Marquise

Valkyrie Theory: Horizon War [Mecha] [8*/13Slots]

“My apologies, Captain,” Michi replied after a long moment, the queasiness of the unknown and the unexpected twisting her stomach and roaring in her ears. The man's eating habits weren't helping, either, and she closed her eyes for a long moment. Fortunately, she could hardly get any paler – but the grapefruit, half-eaten in front of her, looked distinctly less appealing, and even its smell, normally a divine temptation, soured. Carefully – almost too carefully, the exquisite precision of someone fighting their own senses – she laid down her spoon and blotted her lips with the napkin.

“I do not like the unknown, and I find myself...out of sorts...as a consequence.” A half-smile, one side of her mouth quirking upwards for a split-second. “Once I know the why of our deployment, things will improve. If-” she had been about to enquire after his cybernetics, a distraction from her own stomach and his...basic...table manners both, when the shriek of a microphone cut through the air and the order to report to the bridge came through, deep and sonorous.

If Michi had thought that Gregory had eaten quickly before, now he was a man possessed, powering through his food at an alarming rate and then all-but throwing his plate, bowl, cup and cutlery together and neatly slotting them into one of the racks before leaving at a march she would be hard-pressed to keep up with.

His cybernetics might have been ugly, but they were functional. In fact, they functioned very well, given the turn of speed the big man had put on. With a faint sigh, Michi pushed herself up from the table and went through the same motions as the captain, although at a rather more sedate speed. Not slow, exactly, but certainly not Gregory's inhuman pace either.

The bridge of the carrier was an impressive sight, a sweeping horseshoe of consoles filling the air with light and information as impeccably-uniformed UNF sailors and soldiers paced between them, discussing in low, earnest tones their duties and data and a million and one other things, all the myriad little details that went into keeping tens of thousands of tons of metal flying serenely above the ocean, in total contrast to its natural state. Even during the graveyard shift, the bridge barely changed; vital jobs had to be done, and machines cared little for the hour or for human failings and foibles like sleep and relaxation.

Unusually for the hour, however, and a sign that things were out-of-the-ordinary, the captain of the carrier himself was on deck, looking as fresh as a daisy and sipping coffee with every air of nonchalance whilst two others – her colleagues, in point of fact – stood at attention in front of him, ready and waiting to receive the briefing.

“Lieutenant Maganza reporting in, Captain Dawn,” she said crisply in her turn, salute flawless and body braced at parade-ground attention, fresh from the drill squares of the Royal College. Her eyes drifted idly over the files at his left, but she was skilled enough to keep her gaze quick and disinterested, allowing it to pass over them to gaze at the screens showing the carrier's progress through iron-gray clouds that were grossly pregnant with rain.

She returned her attention rapidly to his face, however, keenly interested to see his reaction and for any further information that might be forthcoming.

Valkyrie Theory: Horizon War [Mecha] [8*/13Slots]

The pre-dawn light filtered in through the windows of Michi's small assigned room aboard the Terra. In the dimness and vague shadows, only one thing moved with purpose – Michi herself, moving fluidly through the motions of her morning limbering-up exercises. The deep thrum of the engines came up through the deckplates and hummed in her bones, a constant reminder of where she was and what they were doing.

That thought caused a small frown to crease her forehead and her almost dancelike routine to stumble, just for a moment – because she didn't know what they were doing, not really. Only that Captain Dawn had received orders to make best speed for Regalis, where further orders pertaining to – rumour had it – the deployment of Michi and the others in her unit would be promulgated from the UNF General Staff. None of which told her what they would be doing or how they would be used – would they be window-dressing for the latest round of speeches and posturing from Parliament, the polished future face of warfare – sorry, defence – or would it be a humanitarian crisis, their vast suits put to use relieving the beleagured populace from some disaster or other?

