Corporations
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WIP: Who the heck even operates in the Frontier? What are their motivations? Who do the things? Much of this fluff isn't really established or shown much in game, but is a long project of slowly putting these references here and there onto posters and small items and such to build up a better scale of What's Around Us. The scope of this article should be worldbuilding stuff that any space resident might be vaguely aware of - public histories, public sentiments, newsworthy events, not deep secret lore and clandestine operations. Avoid spoilers that would fall more on the "deep secrets" side of things.
NanoTrasen
- CEO: John NanoTrasen, Corporate Personhood
- Central Command: Seneca Army Depot, NY
- Corporate Retreat: Seneca Castle, NY
- Lunar Command: Space Station One, Earth-Moon L1 Orbit
- Frontier Command: Space Station Ten, Quadriga L2 Orbit
The company that owns and operates the playable stations. Originally National Notary, became NanoTrasen after merging with Tradecraft Seneca during the late Apollo era. NT is your employer, unless you've rolled certain special or antagonist roles. "The Good Guys" as far as gameplay is concerned, but, y'know, still pretty awful.
NanoTrasen is dedicated to plasma extraction, plasma research, plasma-derived technologies and spacefaring / space exploration in general. NanoTrasen fueled Humanity's expansion across the Solar System and outward. NanoTrasen was a private-public partner of NASA since the late Apollo era, brought on by Senator Victor Jam to assist with extraction and research of lunar plasma samples discovered by Apollo 15.
NT provided the fuel for Martian, Main Asteroid Belt and Jovian exploration before the discovery of the Channel at Io. Always a leading force in the new Frontier, NanoTrasen has recently become the dominant corporate power out here following years of maneuvering, acquisitions, mergers, and takeovers. With their ambitious project to move the Channel entry from Io to near Earth orbit in the mid 2040s, NT has effectively become the tollbooth keeper for all transit to the Frontier.
Public resentments go back decades, from the many Lunar citizens harmed or displaced by the Helicon Refinery Disaster, to the current and former employees of rival corporations who for one reason or another trace their misfortunes to NT, to the many disgruntled current or former employees of NanoTrasen itself.
The NanoTrasen Family of Businesses:
National Notary
Tradecraft Seneca
Seneca Falls Staffing Solutions
National Notary Supply Corporation
- Executive Secretary: Kathleen Blanchard
- HQ: Annapolis, MD
The core business of NT before the Space Age. Makers of pens, stamps, staplers, etc. Not just everyday pens though, the kinda pens you might use to sign an international treaty. Or just a mortgage. Though incorporated around the same time as the founding of the Annapolis Naval Academy, National Notary's origins are rumored to go back much, much further - kings, priests, merchants and mages have all used notarized stamps and seals since, well, forever.
Tradecraft Seneca
- President: Bodie Frosch VIII
- HQ: Seneca Lake, NY
- Lunar Shipyards: Seneca Crater, Luna
- Frontier Shipyards: Iudicium, Equatorial Orbit
A maritime corporation from the Finger Lakes region of New York, with a long history in hull-building and ships services for Great Lakes barges and industrial freighters. Founded by business partners Willard Jam, Ovid Jam and a certain little-known Mr. Erdmann Frosch in the mid-1880s. After the Korean War, Willard's son, Senator Victor Jam (NY, US) secured the purchase of the retired Naval Training Facility Sampson as Tradecraft Seneca's primary shipyard and training academy on Seneca Lake. This facility eventually expanded further with the acquisition of the old Seneca Army Depot, repurposed as the NASA-NT Central Command and Launch Complex Seneca to service the early Lunar Rush. CENTCOM is now operated solely by Nanotrasen.
Tradecraft Seneca produces spaceships, modular station hulls, barges, shuttles, freighters, cargo holds... so many cargo holds. It also provides ships services and ships service training, including ship & station-board amenities such as vending machines, arcades, barber shops, laundry services, retail services and more.
Five Points Armory
- Presiding Officer: Colonel "Mild Bill" Williams
- HQ: Romulus, NY
An in-house brand providing basic security equipment, helmets, batons, handcuffs and more! Founded by Colonel "Five-Fingers" Devland (RETIRED) of the old Five Points Correctional Facility while the site was being decommissioned in the late 2020s. With such close proximity to CENTCOM, NanoTrasen eagerly bought the facility and funded Devland's projects in non-lethal detainment to augment NanoTrasen's over-worked station security departments. Five Points began experimentation with non-lethal energy rifles and would release the Mk. 1 taser to the public in 2027. One of their most recent releases is from Project PEW, the Portable Energy Weapon (nicknamed the E-Gun).
