Hegemony International
There is only one world government. And its name is Hegemony International.
Borys Lysenko, Ukrainian dissident
H
egemony International is the largest corporation in the world. It was founded in 1946 by
Reginald Howell in Kingston, Jamaica.
Structure
"Flat"
H
egemony likes to espouse the values of a flat organizational structure. However, their definition of "flat" is quite unique from that of most other corporations. Their sheer size means that there are a great many layers between a "frontline" worker and the CEO. But Hegemony holds to this idea of a "flat" structure because they see their ranks as being segmented into only three groups: workers, middle management, and executives.
Frontline workers typically work in large teams. Most Hegemony teams have at least 10 employees. But some are known to be as large as 30.
M&Ms
By most corporate standards, Hegemony is known to maintain an unduly-large population of middle management. This is justified internally by the fact that Hegemony's middle managers cost far less than similar employees in other companies. This is due to the fact that all of Hegemony's middle managers are clones - conceived solely for the purpose of serving the company. These clones (known internally as M&Ms) are paid a relative pittance and they all live in the company's vast compucombs.
Executive Ladder
The executive ranks are extremely hierarchal. It's not uncommon to find a director reporting to an assistant VP, who reports to an associate VP, who reports to an adjunct VP, who reports to a deputy VP, who reports to a regional VP, who reports to a regional C-level executive, who reports to a corporate C-level executive, who reports to Reginald Howell.
Culture
The Machine
T
he corporate culture within Hegemony is often portrayed as being baffling - especially to those who are not entrenched in Hegemony's idiosynchratic traditions and complex politics. Former employees characterize Hegemony as authoritarian, Orwellian, Kafka-esque, and as being something of a police state.
Secretive
The company places a severe premium on secrecy - both outside and inside the organization. They openly prosletyze their position as being "us against them", where "them" is anyone, or any company, or any government that would deign, in any way, to interfere with Hegemony objectives.
Reginald Howell has long advocated for open competition amongst his employees. For those who find themselves on the losing end of such competition, the consequences are typically dire.
Public Agenda
W
hile many view the company through the lense of their many products and services, its unabashed agenda has always been merely to expand. Reginald Howell is on record as forgoing profits in given regions/verticals - sometimes for decades - if he ultimately sees it as fueling Hegemony's ongoing expansion. The company's unofficial corporate mantra is: More.
Assets
Hegemony has re-shaped our city. Although it's doubtful as to whether it's still "our" city at all.
Lucy Hawley, Mayor of Omaha, Nebraska
H
egemony controls a mindboggling array of assets, with most of them being real estate. Although the company maintains numerous satellite offices, across hundreds of cities, that are controlled by others under lease, they've taken an aggressive posture of purchasing large tracts of centrally-located land and building their own corporate superstructures. These structures do not exist merely above ground. In any locale where they can commence major construction initiatives, they've taken to underlying their buildings with extensive networks of subterranean structures. These underground networks are known as the compucombs.
History
T
he "corporation" we now know as Hegemony International was founded in 1946, in Kingston, Jamaica, by Reginald Howell, when he was 20 years old. However, this original enterprise did not bear Hegemony's name and it held no resemblance to the megacorporation it would become. The company's very early years are clouded in mystery, partially because Howell has a habit of telling (and re-telling) his company's history in ways that vary wildly from one account to the next.
Humble Beginnings
It's certain that, for at least the first decade of Hegemony's existence, it was a one-man operation run solely by Howell. Exactly what he did for that first decade, or precisely how he generated revenue, is a matter of great debate. Depending upon the source, the company's early iterations existed as: a banana cart, a catering service, a business consultancy, a money changer, a construction supplier, and a tailoring service.
Computer Science
Regardless of the details around Hegemony's provenance, it's known that, in 1961, Howell somehow managed to convince the Jamaican government to purchase one of the earliest "supercomputers". He also secured a contract with that country's government to be their sole supplier of computing hardware, as well as their only vendor for maintenance, programming, and all related computing services. Like all "supercomputers" of the day, this original specimen was known to inhabit the entirety of a sizable office building in downtown Kingston, and it was capable of doing frightfully little in terms of useful output. Exactly what Jamaica ever hoped to accomplish with this embryonic technology is not entirely known. What is known is that this expenditure, including the resulting contracts awarded to Howell, represented a sizable drain on the Jamaican government's modest budget.
Although Jamaica is presumed to have received little benefit from these outlays, Howell made the most of the technical capabilities now at his fingertips. He used the proceeds from his maintenance contracts to assemble a team of early computer researchers. Although the supercomputer existed ostensibly to achieve Jamaican government objectives, Howell's team enjoyed unfettered access to the technology.
