to do it without Joe Schmoe finding out.
So if we had to pick the archetype megacorporation for Comstar to emulate, (which they kinda already do) Aztechnology would probably be it. Aztechnology is also Shadowrun's largest producer of consumer goods, which if Comstar went more corporate and was smart, would also try to emulate. In the Shattered Dawn Universe, since Comstar doesn't own Terra (and if I were the Primus, I'd leverage profits from operating the HPG network into a more diversified manufacturing portfolio.) military production is a tough and extremely risky proposition. Seeing how military production would be out of the question - not only would it threaten the neutrality of Comstar proper, but also the Terran Republic by association, something the Republic wouldn't allow - building high Hegemony-quality consumer goods would be an extremely beneficial project to pursue.
For one, (assuming Comstar did manage to sell its neutrality to the other five Successor States AND distance itself far enough from the Republic to make the claim plausible) there is a good possibility that Comstar-owned and operated production sites (ostensibly built near their HPGs or clearly marked as Comstar owned) would be relatively safe from the predations of the Succession Wars. The first Successor State to inadvertently bomb one of their plants while invading the Republic would face the threat of an Interdiction. Heck, after a while they'd probably build them everyone.
Not only is Interdiction a great deterrent, but safely building consumer products also adds an additional bulwark against the general decline in technology. While canon Comstar may have wanted to watch the Inner Sphere fall back into the Stone Age so they could emerge and create an enlightened theocracy, they also owned Terra and all of her precious technological secrets. While SD's Comstar may also claim ownership of many of those same secrets, she lacks the industrial base and even the hard infrastructure to do anything with them.
No, by building high quality consumer products SD's Comstar can work in the exact opposite way as her canon counterpart and still achieve similar power. In this scenario, while the Successor Lords are bombing the hell out of each other's military and civilian industrial complexes, Comstar's civilian products would start to gain more and more of a monopoly and Sphere-wide stranglehold due to their relative sophistication and protected status. With the backing of the HPG network and her inherent "neutrality," Comstar can go and sell where others can not.
Surprisingly, the Republic would actually play a small and unintentional role in this development. By merely existing, Comstar will have the opportunity to purchase former Hegemony factories and civilian companies before the onslaught begins in earnest. Whereas canon Comstar only had a few years to muster the military strength to conquer and hold Terra, in Shattered Dawn, the Republican Army is doing that for them and throughout the former Terran Hegemony. With a little bit of breathing room thanks to the formation of the Republic, (and without having to entertain the thought of pursing an Operation Silver Shield) Comstar can devote those early resources to doing what it should be doing best - making money.
In the end, it'd be a weird Inner Sphere to live in circa 3025 with Star League-quality personal computers and jury-rigged BattleMechs, but the end result would still be the same with Comstar enjoying a public prestige and omni-present power far in excess to what it's physical capabilities should allow. Plus, the omni-presence of having most of your consumer products built by Comstar, in every household and with the information gathering capabilities that might entail are tantalizing. Comstar's spy apparatus would be more automated, but with their high level of protected technology in comparison to everyone else...the possibilities are endless. If they played their cards right and operated a little more like Aztechnology, they could broker all that information for quite a profit, while continuing to further their own nefarious plans...