Or maybe, just maybe, there was the chance of an actual engagement. Some well-entrenched terrorists, perhaps, too tenacious and too well-fortified to be broken easily or quickly by conventional forces.

A nasty little smile cut across Michi's face at the thought – the Kaiserin's guns could pound even the mightiest of fortresses into rubble in short order, and from what she'd seen of the others' Valkinai, they were just as deadly too.

The blonde lieutenant finished her stretches and dressed quickly, moving with the studied, fluid grace of most of Priscus' nobility. The skill born on the social battlefield of Priscus' balls and parties had been honed during military training for entirely different purposes, and now Michi moved with an elegant economy of motion, buttoning the black-and-gold uniform at her throat with one hand even as she moved from the cool dimness of her room and out into the brightly-lit corridor, heading unerringly for the mess hall.

Her Valkinai needed final checks, of course – the engineers had been at work on her all through the graveyard shift, checking the thousands upon thousands of systems which kept the vast construct moving and fighting, but as the one who would actually be piloting the thing, she wanted her own eyes to have a last look.

Before that, though, she needed to tend to herself. Food, drink, the fuel of the body – as essential as the liquefied fusion premix for the reactor which burned brightly at the heart of the Kaiserin. Happily, the Terra's commissary never slept, and hot food aplenty was always available. Michi's hand hovered over her earbuds as she left, undecided for a split-second. On the one hand, the music would chase away any lingering clouds of sleep, but on the other there was the possibility that she might miss the greeting of a superior officer, even at such an uncongenial hour.

That would never do – she pocketed the tiny transmitters instead, moving briskly through the near-deserted corridors of the vast ship and into the mess hall itself, a long, low-ceilinged room filled with the smell of food and acres of tables and chairs, the few people about and eating dwarfed into comedic irrelevance.

A faint smile touched Michi's lips even as she collected a tray and placed her order – grapefruit and lime juice, a piping hot cup of black tea, and a fistful of high-energy chocolate bars. For later.

No sense in loading down on heavy food; she always got nervous before a deployment, or potential deployment, and the butterflies in her stomach never reacted well to a hearty breakfast so beloved of so many. No, give her grapefruit and lime instead, light food that didn't sit in the stomach like a leaden bowling ball.

She murmured her thanks to the catering staff and turned to survey the hall, Gregory's imposing form catching her eye as she did so. A taciturn man, by all accounts, mangled in one of the early experiments with the Valkinai suits, if she recalled correctly. Also a superior officer in the UNF, a captain - which perhaps explained some of the offputting iconography he wore. Winged skulls? That was decidedly not part of standard dress – but then again, the UNF was unofficially known to tolerate harmless peccadilloes, always providing the soldier in question was sufficiently useful.

“Captain Fietmaal,” she murmured as she drew close, her voice clear and precise. “Are you well?” she asked, to be polite, even as she set down her tray and picked up a spoon, delicately and with impeccable manners carving a crescent of flesh out of her fruit.

Mortem Cogitatio

@Fairess, just wondering how essential it is for our characters to be born in Cardenbury. I was considering a member of the nobility and the possibilities offered by the Grand Tour, see :P . It's completely fine if it is necessary, of course.

Another Gothic Roleplay

Sounds interesting :) .

My Emperor, The Galaxy Is Yours For The Taking (Space Opera NRP)

Enjoy your flight :)

Valkyrie Theory: Horizon War [Mecha] [8*/13Slots]

Well, one man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist, so... :P .

INCORPORATED: Capitalism Incarnate - [Megacorporation NRP]

@ClocktowerEchos, I've changed 'Orbital' to 'Spaceflight' as per instructions, and my CEO CS is under the second hider in my post :) . And yes, it'd be a shame if things began to go missing at sea...although sometimes that can be quite beneficial, in the sense of inconvenient secrets and annoying people, for example :P . Looking forward to getting started!

INCORPORATED: Capitalism Incarnate - [Megacorporation NRP]

Mmkay, I think I'm done!

