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