In the present day, Five Points provides the bulk of security equipment for all of NT's installations and to many civilian police and security forces on Earth and abroad. NT armorers and quartermasters are allowed some discretionary purchases of course to deal with the many hazards of space, and do still import products from rivals such as Xiang | Giesel, Cormorant Precision Arms, Radnor Photonics and others for special purposes.
Bellona Special Requisitions
- Presiding Officer: REDACTED
- HQ: Bellona, NY
- Factory 1: 28 Bellona, Main Asteroid Belt
- Factory 2: Iudicium
Another in-house brand producing much more advanced equipment for NanoTrasen's highest tiers of internal security and executive or asset protection. Bellona equipment utilizes cutting-edge Frontier material-science advances - and their prices are just about as high as their clearance levels.
Wallace Jam Institute of Exo-Archaeology
- Director of Life Sciences: Wallard Jam (MIA)
- Director of Materials Sciences: Horace Jam (MIA)
- HQ: Wallace Crater, Luna
- Earth Office: Jam Mansion & Estates, Glass Bay, Geneva NY
- Frontier Offices: NT Life Sciences Complex, Fatuus
A research institute founded by the boomtime mayor of Lunaport, Wallace Jam, following some Very Exciting discoveries in the Aristarchus region. Some of NanoTrasen's top research directors got their start studying powerful artifacts and strange materials here. The Institute is headed by NT board members Wallard and Horace, who are currently missing.
Seneca Falls Staffing Solutions
- Director: Thad Davies (NanoTrasen)
- HQ: Seneca Falls, NY
- Branch Offices: Lunaport & Copernicus City, Luna
- Frontier Office: Port Roerich, Iusticia
A small local agency acquired and expanded by NanoTrasen in 2031 to meet NanoTrasen's new staffing demands for the Frontier Rush. Provides invaluable human resources expertise and operates a network of recruitment offices that provide same-day on-site cryogenic preparation and genetic sampling services for new assistants.
Von Bürg University of Cybermedicine
- Director of Cyborg Resources: Marquessa Von Bürg
- HQ: Bürg Crater, Luna
A Lunar teaching hospital at the forefront of cyborg and prosthetic research, which developed many of the methods used by on-site Roboticists at various NanoTrasen facilities. Their work has been invaluable to extending human lifespans with all the mishaps and mayhem that may occur on any given worksite outside of Earth jurisdiction.
Ainsley Orchards & Apiaries
- Owner: Beatrice "Queen Bea" Ainsley
- Honorary NT Board Member: "The Overbee"
Bea's Bees, beloved by all, helped immensely with agricultural efforts as humans tried to cultivate the Moon and Mars. Whenever you enjoy a fresh space-grown bounty, her bees probably helped grow it. In the Frontier, her unique skills helped to broker an alliance with NanoTrasen's roundest honorary board member, known as the "Overbee." Beatrice Ainsley is a devoted proponent of human cloning efforts and funded both the Ainsley Staff Retreat Center and much of NanoTrasen's cloning research.
The Hieng Observatory at Typhon
- Director: Dr. Ayaash Hieng, PhD
- Office: Pendus L1 orbit
The very same researcher who identified FAAE during the Apollo era and led the Hieng Expedition of 2031 to catalogue the newly discovered plasma giant and the Frontier. Dr. Hieng is an honorary NanoTrasen board member for life. Why does he spend so much time so hazardously close to the plasma giant? He says he just likes it there.
ThinkTronic
Makers of Robuddies and most of the operating systems in use on station. Closely aligned with NanoTrasen.
Pitatus Farms
- Site: Pitatus Crater, Luna
- Distribution Center: Hell Junction, Luna
An immense cultivation project growing potatoes in Lunar regolith, largely an automated effort tended by very proud Robuddies. Bulk potatoes of many rugged varieties are delivered to nearby Hell Crater Junction for distribution by rail to the Great Lunar Cities of Copernicus, Tycho & Gauss and for export to space via Lunaport.
Hafgan Heavy Industries
- HQ (Earth): Great Orme, Wales
- HQ (Moon): Lake Autumn Colony, Luna
- HQ (Frontier): Caer Sidi, Antistes
A vast mining syndicate with centuries of experience in coal and ore mining, steel-making, and modern industrial robotics. A titan of the Welsh age of Steel. Conducts mining operations across the Earth, the Moon, Mars, and deep into some of the most hostile environments of the new Frontier.
Hafgan Heavy Industries (Vintage)
Hafgan (Modern)
Radnor Photonics
- HQ: Radnor Castle, Wales
A high-intensity lighting and photonics company based in Radnor Forest, Wales, dedicated to carbon arc luminaries, radio tubes and beacons in the Radio Age.
