#So You Want to Learn About the Corporate World?
Everything you'll encounter out in the Nyx System will probably have a label on it, from either NanoTrasen, Githari Exports, Hesphaistos Industries, one of the other Trans-Stellar Corporations, or even the Free Trade Union; marketing is everywhere. That is why you should know your ways around their inner workings, and what they're about.
##The Big Seven
There are Seven Trans-Stellar Corporations that really shape what happens in the Outer Rims of space, and control markets of goods throughout the stars. These are the wealthiest, most powerful, greedy, and controlling TSCs currently in existance.
A high-tech research company with a majority holding on phoron claims in the Nyx system and throughout the galaxy.
A manufacturing company that produces everything from consumer electronics, like PDAs and laptop computers, to home appliances and other miscellaneous items.
A large producer of luxury and alcoholic goods based out of their headquarters on Mars.
A mining company that serves as one of the largest providers of raw materials in known space. Recently, it has also begun to sell generic assembly materials for use in construction projects (metal beams, lattice, coils, etc.)
An atmospherics and recycling company based in the Sol system.
A pharmaceutical company renown for its recent advancements in medicine and questionable business practices.
A renown arms manufacturing and general security equipment company. Commonly known as the first trans-stellar to develop after the formation of Sol Central.
##Smaller Corporations
- Kappa Communications
Established to capitalize on the invention of Quantum Entanglement communications technology. Even before humanity expanded into the stars, it was clear communication needed to keep up with advances in spacetravel. After attempts at communications linked to light became inadequate, research into Quantum Entanglement allowed binary communication at a theoretically infinite distance. Kappa began constructing a communications network in Sol, and as humanity spread, so did its communications.
Kappa is one of the less known Trans-Stellar Corporations. While it doesn't sell some of the flashiest technology on the market, most of Kappa's contributions are behind the scenes. While you might have a trendy service provider for intergalactic communications, it's almost guaranteed to pass through communications beacons built by Kappa. Currently, the cheapest, most ubiquitous Kappa product is the Quantum Entanglement fax.
- Slate Sisters Shipbuilding and Engineering
Founded in the period of early colonial exploration by sisters Laura and Elizabeth Slate to meet the rising demand for commercial vessels, it is also known as Triple-S. It is no longer owned by descendants of the Slate family, however a distant grandson of Elizabeth Slate currently sits in the board of directors.
Headquartered in Alpha Centauri, largely among the system's inner asteroid belt, all manufacturing was done there before spreading out. The Slate's Modus Operandi is to strip a hollow asteroid, and refit it as a large natural hangar, shielded from the elements. While Slate lags behind other TSCs in diversity of business, asset protection, and workforce size, it understandably has the largest fleet of any Trans-Stellar.
The Slate Sisters' catalogue is primarily made up of commercial and industrial spacefaring vessels. Most bulk carriers, tankers, container transports, and mining rigs are Slate-built or based off of one of their designs. They also run a popular line of Colonial Landers, designed to be dismantled upon arrival on a new world, as well as a variety of shuttles and ballistic drop-pods for cheap orbital supply.
- Haakon Group
Originally a prospecting firm founded in the early days of exploration in the Sol System, Haakon quickly found it was more profitable to sell ships to the explorers than to explore themselves. They won the first SolGov contract to build military and civil ships for the exploration of other star systems, earning a reputation for building reliable spacecraft that will keep running even after losing half of its thrusters and reactor shielding.
Today, almost all of Haakon's dockyards and manufacturing facilities are based around Saturn, built into smaller moons, or orbiting the larger ones. Confident that its government and colonial contracts will continue for the foreseeable future, Haakon has specialized existing facilities, instead of expanding into the market. Multiple environmental groups have criticized Haakon for using Moons and Moonlets as testing ranges, and for damage to Saturn's rings from shipping traffic.
There are rumors that Haakon has constructed a secret facility somewhere in or past the Kuiper Belt, possibly hidden by electromagnetic asteroids, or experimental stealth tech, and operates a Skunkworks program outside the watchful eyes of its rivals. These rumors have never been substantiated however, and Haakon's only official statement on the matter is, "We have no statement at this time."
