Freelance
Traveller
The Commonwealth of Deneb, despite its territorial gains after the Crucible War, is barely the size of some Domains in the former 3I. Couple this with a more stringent competitive business environment, a bitterly anti-imperial public, and both precedential and statutory restrictions on how far the Commonwealth government will intervene on the behalf of business, and it can be safely said that its corporations do not enjoy the carte blanche of their Imperial predecessors. Nevertheless, at least six corporations would enjoy megacorporate status under the old definition, even if they are modest by the standards of giants like the Vilani bureauxs or Ling Standard and Tukera. Two of these corporations, Ohtori and Lodestar, are transportation companies, the remaining four are diversified manufacturing and service providers that date back in origin to the founding of the older Regency of Deneb.
Adamantium LRC
The Commonwealth's largest corporation. Adamantium, along with Morning-STR, is one of the Commonwealth's "universal" products manufacturers, and a member of the so called Big Four. The company was founded on Mora in IY 1133 by industrialist Hoseki Eikawa, who bought up the scattered Denebian divisions of now defunct Imperial megacorps and cobbled together a fully functioning company. Like its bombastic founder, Adamantium is an aggressive company, and a constant thorn to other manufacturers. Adamantium is one of the largest R&D underwriters in the Commonwealth. The "LRC" (Limited Regency Corporation) is one of the few modern holdovers within corporate chartering.
Operations
Adamantium ships its products to more than 90% of the Commonwealth, only those areas of trailing Corridor being the exception due to the uneconomical nature of its high tech products. Most of its products are manufactured at factories located in the Sabinar Federation and the Stronghold. The company maintains its HQ at the Commonwealth capital of Mora.
Portfolio
Adamantium concentrates in transportation equipment, starships, power generation equipment, and an array of automation and industrial technologies. Services mainly involve maintenance contracts for the same, with signifincant presnce in venture capital, finance and medical services.
Practices
Adamantium distinguishes itself from other manufacturing companies through its aggressive marketing strategies. Its products are strictly average in terms of cost and quality, but it compensates for this by aggressively hounding retailers and wholesalers, to stock their products and man their supporting infrastructure, from Foreven to the Great Rift. The famed Silver Diamond logo of the company can just about be found everywhere in spinward regions. Adamantium has long standing ties to Ohtori Shipping Lines, providing with the bulk of its vessels.
Morning-STR
The Commonwealth's largest company, and one of the so called Big Four. Morning-STR is headquartered and intimately linked with the fortunes of Vincennes/Vincennes, the famed high tech world of Deneb sector. The company was founded in 1079 by Albana Morning, a female industrialist/scientist prominent in the local electronic industry. For most of the antebellum period, the company was a fair sized manufacturing firm that produced many of the goods marketed by Vincennes famous "G" corporation. Because of the limited markets for its high-tech products, the company was confined to Vincennes and its immediate vicinity. But the Post-Collapse need for TL-16 technicians and scientists to assist the Regency government and military permitted the company to finally escape the bounds of its homeworld, and it grew mainly through contracts in assisting the construction of the old Regency's emerging TL-16 research and development infrastructure. Morning-STR is a general manufacturer, though its product line is a full quantum leap ahead of its rivals in many cases.
Operations
Morning-STR lacks the marketing fecundity of its chief rival, but its products and services are generally available in about 80% of the Commonwealth. The company is assisted in its shipping and distribution, via reciprocal agreements, by its old spinoff, Galactic Halo Lines. The company manufactures most of its products on Tech Level 15 to 16 worlds in the Metro Commonwealth, and moves them via its "G" franchise line of stores and distribution networks. The company retains its HQ on Vincennes. Morning-STR's logo is a bright, eight-pointed "daggerstar" set against a red sunburst (representing Ember, the star Vincennes orbits around).