Modern products include the Flash and Phaser lines of personal defense weaponry, as well as as navigational buoys and tripod HID worksite lamps.
Radnor Photonics (Vintage)
Radnor Photonics (Modern)
Kingsway Systems
- HQ (Moon): Tycho City, Luna
- Service Center: Port Roerich, Iustitia
Kingsway is a defunct competitor of ThinkTronic in the personal robotics and business computing markets.
Kingsway's line of executive and medical androids were unfortunately prone to hazardous bit-flips and are not recommended for use in regions with high radioactive flux, solar flares, plasma storms, or increased cosmic radiation.
Donk Co
- HQ: Donkin, Nova Scotia
From a humble lunch wagon, the popularity of the Donk Pocket among coal miners paved the way for Donk's expansion. The modern Donk Co produces a variety of shelf-stable rations and vending products, as well as metallized films, thermal susceptors, and metal vapor deposition products for aeronautics, space exploration, and survival/rescue purposes.
Donk (Vintage)
Donk (Modern)
Mabinogi Firearms Company
Mabinogi Firearms Company
- HQ: Ebbw Vale, Wales
- Lunar Factory: Mare Crisium Military-Industrial Zone, Luna
- Frontier Sales Office: New Tharros, Mundus
Produces weaponry used by Hafgan mine guards and corporate security, also sold for export.
Hemera Astral Research Corporation
Largely Defunct. A newer tech startup that revolutionized space-based construction with their research into Uqill and the invention of the Rapid Construction Device. Hemera's expertise with compressed matter technologies, telecrystals and other applied materials research laid the groundwork for Nanotrasen's own recent advances in teleportation. Once among the wealthiest corporations in the Frontier, HARC is mostly defunct by 2053 following a series of major facility writeoffs and the mysterious loss of their Grand Fleet. NanoTrasen acquired much of their corporate research and warehoused inventory at fire-sale prices during Hemera's bankruptcy proceedings.
Products include the RCD, the singularity generator and black hole bomb, the Alastor beam rifle, and the HEPT test apparatus.
Almagest Weapons Fabrication
One of Hemera's corporate holdings, Almagest WF imports surplus military-issue weaponry to the Frontier for refurbishment and upgrade. Their battle rifles, squad weapons, submachine guns and rockets are just about everything you'd need to equip your own private army. They're also highly illegal in most jurisdictions. Almagest was sold off from Hemera's portfolio during bankruptcy, but the current owner is unknown.
The BonkTek Consortium
- HQ: Bonktek Shopping Pyramid, New Memphis, Fatuus
A family business with many interests, lead by Fergus "The Plaid Baron" de Bonkyll, head of a minor house of Scottish nobility with a tradition in the merchant marine service. Fergus is still well-regarded by the public for his heroic freelance service defending merchant convoys during the Martian wars.
Zero-G Tek
Director: Baron Fergus de Bonkyll
Another hull-building company rivalling Tradecraft Seneca. Produces a variety of armed merchant craft, ranging from merchant cruisers and auxiliary frigates down to pods and mini-putts.
BlastoTek
Director: Commodore Broca de Bonkyll
Specializes in mining explosives, demolitions, and munitions for ship-scale ballistic systems. The business face of the older BADGER PMC group, a relentless team of professional sappers and demolitions engineers feared by Martians from the Solar System to the new Frontier.
FunkTek
Director: "Grody" Brodie de Bonkyll
GeneTek
Director: Baroness Moira de Bonkyll, PhD
ElecTek
Director: Buzz de Bonkyll
WaffleTek
Director: Taffy de Bonkyll
Decirprevo Glacial Water
HQ: Posidonius Crater, Luna
Decirprevo operates a fleet of water rigs, ice-mining craft and distillation outposts to produce drinking water for civil contracts and commercial export. Their largest project is the massive Posidonius Crater reservoir which gathers polar ices for distribution as drinking water to Copernicus City, Lunaport, and other Lunar cities. Subsidiaries include various interests in beer brewing, liquor distilling and chemical refining.
Beer Crater Brewing
- HQ: Beer Crater, Luna
Royal Martin Distilling
- HQ: Chateau de Versailles, Kentucky
An old Kentucky bourbon distillery with a history in moonshining. Produces vast amounts of industrial reagents and solvents as well as intoxicating spirits.
Terra Nivium Company
- HQ: Terra Nivium, Luna
A research company focused on long-distance surveys and exo-archaeological expeditions. Terra Nivium have made significant advancements in the fields of condensed energy and cryogenics with their work on recovered Precursor artifacts.