Haakon Group's most popular products are its large military vessels of many sizes, ranging from Corvettes and Frigates, through Cruisers, to Carriers, and Dreadnoughts. Most of these craft are not available to non-government operators. While Haakon also produces smaller craft, it's often said they don't have the same touch for them. On the civilian market, Haakon produces dependable, if expensive, scout craft and couriers, as well as disarmed versions of mil-spec products.
- Terraphistus Military Armor
Terraphistus Military Armor was created in the middle of 23rd century, as a result of a lengthy chain of fusions of military-spec manufacturers of vehicles; land, sea, and air-based; to persist and keep the companies afloat, as demand for planetary military vehicles kept dropping lower and lower. Terraphistus was created as the last resort, joining together all that remained of the industry, and then it has managed to keep up, with good income, which is however consistently paid into dividends since the end of 25th century, preventing any real breakthroughs in tech.
While the company is very adept at constructing the craft on its own, proper electronics, drive, armoring etc. it usually equips it with weapons from other companies. It closely cooperates with Aussec Armory, their heavy caliber weaponry is mounted on personnel vehicles like LAV or IFV, and Aussec even produces cannons just for Terraphistus tanks and artillery, ranging up to calibers of 203mm. Terraphistus turns to Hephaestus only when clients request it due to cost, since no other corporation offers laser weaponry of specific quality standard and scale.
Terraphistus does have a shining exception in the weaponry outsourcing; development of its own missile and bomb systems and guidance. It has originally gained this know-how when it attempted to outfit its strike craft with missiles from Petrovitch bombers and found problems, especially with guidance that had great issues with ground and cloud clutter. Once this was resolved, Terraphistus branched off with its own development that even surpassed Petrovitch in sophistication for some time. Another exception would be utilization of Dawnlight Celestial Defence Mass Driver technology, miniaturized to fit gunships (both planes and ships).
Even though Terraphistus' catalogue has been stagnant for almost 50 years, it is the finest in planetside military vehicles, ranging from a simple armored car and APC, through tanks, ships of sizes from a frigate to carriers, to aircraft manned and unmanned, fighters, bombers, interceptors, AWACS... One of the Terraphistus' shortcomings is relative market saturation, it sees demand mostly from rich, unsafe colonies, and from maintenance and restocking of prior clients.
- O'Neill Manufacturing
A colonial start-up, O'Neill Manufacturing meets the demands of a growing community of spacers looking for more out of their EVA suits. Space suits have been an essential part of space exploration, for obvious reasons. Over time, suits have improved from the clunky affairs of early space travel, and O'Niell can provide any kind of suit for any kind of job. Voidsuits are their most common product, though some Softsuits are still sold for emergency use. Recently though, O'Niell has released a line of affordable industrial hardsuits to complement their line of exosuits. While many of their products are considered middle of the line goods, operators of O'Niell's line of equipment swear by its reliability.
- Xion Industrial
Xion was founded in the mid 23rd century, originally manufacturing industrial equipment, but during the Robotics Boom of the 24th Century, Xion reinvented itself into the company we see today- constructing a vast variety of different industrial drone tech. They quickly grew in size and power, becoming a well known name in Sol and paving the way for the robotic replacement of human workers in certain industrial fields.
Today, they are far less powerful than they were then. Rather than moving forward with the newer innovations such as positronic technology, Xion continues to mass-produce their cheap drones. In more recent years, they've introduced a new line of prosthetic equipment, which prioritizes function over design, for use in the industrial sector.
- Falco Designs
A younger corporation, the simply named Falco Designs first came onto the radar in the early 2500s. Its founder Giuseppe Cecilio, at the time a minor billionaire, purchased the entirety of the asteroid Ceres. Ceres had originally been a stepping stone for the exploration of Sol, though by the 26th century it had been long defunct, stripped of resources and populated by those whose grandparents' grandparents hadn't had the money to leave. Cecilio however, saw opportunity in those people.