Concorrant Industries

Concorrant Industries

^{Building a better world.}

---

---

_Origins

Originally one of many shipping concerns trading across the globe, Trifecta slowly accumulated more and more market share - and more and more influence - through the use of sophisticated shell companies and holding funds, obscuring the ultimate owners and preserving the appearance of far greater competition between firms, thus avoiding monopolies legislation and regulatory breakups. At the time of the Great Collapse, business was booming; Trifecta's ships, planes, trains and lorries moved megatons of cargo every month and its ledgers were creeping inexolerably ever higher, as the world knit itself tighter and tighter together. Peppers from Jordan, opals from Australia, white goods from Germany, automobiles from Japan...everyone wanted them, and one of the best ways to move cargo, any cargo, was with Trifecta or a Trifecta front.

The company weathered the Great Collapse better than most; indeed, in a way it thrived on it. Trifecta was family-owned, and had been careful; they had limited exposure to toxic stocks, and a healthy balance sheet buoyed by substantial physical assets, things that held their value when virtual funds vanished in a hailstorm of binary.

Trifecta was also mercenary, and its leadership had a weather eye for the main chance; when companies folded by the thousand in the wake of the stock crash, their cargoes in transit became Trifecta property by default. When contracts to supply or to receive were not honoured, Trifecta took its dues, in cash and property and assets all across the globe, swelling its portfolio and growing its influence in leaps and bounds.

There was a plan, of course. When the full effects of the Great Collapse became apparent, Trifecta capitalised on the panic and the lack of basic goods, money and services. It was all carefully orchestrated from the Trifecta Tower, their HQ in London - social order would be permitted to break down, to a point; government would grind to a halt and people would become increasingly desperate...and then Trifecta would ride to the rescue, its ships disgorging tons of expropriated food, drink, medical supplies, machinery...the list went on and on. Security, prosperity, luxury; only Trifecta could provide.

The corporation was hailed - in the countries it provided relief to - as saviour and guardian, keeping the people fed and society functioning, even if it was a very different society to the one that had gone before. In the UK, the grand old lady of democracy was swept aside, the Palace of Westminster becoming the new corporate HQ, company directors and Board Members moving into the palatial site en-masse, solidifying control and legitimacy from the ancient political heart of the country.

In India, meanwhile, Trifecta conquered from the sea, as its British predecessors had done centuries earlier. It already had interests in ports up and down the coast, and still more in the form of shipbreaker's yards on the beaches of the Bay of Bengal, sites that desperate Indians flocked to when word began to spread of Trifecta's bounty. Quietly, much as it had done in Britain when the social fabric began to unravel, corporate largesse and humanitarian gestures turned into quid-pro-quo arrangements with local villages, then towns, then cities, the corporation rebuilding an interconnected - and totally Trifecta-dependent - network of production and consumption, aggressively expanding and taking advantage of the chaos of the Collapse to enforce its own version of the British Raj. Even more than in the UK, the corporation rules.

The corporate strongholds, the great cities of Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, they are neon beacons of wealth and prosperity, staggering amounts of money washing through them, heady and alluring. In these monuments to money, corporates are king and their every whim serviced eagerly.

_Leadership

Concorrant is, for all its size, still a family-owned concern and has resisted numerous calls for IPOs and stock market flotation throughout its history, often emerging bloodied but unbowed from each corporate clash and – in the fullness of time – growing larger and ever more completely under the control of the Paradis family. There are eleven members of the Executive Board; the Chairwoman and CEO at the helm, then two members of the senior management team of each of the subsidiary corporations, representing their interests and concerns at the very highest level, the Director-General of Security and finally the Executive Director of Acquisitions, a position whose brief is to augment the corporation’s forward planning and to pinpoint business interests which might be susceptible to one of the many, many means of takeover at Concorrant’s disposal.