The Somnus Center for Cryogenics
Experts in all things cold and sleepy.
Chiron Research Complex
- HQ: 2060 Chiron, a comet / planetoid object located beyond the orbit of Saturn.
Terra Nivium operates a research complex within Chiron, an extremely distant cometary outpost between Saturn and the realm of ice giants. Before the era of Long Range Teleportation, the extreme remoteness of this location provided a serene research enclave for those willing to be frozen for half a decade to get there.
Xiang|Giesel Advanced Power Systems
HQ: Schickard-Lehmann Lightyards, Luna Frontier: Shen Kuo Shipyards
Producers of solar panels, RTGs, SMES units, char furnaces, thrusters, and related power-generation and distribution systems. Operates facilities on the Moon, Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and into the Frontier. The loss of their Su Song Thermo-Couple Facility on Io is still a major point of contention, with corporate lawyers arguing to this day that their disaster was instigated by NanoTrasen's near-Earth Channel project.
The Xiang Group
HQ: Hunan, China
A Chinese manufacturing and logistics conglomerate with a diverse range of products and services. The company claims to have been founded by the historic polymath Liu Xiang himself. In space, Xiang Group freighters often operate in areas of high radio or energetic flux, following visual beacons from X|G's "Lightships" where electromagnetic or radiological interference would otherwise imperil navigation. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3252909&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=5
Giesel Radiofabrik
- HQ: Brunswick, Germany
- Lunar Radio-Works: Röntgen Crater, Luna
- Main-Belt Actinide Refinery: Vesta
Industrial-scale actinide refining and applied radiological technologies that hearken back to the work of Friedrich Oskar Giesel during the early years of Radium research. Giesel RF is a bulk buyer of radioactive ores and minerals, refining them for use in such settings as medical imaging and radio-thermo-electric power generation. Giesel's radiological products are often used in satellites, deep space probes, long range beacons and radio repeaters, low-power remote outposts, and as the ionization sources for NanoTrasen's own plasma thrusters.
Inghirami Motors
- HQ: Inghirami Speedway, Vallis Inghirami, Luna
A subsidiary of XG which produces consumer- and competition-level automobiles with advanced fuel-cell engines and low-gravity drivetrains. Inghirami's sport cars remain a symbol of status and luxury among private collectors even in the Frontier. New landspeed records are set and broken every year at the Vallis Inghirami Speedway, where the low gravity and lack of atmospheric drag allow feats that would be impossible on any of Earth's racetracks.
RED TIDE HOLDINGS
- CEO: Harvey Jun Jr.
- HQ: Warren, RI
- Fishpacking Factory Hub: Providence, RI
- Happy Hydroponics Manufacturing: Goodacre Crater, Luna
After a harmful algal bloom yet again decimated the local shellfishing economy, biochemist Caspian Jun developed a proprietary method for processing tainted clam harvests for safe consumption in pet foods, livestock feeds and canned chowders. Jun opened a small processing facility in Warren, RI known as Red Tide Reclamation, running the slurry vats at long hours into the night alongside their brother Eligor Jun. Caspian was a humanitarian and dedicated patron of the working waterfront, providing thousands to relief and preservation efforts around the bay. Many local captains and clamdiggers credit the Juns with keeping their businesses afloat during these dark times. RTR soon expanded into the fields of aquaponics and plant nutrition, cultivating kelps and algaes and fishery byproducts as demand grew for health foods, nutritional supplements and high-potency fertilizers.
In 1986 RTR was able to greatly expand operations with the acquisition of the struggling Creaca's Dairy Union, re-purposing much of their national network of milk vats as bioreactors. With their acquisition of the atomic-gardening firm GardenGear in the year 2000, Red Tide Reclamation would rename themselves to Red Tide Holdings and dedicate themselves to the nutrition challenges facing residents of the new Lunar Colonies. They released the first Happy Hydroponics Plant Development Kit in 2012, allowing just about any Jane or John Moonman to grow their own fresh produce at small or large scale.
GardenGear
- Founder: Dr. George Burbank, Radiobotanist
- HQ: Oak Ridge, TN
- AgriTech Outreach: Geneva, NY
- Lunar Facility: Goodacre AgriTech
- NanoTrasen/GardenGear Botanical Experiment Station: NT08, 8-Flora, Main Asteroid Belt
Dr. George Burbank of Oak Ridge won several Blue Ribbons throughout the 1950's and '60s at the Tennessee Harvest Fair with his unique radiation-enhanced melon varieties and other whimsical mutations of common produce. George and a core group of his former lab assistants founded GardenGear together to encourage the niche field of Atomic Gardening, packaging kits with live radioisotope sources in his own garage to sell by mail-order from various almanacs and hobbyist magazines. His small company fell on hard times after the International Atomic Energy Agency and the US Department of Energy banned his signature Atomic Gardening Kit for public sale anywhere on Earth, limiting his market to only a few stringently-licensed government and educational institutions.