He paid the indigenous population to refit Ceres as a large manufacturing facility, and began producing luxury spacecraft. Cruise liners, yachts, and high class couriers filled a market for executive space travel that hadn't been largely exploited at that time. Capitalizing on the positive attention his company received for employing and uplifting a hereditary lower class, Cecilio made Falco into the name in luxury spacecraft. If you somehow find yourself a passenger aboard a spacecraft made by Falco, it's likely you've made it to a level of success most people will never even dream of.
- Major Bill's Transportation and Shipping
While hauling freight may not be the most romantic career in modern times, Major Bill's Shipping is partly responsible for the rapid growth of inter-colonial commerce. Employing a massive fleet of freighters, tankers, and haulers, Major Bill's operates in the majority of human space. While many TSCs employ their own shipping, corporations like Major Bill's connect the many colonies, unaffiliated habitats, and settlements across the known galaxy. Lately however, the expansion of trade into areas outside of SolGov has necessitated the hiring of security contractors to maintain the safety of trade vessels, and the integrity of their cargo.
- Focal Point Energestics
Created from a fusion of energy companies as well as Electrical Engineering companies, like General Electric, E.ON, RWE, Petronas, Škoda Works, and even most of EPPSA (European Power Plant Supplier Association), this company is considered a Megacorporation. It focuses, as its composure suggests, on providing a unified solution for resources and engineering for a fully integrated power grid, even on a planetary scale.
While it does not yet possess technologies like Gravitational Singularity reactor or Supermatter reactor (which is exclusive to NanoTrasen at this time), it finds no match in producing other devices and components of a proper working power grid, like underground shielded long-range transmission wiring, high-efficiency transformers (up to 99.8%), and superior gas turbines and TEGs. They are designers of PSU racks, and later the SMES.
While usually the larger corporations devise their own power grid and manage their own planets, moons, orstations, FPE is often consulted and hired when a less than usual approach needs to be taken, and their products are on high demand.
- Robust Industries LLC.
Relatively new on the megacorp field, Robust Industries is known for their exremely effective ways of preserving and space-proofing food, drink, and other perishables. Their many patented means of preservation have led to multiple contracts with SolGov for stocking different space stations all across the known universe.
Now, Robust has multiple subsidiary companies, including the owner of Space Cola.
Even with how new it is, Robust products are trusted and used all across Human space, with most soda vending machines at least being stocked with Space Cola and snack machines being stocked with their Bread Tubes.
- Petrovitch Spacecraft
Primarily a military spacecraft contractor, Petrovitch is known for its strike craft, fighters, bombers, interceptors, electronic warfare craft, gunships, dropships, and recon craft. Their largest vessels approach Corvette sizes, though typically are designed for crews smaller than 50. A Petrovitch strike craft on sensors is generally the sign that the party is over.
- Aussec Armory
A minor name alongside weapons manufacturers like Hephaestus and NanoTrasen, Aussec Armory is nevertheless a well known name in firearms. Continuing to produce ballistics instead of energy weaponry, Aussec is seen by some to be behind the times, but many mercenary and private security firms swear by, and kill with, Aussec arms.
- Lawson Arms
Founded by Lawson Neal, Lawson Arms is known for designing and producing many weapons used by security and police forces across the galaxy. Their lines range from pepper spray to basic energy rifles, but they're best known for their standard energy pistol, a versatile tool found in almost every armory in the galaxy due to its ability to serve as a non-lethal weapon, or if required, a lethal one.
- Vu-Cheong
A minor player in the spacecraft industry, Vu-Cheong is not a common household name. However, TSCs, Governments, and Explorers alike all know Vu-Cheong's reputation for high-quality scientific spacecraft, worth their exorbitant prices. Often ungainly looking, the research vessels produced by Vu-Cheong at their private manufacturing facility are rivaled by none, and are typically only seen in the hands of governments, wealthy research firms, or TSCs that admit their own shipbuilding facilities aren't up to the task.
- Walton Industries
Formerly possessing Megacorporation status, the Earth-based Walton Industries manufactured cheap consumer goods using impoverished labor on Earth, however industrial growth and new advances in automation technology in the 25th century made it far cheaper to produce goods among the colonies, than to import them from Sol. With the successes of corporations such as Ward-Takahashi, Walton Industries has fallen on hard times, and is looking to readjust their business model in order to stay afloat.
