Yes, I know! A futuristic setting where massive multi-trillion credit companies aren’t selfless, community driven organisations working for the betterment of mankind, but rather sinister, manipulative cabals of immoral monsters! What a totally original concept!
Star Theory: Corporations are Evil!
Okay, let’s reel this back in a little. I mean, “evil” is such a strong word. Are they really so bad? Well, that depends on how bad you consider destabilising governments, extorting funds, propping up the black market, hiring assassins and prolonging a war for the sake of profit is. And yes, the Corps are guilty of all this and more. We’re not the good guys, people; if you’re in a Corp, you’re more evil than Hitler, Stalin and Fox News combined!
So let’s begin with the big one; Corps are evil because they want to prolong the war, prop up the pirates, and keep the interplanetary governments panicking so they can have a monopoly on the Iridium trade, knowing full well that in doing this they’re not only putting mercenaries and soldiers at risk, but long term they might be risking the fate of the entire human race! A bold claim, right? Well, the history of Sector Conquest, and its rewards, will help us fill in the blanks.
In Ye Olden Dayes, Corporations had no power whatsoever. This was back before SecCon was a thing and it was the search for the Precursors that dominated our reason for being out in Sector 1337. it was a simpler time, but for Corps it was a sucky time; it cost GS to make a corp, but there was no real benefit beyond a shiny tag after your name.
Here is where I want to make the first aside; back then, the GS currency was linked to the “black market”. The primary role of the black market was to convert GS to credits (who would do that? Seriously?), but as we’ll see later, it had, and still has a much more important role.
Fast forward to SecCon 1.0, where we could finally wage war for control of sectors. Well, I say “control”, but in reality it was the major powers who had control - all the Corps got was some bragging rights. This was still early days, before the aliens appeared and when piracy was a minor issue. SecCon 2.0 finally saw Corps getting rewards in the form of credits, irium and gold standards. This was also the time when Open Space first surfaced, and we saw not only a major rise in pirate activity, but also the first signs of alien life.
We know from Dev Blogs that the onset of aliens is what has caused the major powers to retreat, and why SecCon 3.0 gives near total control of the region to the Corporations. But how does this link Corps to pirates?
Well, those with long memories, or those willing to dig through a lot of old news announcements will know that when the pirates first emerged, they weren’t actually pirates - they were privateers. In fact, the Federation “pirates” even called themselves Privateers! What’s a privateer? Well, privateers are pirates with a letter of marque; a promise that they won’t attack a certain faction, and will instead raid and disrupt shipping of an opposing power. So, the Empire sent “pirates” after the Federation, and the Federation sent “pirates” after the Empire. This sets the stage for the corporate activities, and their own privateer arrangements.
Let’s go back to 2.0 a moment, and remember what brought the Empire, Federation and Jericho to Sector 1337 in the first place - alien artefacts, and the irium they contained. Remember the GS income? I submit to you that this was the first corporate involvement in the black market. We know that pirates have access to some advanced tech, the least of which includes Mk IV modules, and to get that they’d need a steady supply of iridium. So when an unscrupulous corp finds the right iridium deposit, and the right smugglers, they take a GS bribe and claim all they found was gold or vanadium or some other “credit” income. Sure, their coffers are now down by hundreds of thousands of credits a day, but when a veteran combat ace can be earning up to half a million credits a mission, that kind of money is easily lost in the paperwork.
But now the corps have control, surely they don’t need this arrangment anymore, right? That’s true, which is why they changed the game! Take a quick flight to a pirate infested region and watch as a faction transport comes under fire from pirates. Notice how they never take the loot? These guys leave everything from rare minerals to alien technology just floating in space for any scavenger to find! Does that sound like pirate activity to you? Of course not! But what it does sound like is a military action; their goal isn’t to steal, but merely to blockade the warp gates and cut the supply lines. If transports can’t transport, the powers that be can’t maintain control, which means they can’t take back the iridium trade from the corporations.
Want more proof? Consider the following; if you’re part of a corp that has held a system in SecCon 3.0 you’ll know that your share of the iridium gets transported to you nice and regular. But have you ever seen a corp transport? Have you ever had to fight off pirates to make sure your iridium arrived safely? No! And no matter how pirate infested your corp’s territory, you never will. The pirates protect the transports for you, using smuggling routes and covert means to make sure your goods go unmolested, while both sides maintain the pretense of being at each others throats. This is why no corp ever steps up security, or sends a punitive raid against the pirates, and its also why no pirate squadrons ever disrupt the iridium mining. All the corp has to do is give the local thugs a cut, and the operation will run smooth as silk.
So now you know how the cycle of violence is maintained; corps use iridium to build bigger and better Dreadnoughts and upgrade their attack wings, giving them greater control. The pirates are paid off with iridium, keeping them strong and able to remain a constant threat to the major government powers. This, combined with the alien threat, means the corps can’t be uprooted by government, and since the corps and their mercenaries are also relied upon to fight the pirates, that’s never going to happen either.
Of course, both sides have to keep up appearances. Just because your corp is funnelling thousands of tonnes of irium to the pirates doesn’t mean they won’t blow you out of the sky while you’re performing a mining operation for New Eden. But that’s all part of the game, ensuring that the corps are seen to be fighting the good fight and trying their best to obey their government sponsors so nobody ever looks too closely at the fine detail.
A final note before we wrap up. For those of you who still aren’t sure if the GS currency is really linked to the black market, here’s a few things to think about. First of all, the premium ships. Back when the ships had in-game descriptions many of the premium craft were described as being prototypes, experimental or otherwise extremely rare collectors items. In short, these were not the kind of ship you’d find on the forecourt of your local dealer. By extension, these ships being so rare, and thus so valuable make them prime targets for theft, hence why they magically become available for those with the right shady contacts and large sums of an illegal and untraceable currency.
Beyond that, think of all the things that GS can do for you! When you found a Corp you don’t have to fill in a lot of forms, sit through background checks and wait six months for the T56-D forms to come back. instead, your Corp is officially recognised from the get-go, appearing out of thin air no questions asked. What sounds more likely there; that the act of establishing an autonomous military clade that can change loyalty on a whim has been streamlined so much it’s easier than bidding on eBay, or that you’re actually buying status through a shady organisation that’ll falsify your paperwork and give you legitimacy you and your fellow mercs don’t deserve in the least?
Or why not buy yourself a “license” and suddenly, inexplicably see your earning power go up. I wonder where that extra money might be coming from? Is it really that you can be paid more because you’ve got a shiny badge on your flight suit? It seems far more likely to me that all you’ve done is paid GS for credits, and your money-launderer is delivering the goods by moving numbers around on your pay slips, or “losing” a few extra pieces of cargo near where your salvage teams are operating.
It should be clear to you now that things are not okay in Sector 1337, and if I’ve done my job right, you now know why! So before you buy the hype and sign up with a corporation that promises you a chance to save the galaxy and earn a lot of sweet loot doing it, just remember that there’s a good chance the only thing they’re looking to save is their evil, exploitative dictatorship!
Next time on Star Theory… sweet rolls! For real this time! No, seriously, the next Star Theory is going to finally be about sweet rolls!