The Chairwoman and CEO is currently Aurelie Paradis, the fourth generation of her family to occupy the lonely corporate throne.

_{Major Industries/Brands/Subsidiaries}

Luminary Systems – Dreaming the Future – (Spaceflight) – a relatively new venture, Luminary Systems is expanding rapidly as demand for its services skyrockets. One of the few companies capable of regular, reliable, efficient surface-to-space launches, Luminary Systems holds a commanding position. It designs, builds and launches satellites, probes and other key orbital infrastructure, both for itself and for other clients, civilian and military.

Trifecta Corporation – (Shipping) – Original Industry. The Trifecta – air, land and sea – was one of the few organizations to come through the Great Collapse, and indeed was the springboard for much of Concorrant’s later successes. Trifecta’s vast number of hulls keep the arteries of commerce open and moving smoothly; many products complete at least part of their journey in a Trifecta-owned vehicle of some kind, and in the chaotic days after the Great Collapse, it was Trifecta that kept the goods coming in despite the turmoil.

Horizon Energy – Lighting the World - (Energy) – Headquartered in Mumbai, Horizon Energy is a vast organization devoted to keeping the lights on and the air conditioning running. Everything from coal-fired power plants to fusion reactors fall within its ambit, all to keep the neon excesses of the new post-nationhood corporatocracy glowing brightly. It is aggressively expanding, bringing the light of civilisation wherever it goes – at a reasonable price.

Heterodyne Synthetics (Robotics) – Focusing on ubiquity, Heterodyne Synthetics pioneers development and deployment of fully artificial intelligent platforms integrated into every aspect of modern living. Everything from smart windows showing your view-of-choice through to menial drones and hazardous-environment platforms, Heterodyne Synthetics can deliver.

_{Company Culture}

At the highest levels of Concorrant, in the words of Aurelie Paradis herself: “Ethics are useful, applied intelligently.” Intelligent application of ethics, of course, being when it is beneficial for Concorrant and its interests, either from a PR or profit basis, and preferably from both. Concorrant likes to project an image of a forward-looking, progressive corporation, a benevolent capitalist hegemon striving for a better world for our children, and our children’s children, and the corporation as a result invests heavily in its employees and those regions under its control.

In return, the corporation expects – and gets – loyalty and hard work. The bottom line is comfortable, but only that; Concorrant dangles greater luxuries before its legion of employees as one of its many incentives to strive harder, rise higher. In the upper echelons, money and power flow like water and corporate executives live as aristocrats could only dream of. Rich rewards, yes, but only if you’re of value to the company; the corporation giveth, and the corporation taketh away.

Above all, Concorrant is pragmatic. Reactor explodes thanks to shoddy maintenance work, causing millions of pounds’ worth of damage and a clean-up bill extending for decades? Inefficient, avoidable, and costly – the three most toxic words in Concorrant; one of the Board’s ‘never events’.

Morally-bankrupt brilliant scientist with new ideas and a lucrative new approach, but several little peccadilloes that would once have been highly illegal? Give them what they want - it’s only wrong if you’re caught on camera, after all.

_{Security Detail - Aegis Risk Control}

Concorrant’s in-house security force, ARC inherited the proud legacy of the SAS and the Royal Marines in the UK, and the MARCOS and paras of India. Very highly trained and lavishly-equipped with the latest military hardware available, their doctrine is to respond rapidly and decisively in theatres where they are deployed, to keep the peace and ensure Concorrant’s primacy. Whilst it has aircraft and many men and women under arms, serving as the police force and rapid-response units in the event of unrest, ARC is perhaps better known for its naval presence. Based out of Portsmouth, in the UK, ARC Admiralty keeps a fleet of modern warships to provide protection for the endless Trifecta shipping lanes and the corporate headquarters of London. It also has significant naval bases at Vihsakapatnam and Mumbai, providing seaward defence capability for the Indian subcontinent.