- Blackstone Foundries
While it might not make it to the headlines, Blackstone Foundries is a necessary provider of low to medium-end planetary and orbital vehicles. Many cheap shuttles and interplanetary couriers were churned out at one of Blackstone's many automated plants, as well as an almost endless line of terrestrial crawlers, speeders, and exosuits. Recently, Blackstone has been looking at upsizing and trying to break into the larger vessel market, though only time will tell if it succeeds.
- Dawnlight Celestial Defence
While there are other arms corporations developing arms in massive counts, none got as far as Dawnlight, which produces orbital defence systems and vast weapon systems mounted on stations, offering products like Mass Drivers, railguns, anti-siege MIRVs, and narrow-band pulse lasers developed with aid of Hephaestus.
Dawnlight was created at the end of 21st century, seeing the potential in Mass Drivers for orbital defence. Much of its development involved scaling up, and up. Eventually they became pioneers in anti-capital weaponry, and Railgun technology, standing aside the greatest corps. However, with development of space-faring, demand plummeted and forced Dawnlight in technological stagnation centuries ago.
However, Dawnlight keeps itself afloat thanks to demand from colonies on fringe worlds for Mass Drivers and MIRVs that are affordable and still feature range of up to 96 kilometers, although do not feature speeds of their railguns that can go up to 0.54c compared to 300 Machs.
- Sterling Manufactures
A small company founded on the brink of 22nd century by a group of Commonwealth privateers, it focuses on the utmost of luxury goods, with specialty on manual production and only using technologies from 20th or 21st century. With a focus on perfection and quality through distinctive cratfsmanship, and goods ranging from fine liquours through cigars to furniture and cloths, prices are at the highest when dealing with this company.
Given its very limited production volume, Sterling features exorbitant profit margins, yet very low revenue compared to Megacorporations or greater businesses, and regardless of high demand for its products, sits among the smallest corporations.
- SaniCorp
Relatively underwhelming compared to medical giants such as Vey-Med, SaniCorp's products are largely behind-the-scenes medical gear. Many sanitation sprayers, gauze, sterile gloves, and autoinjector casings are made by SaniCorp. There is one notable exception to their somewhat pedestrian medical offerings, their prosthetics. While not offering as many flashy options as some augments, SaniCorp offers a range of comfortable, easy to maintain, clean, and operate prosthetic limb replacements and augmentations.
- Bishop Cybernetics
Bishop was founded in the earlier 24th century, just after the boom in robotics. Whilst Zeng-Hu Robotics was taking the field by storm by offering replacements that resembled real limbs, Bishop was in the background, making its money by selling sleek prosthetics, focusing on aesthetic and futurism that appealed directly to the Transhumanists who had gone noticably un-marketed to by Zeng-Hu Robotics
Outside of their prosthetics, Bishop also led the development of full-body prosthetic replacement, and were one of the earliest adopters of Man Machine Interface (MMI, Pioneered by the Morpheus Corporation) on a wide scale. These were regarded as the highest quality chassis available, but were also ludicrously expensive.
They still create 'top-notch' prosthetics- though, much of the price comes out of the sleek look and branding, as the quality of their product itself is very much debateable. Their range of products is still centered around transhumanist ideology, consisting mostly of implants, prosthetics, cyborg chassis, and synthetic organs.
- Mars Security Industries (M.S.I)
Founded during the first colonisation of Mars, M.S.I. intended to take advantage of the rich metal deposits to make cheap, mass produced small arms. When the colonies on Mars became more developed, they opened factories to reduce costs by producing the arms locally. To this day, M.S.I. produces some of the cheapest ballistic weapons to be found in the Sol system.
- SAARE (Stealth Assault, Accrual and Reconnaissance Enterprise)
SAARE is a very recently instated PMC company that has been founded by a number of Hephaestus Dedicated Explorer regimen members. Composed from dropouts or veterans from armies of various governments and security forces, it is a multi-racial corporation much more so than most other companies claim. The company seeks out soldiers with a specific skillset, specializing on Black Ops for their clients, as well as utilizing presently unorthodox tactics like Guerrila Warfare, where a handful of SAARE operatives can disrupt operations of an expansive security force.
