P_Corps.png

Name: POWER! CORPS

Focus: HEMES, energy generation

Board Representative: Barl Giant-kin

CEO: Rod Lightning

Livery: Lime green and electric blue

Motto: FUEL! FOR LIFE!

POWER! CORPS has a long history of both producing power and flaunting it. Pre-Maelstrom, their production of HEMES and other power sources meant that their products permeated every aspect of society.

Accompanying this, there was a sort of slow realization that energetic power was a form of currency not subject to the whims of market forces, and thus both more stable than other methods and easily agreed upon across cultural boundaries. P!CORPS was not the first company to recognize this, but they were the first to smooth out the rough edges that had plagued earlier implementations, not least because of their flamboyant image and deft manipulation of the media.  Pre-maelstrom, they were approaching a monopoly, and when the economic realities shifted drastically, they achieved it almost accidentally, as the economic shockwaves took out any real competitors. Previously, power as a form of currency had been de facto true. Now, with everything changed, it is the only way to operate.

CEO Rod Lightning lives up to his name, attracting criticism and scandal almost as though it was intentional, then deftly and invariably turning that into a public relations coup. Despite controlling a company that impacts the lives of everyone in the sector in ways they might easily forget, he is almost more famous for his outlandish outfits and insistence on acting in public like a PR disaster waiting to happen. There are rumors of secret collusion between Lightning and the executives of COLOR NeTworks to steer the public perception of both Lightning and the company. It is certainly true that COLOR Entertainment NeTwork's reporting on Lightning's various scandals only seems to help his reputation. For some reason, no matter how bad the scandal, the main thing that everyone talks about is his lack of taste.

P!CORPS now effectively controls the production of power sources that run literally everything from the life support systems aboard the Fenris, to the day-to-day transactions of every citizen. Their products are part of the fundamental infrastructure that makes a functioning society in the age of the Maelstrom possible at all.

There are fears that this level of ubiquity gives them unprecedented power, and that their effective monopoly on one of the most structural elements of society is something to be fought against. Rumors in the less well traveled corners of the networks ask; what if they got tired of just making currency, and wanted to control who gets it? Others consider the darker possibility that P!CORPS might have installed backdoors into all silver, and that they could, with a single command, deactivate it all, plunging the economy into ruin. The same agreements that prevent slavery and birth-debt also prevent entities like P!CORPS from abusing their omnipresence. But, some dark whispers ask, what are these agreements in the face of having a hand on a switch that could collapse civilization overnight?

So far they have shown no desire to abuse this power, content to simply let the power flow back up the chain to them. And most citizens, if they think of P!CORPS at all, don't consider them dangerous so much as just tacky. But the possibility must be considered, and relationships with other corps are sometimes strained. In particular, there is their ongoing rivalry with ULS, the other most ubiquitous purveyor of mostly-invisible infrastructure holding society together in the face of the Maelstrom. All of the supercorps permeate the lives of citizens constantly, but these two are particularly invisible due to the routine nature of their activities. Most people consider the ramifications of calling in support from Hornets Nest, but almost no one thinks that much about using silver or an Autofactory. If these two powers collide, the results could be, at the least, disastrous for the average citizen. For the moment, however, P!CORPS continues in its ubiquitous, persistent, and questionably tasteful way to provide power, and currency, across civilized space.

Next: Magitek