_{Corporate Holdings}

---------------------------------------------------

CEO Aurelie Paradis

Aurelie Paradis

^{”Wonderful thing, money. Everyone has their price.”}

---

---

_{General Information}

Name: Aurelie Clarisse Eleanore Paradis
Age: 36
Sex: Female
Birthdate: 8th July 2063

_History

Aurelie was born in Tyauhaar Tekadee - Festival Hill, the pleasure playground of the Paradis family carved out of central Mumbai. A place the maharajas of old would have envied, it was – and is – a monument to corporate success and the power which the megacorporations now wield.

The party capital of Concorrant and some way beyond, heady, sweaty, sexy, neon-drenched Mumbai was Aurelie’s cradle and she revelled in its unabashed richness and vigour. The world was her oyster, the rules that lesser mortals lived by bent and broke before her will; she was de facto queen of all she surveyed.

Britain, then, when the young Paradis heiress arrived to pursue her education, was something of a shock. The fizzing, crackling energy of the Indian subcontinent was almost completely absent on the rainy little northern European country that had birthed Concorrant and, even now, was the cradle for several of its most important divisions, and it took her a long time to realise that, where Mumbai roared and stamped in colour-drenched glory, London purred, all power and silk, shadow and mirrors.

She read physics at Magdalen College, Oxford, earning a first, and almost as soon as university was done she plunged into the corporate ocean of Concorrant, first on rotation through each of the four key subsidiary corporations – venerable Trifecta, dynamic Horizon, cutting-edge Luminary and expanding Heterodyne – and then on up into the corporate superstructure which tied them together under the Concorrant banner, learning the intricacies of each and the dynamic power-play between them and the myriad of lesser industries which supported the giant conglomerate. Whilst these four titans were its lynchpin, hundreds of other companies sheltered beneath the Concorrant banner, a complex interlocking meshwork of supply, demand and, above all, profit.

All of it was key training for the moment when, ten years ago, her mother passed away, leaving the corporate throne vacant and ready for the next Paradis – her. Since that moment, Aurelie has worked to consolidate and expand, capitalising on India’s natural resources and plentiful labour pool as well as the UK’s financial expertise and skilled workforce.

_Personality

Polite and controlled, Aurelie learned from a very young age the power of words and deeds and the insidious control that the social arena could exert. She is not a woman to yell, bluster, berate or bellow; it implies a loss of control and an inflexible approach to changeable circumstances. Instead, Aurelie makes use of subtler methods of expressing displeasure, all the while maintaining the image of a smiling, kind superior doing her best in trying circumstances. She also believes in rich rewards for those who serve her and the company well, fostering loyalty through largesse and, importantly, consistency; do well and be rewarded. Fail and be punished.

Brought up in the indulgent excesses of the corporate hegemony, Aurelie is very fond of the finer things in life; the best food, the finest wine, the most lavish entertainment, and so on. She is patron of many museums and artists, furthering her image as a sophisticated, cultured businesswoman, but not all of her appetites are so savoury, nor so widely-known, kept carefully within the confines of Festival Hill and other Concorrant strongholds – more out of concern for international PR than any domestic response.

_Relations

Aurelie Paradis knows well the value of family, and the Paradis clan as a whole can generally be depended upon to close ranks around one of their own. Her younger sister Marisa is a director of Horizon Energy, and widely tipped to be that company’s next head, reflecting her business skill as well as her current role as heiress presumptive – a role which carries more weight and permanence than ever before, given Aurelie’s own unabashed preferences. Various other cousins of differing degree are scattered throughout Concorrant’s constellation of companies, backups in case the unthinkable happens, and also furthering the influence of the clan through their own work.

INCORPORATED: Capitalism Incarnate - [Megacorporation NRP]

Still WIP, but getting there...