Defense Contracting
In 1967, under the new moniker of Hegemony International, Howell's company developed a weapons targeting system that, while rudimentary by today's standards, was revolutionary for its time. In 1968, he secured an exclusive contract with the United States military to outfit this targeting system on warplanes and artillery units. Unbeknownst to the U.S. government, he also began aggressively marketing this technology to the former U.S.S.R. Although official records are hard to come by, it's believed that by 1973, military hardware in the U.S.S.R, China, India, and Türkiye all featured targeting systems driven by Hegemony technology.
With Hegemony technology under out belt, we were all confident that this would be a swift and decisive war. Until we learned that the enemy also had Hegemony technology.
Glauco Branco, Uruguayan freedom fighter
The 1970s were a period of rapid expansion for the company. Although government military contracting was their initial cash cow, Howell adopted an aggressive posture of diversifying the company's markets and diving into nearly any vertical in which he perceived significant profit potential. He made a habit of plowing nearly all of the company's profits back into research and development - a posture that led to the rapid growth of Hegemony Labs and their legion of moles.
NYSE
Hegemony International became a public company in 1980, being listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Their arrival as a public entity also led to the relegation of Kingston, Jamaica, as being more of a "spiritual home" for the company, and less of a functioning corporate headquarters. Although Hegemony has never entertained the idea of abandoning Jamaica altogether, and Howell's primary residence is still in the country, most of the "real" corporate decisionmaking is now done at various campuses across many continents.
Territories
H
egemony maintains a sizable footprint in every country other than Canadia. In many smaller countries - especially Jamaica - their influence is so complete as to be seen as the de facto government. In the last 20 years, the corporation has built a burgeoning presence across most of Africa, South America, and Central America.
Military
M
ilitary technology was Hegemony's original cash cow, and it continues to be a major source of revenue to this day. In its earliest days, the company focused mainly on the burgeoning software industry. But by the 1980s, they had moved fully into the realm of building the hardware to house such systems. Reginald Howell is never bashful about his vision of complete wars waged where both sides are equipped with Hegemony weapons. Many veterans of brutal combat are traumatized by the memory of unexploded ordinance stamped with the cold, dark "H.I." moniker. Such experiences have led some to rebrand Hegemony International as "Hell Incarnate".
Technological Level
H
egemony's technological proficiency is legendary. Commercial scientists across the world covet the opportunity to become one of the company's moles. Despite the Hegemony's decidedly complex reputation, many researchers are envious of the prodigious achievements that flow forth from Hegemony Labs. This is due to the fact that Hegemony is known to give their R&D group excessive funding and wide latitude to pursue their own interests.
Foreign Relations
H
egemony has a long and established history of strong-arming governments, politicians, competing corporations, and influencers of public perception. They're not even particularly coy about it. They have no qualms about buying out local officials. Nor do they worry about selling highly-classified technology to competing nations.
Our CEO was thrilled when we won the Hegemony contract to supply microprocessors for the handsome sum of 20 bizkits each. But no one can tell me exactly what a bizkit is worth.
Hoàng Minh Tân, engineer with Pan-Asian Microtech
Bizkits
One of the company's greatest coups was in driving through the near-global adoption of the bizkit as the only currency in which they'll conduct any of their business. This development led to a massive inflation of their chosen cryptocurrency (which caused their holdings to skyrocket in value) and is seen as a significant factor in the destabilization of numerous world economies.
Canadia
They are also openly-hostile toward Canadia. While this animosity seems to stem from the competitive pressures brought about by Canadian Royal Enterprises, employees routinely extend this open hatred toward the Canadian government and even toward any-and-all Canadian citizens (regardless of whether those citizens have any logical connection to CRE).
Laws
A
lthough Hegemony is known to have a fluid relationship with the law, they can rarely be defined outright as law breakers. Instead, they leverage their vast resources to ingratiate themselves with local authorities. They maintain massive lobbying efforts in nearly every major country and they go to great lengths to ensure that current-or-future regulations are crafted to their benefit.
Education
W
hile Hegemony has no commercial endeavors in the education space, they are known for their establishment of One World Academy. This internal university exists primarily for the education (and some would say: indoctrination), of the company's many M&Ms.
Join the Hegemony
Founding Date
1946
Type
Megacorporation
Capital
Demonym
Hegemonic
Leader
Currency
Location
Related Traditions
Controlled Territories
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