Corporate States

This is a page of ideas for a hoped-for Corporate States OXP

Overview

Of the 8 systems government types in the Vanilla game, 5 have a definite flavour - Anarchies, Feudal States, Dictatorships (our OXP gives two flavours, actually - "Imperial" for Industrial Dictatorships and "Military Juntas" for Agricultural Dictatorships), Communists and Corporates.

The remaining 3 (Multi-governments, Confederacies and Democracies can be seen as containing mixtures of the above with possibly others added in: A planet with several countries some of which are Communist and others are Dictatorial for example - or a democracy with both feudal and communist political parties!).

Corporate States

So what is a corporate state like? Less liberal than a democracy (the Corporation makes the decisions, not politicians elected by the people), but wealthier.

The most orderly and 'lawful' system of government within GalCop is the corporate state. This system comes about when either a single, or more often, a group of powerful and affluent companies take de facto control of a planetary system. On these planets, citizens are almost always employees of one of the companies and have only commercialistic ways of advancing their positions in society. Here it is property, holdings and stock portfolios that mean more than aptitude and ability. This results in a distinct line between rich and poor, the rich maintain healthy stocks and shares through canny speculation and the poor scrape a living in poverty with little hope of betterment. One of the main reasons for the security of corporate states is the employment of private security agencies who maintain patrols through the spacelanes and around the planet to ensure the safety of commerce to and from the planet and make life all but impossible for pirates and other 'private entrepreneurs'. One of the most successful agencies is Pilkertons Intergalactic, who exclusively employ ships supplied by Saleza Aeronautics.

Current OXPs

• Ring Racer OXP for Corporate States in Galaxy 1 only: by Thargoid (2009-14): downloadable through the in-game Expansions Manager
• Sothis by KillerWolf (2010) as modified by Spara's SothisTC (2013) - Mr Troomp's Trade Centre orbital stations only exist in Corporate states (Good for New Cargoes trade deals).
• Taxi Galactica only has taxi stations in Corporate states.
• Saleza Aeronautics adds ships to high-tech Corporate states only.
• Old Recipe for tweaking HOopy Casinos and Your Ad Here that limits their appearance to Corporate systems only, thus making a de facto system OXP out of them.

Lore from Cim's Ship's Manual

The official description of a Corporate State is “a system where the majority of work is carried out through corporate rather than governmental entities”.

Bisoge in Chart 5 is a clear example of this. A largely industrial world, it produces high-tech manufacturing technology for the neighbouring systems, with the majority of economic power concentrated in the four major corporations involved in this production. The civil planetary government has the major role of arbitrating disputes between the four corporations, and occasionally representing them in inter-system diplomacy. The corporations provide accommodation, education and healthcare to their workers, and manage internal law and order. Living standards are moderately high for corporation employees, especially senior ones, and very low for others, whose welfare is taken care of by the underresourced planetary government, and are usually forced to live in the system's undeveloped forested areas, constantly threatened by the local wildlife.

Raenonce in Chart 2 is similar, though focusing on mining and extraction of rare elements. The entire planet is owned by the Raenonce Corporation, which originally paid for much of the settling and terraforming of the system, and slowly bought up the remaining rights as the original settlers died or retired. There is no distinction between the Corporation and the government in this case. Living standards are low, outside of the managerial class, who live in luxury off the system's trading profits.

Reatte in Chart 7 at first glance seems to be similar to Raenonce, with the entire planet's government controlled by a single corporation – Raette Liquors Inc. Corporate decisions are taken by the shareholders, but share holding is extremely regulated: off-worlders may not own shares, no individual may hold more than five shares, and all individuals are given one share at birth. The corporation and its officers therefore act more like a democracy than the more dictatorial states above, in their provision of governmental services. In this case, the corporation handles inter-system trade and production of the planet's famous brandy, using the revenue from this to fund education, defence and healthcare. Most of the inhabitants however work for independent companies, charities, or small businesses unrelated to the RLI's work.

Ideas for an OXP

• Solar Stations where Quirium Fuel is distilled and then transported to sites of sale (Source - 6 pages on this!, Station & Ship model downloads)
• Lots of ships & stations (traders, Rock Hermits, etc.) with Corporation logos on them.

Named corporations are hopefully all listed on the relevant systems pages. And there are a number of logos sprinkled through the YAH advertisments OXPs and also here.

• All Asteroids in the system are owned by the local Corporations - anybody shooting at them will be criminalised! Musings

Links

• Corporate Systems Flavour OXP (2011 - date)
• Imprint - Andy Redman's 1991 Novel from the early PC Classic Elite boxes
• Ideas for flavouring an Orbital Station (Coriolis/Ico/Dodo) in a Corporate System