SAARE's services are relatively expensive and have seen little action as a corporation, and given their very recent establishment and investment, it shall take time before its margins and revenue rise it up the ranks of corporations, however demand is slowly rising for SAARE to perform operations around Sol, as well as Nyx, for different corporations.
##The Free Trade Union
The Free Trade Union is different from other trans-stellars in that they are not just a company, but a big conglomerate of various traders and merchants from all over the galaxy. They control a sizable fleet of vessels of various sizes which are given autonomy from the central command to engage in trading. They also host a fleet of combat vessels which respond directly to the central command for defending traders when necessary.
They are in control of many large scale trade stations across the known galaxy, even in non-human space. Generally, they are multi-purpose stations but they always keep areas filled with duty-free shops. Almost anything is sold there and products that are forbidden or have insanely high taxes in other places are generally sold in the duty-free shops at very cheap and low prices.
They are the creators of the Tradeband language, created specially for being a lingua franca where every merchant can understand each other independent of language or nationality.
##Other Notable Corporations
- Inuvaios Eclestra
A company more commonly known with its GalCom translation as Eclipse Innovations, or simply as Eclestra, the communication in Tradeband is so common there that it influenced its official name. When the human relations with other races improved, joint research efforts as well as collaborations in other industries began. Eclestra is one of the lasting initiatives, despite presence of giants in RnD like NanoTrasen. It accepts scientists and researchers regardless of race, gender, or religion.
Currently, the racial composition of Eclestra is:
- 27% Tajara
- 38% Human
- 8% Resomi
- 17% Skrell
- 10% Dionaea
Economy analysts suggest few reasons for the company's sustained operation. Smaller corporations usually cannot afford RnD, and so when material solution optimization, reverse-engineering, and proper calibrations of precision measurement equipment is needed, Eclestra can be relied upon to perform these tasks at a reasonable price, albeit at a slow pace.
Eclestra does not strive to maintain a roster of experienced scientists, but it collaborates closely with many education institutions, exchanging information on latest discoveries with them freely, offering students internships and scholarships during their study etc. Eclestra has taken a humanitarian approach to science as opposed to corporate one: No experimentation without thought of consequence, only to seek income.
People in Eclestra very well understand their position on the market, and keep in it. The Heads of Staff are aware that even though they could increase prices of their services, big shots like NanoTrasen would discredit the initiative. Instead they offer services no giant corporation would ever dare to offer and support the whole scientific community, making this its philosophy.
Inuvaios Eclestra as a corporation stands only among the small ones, but it is widely renown for growing new, fine scientific minds, making a very good mark in one's resume should their ambitions grow for a more corporate interest. It has never been about money for the people of the initiative, but about the belief information should be the effort of all races, and free to all races.
- Masslink Logistics
Dawnlight Celestial Defence, at its most advanced tech, possessed high-power railguns that could reach 52% speed of light of muzzle velocity. This was the fastest any weapon or even ship had ever gotten at the time. However railguns in their principle were expensive, they had to be mounted on high orbit or on a station, and had many more limitations.
All those limitations were no issue at all when Masslink discovered a way to utilize railguns for accelerating ships. Instead, there were other problems. Accelerating an electrically conductive 1480mm slug is one thing, but an entire ship with hundreds of thousands of kilotonnes of mass, even if at half the speed of light, imposed noticeable time dilation with unpredictable effects. To understand this phenomenon, Masslink needed funding and shipbuilding expertise, both of which was offered by Triple-S, under the condition the patents Masslink would have on the technology would be made public.
Eventually, Masslink was able to devise freighters and public transportation shuttles that could be accelerated to 40% speed of light with no negative effect on any material on board the ship, or hull integrity. After the release of the patents, other companies took over research and further explored the timespace phenomenon that came to be known as Bluespace.
Unfortunately, at this time Triple-S ceased funding Masslink, which left it in an inenviable position; while many other corporations advanced forward in regards of lightspeed travel, Masslink did have access to this technology, but had no means to reproduce it to capitalize on it. It ran an intrastellar transportation business until the late 25th century, when it was discontinued, and assets sold to Major Bill's Transportation and Shipping.