Luck would strike however when the growing prospect of Lunar colonization spurred new investment in experimental botany, leading GardenGear to open a new office in Geneva NY to facilitate business with the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station and the fledgling Seneca Spaceport. In the early 2000s, GardenGear was brought into the growing Red Tide Holdings portfolio to augment their interests in aquaponics and aquaculture. The banned Atomic Gardening Kit was revamped and relaunched as the "Happy Hydroponics Plant Development Kit", now marketed towards Lunar colonists outside of the jurisdiction of the IAEA. After the release of the HHPDK and the massive success which followed with it, GardenGear became one of the biggest names in offworld gardening and agriculture. Much of NanoTrasen's frontier hydroponics methodology was devised under a joint venture between GardenGear and NT at the experimental agritech station on the main belt asteroid 8-Flora.
Creaca's Space Milk
The Law Offices of Hogge & Wylde
- Mr. Clyde Hogge, Esq.
- Ms. Eleanor Wylde, Esq.
A lunar law firm that has been after NanoTrasen's blood and treasure since the Helicon Disaster of 2041. Represents many personal and corporate interests opposed to NT.
Discount Dan's Wholesale and Liquidations
- HQ: Detroit, Michigan
A fire-sale and bankruptcy-liquidation wholesaler. DDW&L warehouses were chilly, drafty spaces alongside the lakefront, which led to Dan's offering a hot foods takeout counter as a reliable loss-leader to keep customers shopping longer. Following the acquisition of a bankrupt chemical supply house's experimental inventory, Discount Dans was able to produce a shelf-stable self-heating form of packaging for his famous soups. These became beloved by freighter crews and sailors plying the Great Lakes, and are credited with saving many stranded space explorers from certain hypothermia. Discount Dan's has long-standing contracts with NanoTrasen and many other shipping and industrial clients.
Iridium Bay Survivor's Association
A victim's aid and advocacy nonprofit formed after the Helicon Plasma Refinery Disaster and the ensuing partial destruction of the nearby Iridium Bay Colony of Mare Imbrium.
Pallas Society for the Preservation of Space Owls
- Founders: The Honorable Mr. Tedward Hogge, Esquire
- and Dr. Willem Van der Hootens, Professor of Experimental Ornithology
- Lunar Owlery: Pallas Crater, Luna
- Owlery Prime: 2-Pallas
- Frontier Space Owlery: Regina
Owners of the Frontier Space Owlery. Successfully lobbied for legislation to require mandatory owleries installed on any corporate or civilian stations located within Space Owl migratory routes, which is pretty much all of them.
Spectre Tactical Laboratories
- Owner: Ms. Wylde, Esq.
- HQ: Loch Mallachie, Scotland
Spectre was a small machine shop founded shortly after the Battle of Dunkirk, designing clandestine weaponry under contracts with the British Combined Operations Command and the American Office of Strategic Services. Spectre offered innovative designs for commandos, saboteurs and infiltrators. As demand from state-level buyers decreased over time, Spectre pivoted to the private market, then enjoyed a new resurgence of demand with the start of the Martian War. Spectre is a long-term business partner of Badger PMC and the Bonkyll family. The brand came up for sale in 2045 and was purchased outright by Ms. Wylde, Esq. of Hogge & Wylde in a Lunar auction.
Various Weapons Manufacturers
AFFILIATIONS TBD
Cormorant Precision Arms
CPA produces traditional ballistic pistols, shotguns, and rifles in classic formats. Widely used across the Frontier, their firearms can be found in both NanoTrasen station armories and in Syndicate hands. Even in regions with readily-available energy weapons, CPA's kinetics still have a devoted userbase, despite the risks of decompression and hull breaches. The Frontier Detective's Guild swears by the Piper .38 revolver - a reliable standby when the power grid fails.
Super! Friend
- CEO: Unknown
- HQ: Unknown
A cheerful email-order novelty electronics company with no known physical address. Their Super! Protector Friends are implicated in countless housing fires and workplace safety incidents. Their robotic duck novelty toy is voted Worst Robot, All Years every time a poll is given. Before it was recalled, power excursion issues with last Super Protector line of cyalume glow toy swords led to hundreds of cases of maiming and dismemberment. Due to their absolutely terrible consumer safety records, Super Protector Friend! is often considered to be more of a weapons and munitions manufacturer than a toy-maker under import/export laws.