Concorrant Industries

Concorrant Industries

^{Building a better world.}

---

---

_Origins

Originally one of many shipping concerns trading across the globe, Trifecta slowly accumulated more and more market share - and more and more influence - through the use of sophisticated shell companies and holding funds, obscuring the ultimate owners and preserving the appearance of far greater competition between firms, thus avoiding monopolies legislation and regulatory breakups. At the time of the Great Collapse, business was booming; Trifecta's ships, planes, trains and lorries moved megatons of cargo every month and its ledgers were creeping inexolerably ever higher, as the world knit itself tighter and tighter together. Peppers from Jordan, opals from Australia, white goods from Germany, automobiles from Japan...everyone wanted them, and one of the best ways to move cargo, any cargo, was with Trifecta or a Trifecta front.

The company weathered the Great Collapse better than most; indeed, in a way it thrived on it. Trifecta was family-owned, and had been careful; they had limited exposure to toxic stocks, and a healthy balance sheet buoyed by substantial physical assets, things that held their value when virtual funds vanished in a hailstorm of binary.

Trifecta was also mercenary, and its leadership had a weather eye for the main chance; when companies folded by the thousand in the wake of the stock crash, their cargoes in transit became Trifecta property by default. When contracts to supply or to receive were not honoured, Trifecta took its dues, in cash and property and assets all across the globe, swelling its portfolio and growing its influence in leaps and bounds.

There was a plan, of course. When the full effects of the Great Collapse became apparent, Trifecta capitalised on the panic and the lack of basic goods, money and services. It was all carefully orchestrated from the Trifecta Tower, their HQ in London - social order would be permitted to break down, to a point; government would grind to a halt and people would become increasingly desperate...and then Trifecta would ride to the rescue, its ships disgorging tons of expropriated food, drink, medical supplies, machinery...the list went on and on. Security, prosperity, luxury; only Trifecta could provide.

The corporation was hailed - in the countries it provided relief to - as saviour and guardian, keeping the people fed and society functioning, even if it was a very different society to the one that had gone before. In the UK, the grand old lady of democracy was swept aside, the Palace of Westminster becoming the new corporate HQ, company directors and Board Members moving into the palatial site en-masse, solidifying control and legitimacy from the ancient political heart of the country.

In India, meanwhile, Trifecta conquered from the sea, as its British predecessors had done centuries earlier. It already had interests in ports up and down the coast, and still more in the form of shipbreaker's yards on the beaches of the Bay of Bengal, sites that desperate Indians flocked to when word began to spread of Trifecta's bounty. Quietly, much as it had done in Britain when the social fabric began to unravel, corporate largesse and humanitarian gestures turned into quid-pro-quo arrangements with local villages, then towns, then cities, the corporation rebuilding an interconnected - and totally Trifecta-dependent - network of production and consumption, aggressively expanding and taking advantage of the chaos of the Collapse to enforce its own version of the British Raj. Even more than in the UK, the corporation rules.

The corporate strongholds, the great cities of Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, they are neon beacons of wealth and prosperity, staggering amounts of money washing through them, heady and alluring. In these monuments to money, corporates are king and their every whim serviced eagerly.

_Leadership

Concorrant is, for all its size, still a family-owned concern and has resisted numerous calls for IPOs and stock market flotation throughout its history, often emerging bloodied but unbowed from each corporate clash and – in the fullness of time – growing larger and ever more completely under the control of the Paradis family. There are eleven members of the Executive Board; the Chairwoman and CEO at the helm, then two members of the senior management team of each of the subsidiary corporations, representing their interests and concerns at the very highest level, the Director-General of Security and finally the Executive Director of Acquisitions, a position whose brief is to augment the corporation’s forward planning and to pinpoint business interests which might be susceptible to one of the many, many means of takeover at Concorrant’s disposal.

The Chairwoman and CEO is currently Aurelie Paradis, the fourth generation of her family to occupy the lonely corporate throne.