Portfolio
Morning-STR virtually matches Adamantium kilo for kilo in manufacturing and service sectors, but has a greater lead in emerging manufacturing areas, such as artificial intelligence, advanced biomedical sciences, and new physical disciplines.
Practices
Founded by a scientist, Morning-STR has made its fortunes out of the cutting edge of science. Despite seeming monolithic, the company is actually a network of franchise holders, ranging from backyard inventors to middleweight researcher/entrepreneurs to major universities and private labs, that do the dirty work of advanced science and development. The actual company bureaucracy is little more than a giant venture capital firm that facilitates scientific and technical education, underwrites R&D ventures of varying wisdom and efficacy, and loops these all together into a single marketing and distribution network. The company has very high standards, however, and the bulk of its products are somewhat expensive, having been built to high tolerances and being subjected to stringent safety testing.
Grand Design
Former design studio and engineering office of the now defunct Imperial Megacorp GsBAG. Grand Design was the company's main design group in Trojan Reach and Reft and had been spun off from the company in the early years of the Civil War to minimise financial damage stemming from the Ihatei invasions. After successfully relocating to Glisten in IY 1123, the company struggled to survive financially, though it managed to acquire industrial plant of its own. With generous financial assistance from an unknown backer, GD bought out the remaining assets of its now dead parent company and concentrated its assets heavily in what was previously known as the Thinrim. The company enjoyed further growth during the Crucible War, and bought out several LSP operations after that company's bankruptcy and breakup. It is now considered to be one of the Big Four.
Operations
Grand Design sells its products throughout the Commonwealth, though most of its sales come in rimward areas, particularly the People's Republic and Islands Federation. A significant portion of its profits come from sales to adjacent Aslan territories, and it has sold or traded goods with new polities in Reaver's Deep and Daibei sectors. Because of the coincidence of their trading ranges, Lodestar purchases exclusively grom GD. Grand Design remains headquartered on Glisten/Glisten. GD's logo is a Gold and Black "GD", the letters made out of interlocking hexagons.
Portfolio
GD's primary focus is shipbuilding, though other transportation products and space construction have grown into major divisions in the last century and a half.
Practices
Grand Design has lost its parent company's lead in quality to Morning-STR, and has compensated by creating the most reputable customer service in any industry. The company is unusally sensitive to its customer base, and provides almost immediate service for quality defects, design shortcomings and emergency maintenance. It constantly polls its customers to improve its products, and has spearheaded product customisation down to the fixtures in the crew heads on dumpy merchant haulers. GD maintains offices at every A and B-class starport in the Commonwealth and Aslan territories in the Trojan Reach sector, expressly for servicing its products and handling customers, some of whom are in possession of other companies products.
General Mechanics
Joint venture company formed by the Imperial-era Megacorps Delgado Trading and General Products after the Collapse. GenMech was established mostly at the behest of GP in an effort to reestablish the profitability of its Post-Collapse product lines, without the taint of its bad reputation. Both Delgado and GP eventually merged all of their operations under the flag of the new corporation, combining Delgado's advanced electronic and cybernetic divisions with GP's manufacturing output.
Operations
GM sells its products mainly in the spinward half of the Commonwealth. Most of its factories are located in Monoceros (Jewell and Regina), Pretoria, Spinward Sabinar (Rhylanor subsector), and High Zhdant Federations, though it has facilities scattered throughout the Spinward States. The chrome "GM" on a dark red comet is the company's logo.
Portfolio
GM produces both heavy machinery, from starships to factory equipment, and a wide variety of light goods, such as nanotechnology and emoticoms.
Practices
GM inherited General Product's reputation of cheaply made products, but has managed to turn this into a strength. It markets itself against companies like Morning-STR and Adamantium, often producing more affordable alternatives to their more convoluted and complicated products. And they make their products in an unimaginable abundance, sometimes even signing deals with the other majors to produce spare parts for older established technology, or crossmanufacture older product lines under license for newly opened markets outside of the Commonwealth.