_{Major Industries/Brands/Subsidiaries}

Luminary Systems – Dreaming the Future – (Orbital) – a relatively new venture, Luminary Systems is expanding rapidly as demand for its services skyrockets. One of the few companies capable of regular, reliable, efficient surface-to-space launches, Luminary Systems holds a commanding position. It designs, builds and launches satellites, probes and other key orbital infrastructure, both for itself and for other clients, civilian and military.

Trifecta Corporation – (Shipping) – Original Industry. The Trifecta – air, land and sea – was one of the few organizations to come through the Great Collapse, and indeed was the springboard for much of Concorrant’s later successes. Trifecta’s vast number of hulls keep the arteries of commerce open and moving smoothly; many products complete at least part of their journey in a Trifecta-owned vehicle of some kind, and in the chaotic days after the Great Collapse, it was Trifecta that kept the goods coming in despite the turmoil.

Horizon Energy – Lighting the World - (Energy) – Headquartered in Mumbai, Horizon Energy is a vast organization devoted to keeping the lights on and the air conditioning running. Everything from coal-fired power plants to fusion reactors fall within its ambit, all to keep the neon excesses of the new post-nationhood corporatocracy glowing brightly. It is aggressively expanding, bringing the light of civilisation wherever it goes – at a reasonable price.

Heterodyne Synthetics (Robotics) – Focusing on ubiquity, Heterodyne Synthetics pioneers development and deployment of fully artificial intelligent platforms integrated into every aspect of modern living. Everything from smart windows showing your view-of-choice through to menial drones and hazardous-environment platforms, Heterodyne Synthetics can deliver.

_{Company Culture}

At the highest levels of Concorrant, in the words of Aurelie Paradis herself: “Ethics are useful, applied intelligently.” Intelligent application of ethics, of course, being when it is beneficial for Concorrant and its interests, either from a PR or profit basis, and preferably from both. Concorrant likes to project an image of a forward-looking, progressive corporation, a benevolent capitalist hegemon striving for a better world for our children, and our children’s children, and the corporation as a result invests heavily in its employees and those regions under its control.

In return, the corporation expects – and gets – loyalty and hard work. The bottom line is comfortable, but only that; Concorrant dangles greater luxuries before its legion of employees as one of its many incentives to strive harder, rise higher. In the upper echelons, money and power flow like water and corporate executives live as aristocrats could only dream of. Rich rewards, yes, but only if you’re of value to the company; the corporation giveth, and the corporation taketh away.

Above all, Concorrant is pragmatic. Reactor explodes thanks to shoddy maintenance work, causing millions of pounds’ worth of damage and a clean-up bill extending for decades? Inefficient, avoidable, and costly – the three most toxic words in Concorrant; one of the Board’s ‘never events’.

Morally-bankrupt brilliant scientist with new ideas and a lucrative new approach, but several little peccadilloes that would once have been highly illegal? Give them what they want - it’s only wrong if you’re caught on camera, after all.

_{Security Detail - Aegis Risk Control}

Concorrant’s in-house security force, ARC inherited the proud legacy of the SAS and the Royal Marines in the UK, and the MARCOS and paras of India. Very highly trained and lavishly-equipped with the latest military hardware available, their doctrine is to respond rapidly and decisively in theatres where they are deployed, to keep the peace and ensure Concorrant’s primacy. Whilst it has aircraft and many men and women under arms, serving as the police force and rapid-response units in the event of unrest, ARC is perhaps better known for its naval presence. Based out of Portsmouth, in the UK, ARC Admiralty keeps a fleet of modern warships to provide protection for the endless Trifecta shipping lanes and the corporate headquarters of London. It also has significant naval bases at Vihsakapatnam and Mumbai, providing seaward defence capability for the Indian subcontinent.

_{Corporate Holdings}

INCORPORATED: Capitalism Incarnate - [Megacorporation NRP]

Splendid! In which case, I shall begin constructing a CS immediately :) . I'm thinking of the UK and India, unless there are objections?