Spyglass
Morality is a curiously vague concept when removed from a traditional context. Most contemporary ideas of morality stem from ancient philosophy or the doctrines of religion adapted to �it into a modern context. The Vector race is devoid of neither in terms of knowledge, but they lack the intrinsic connection to both that humans were so dependent on. After all, it wasn’t their past.
For the most part, a great many of those traditional values carried over from human to Vector in the early years. MarsCo was founded on a concept of idealism and achievement more than profit, and that core belief has filtered down ever since, but there are spots where the lines blur, and Spyglass exists among them.
Founded off a covert intelligence agency, Spyglass’ original mandate included the sales of information achieved through corporate espionage. Selling company secrets, as it were. In the interests of preserving a working system of competition that served billions wonderfully, they were universally denounced and almost every major corporation in Sol outright refused to commission their services. By all rights, they should have been bankrupt in a week. Instead, within five years, they had the makings of a small fleet and their own corptown on Venus. Curious profits for a company supposedly blacklisted by everyone.
Clearly that was not the case.
When it became increasingly apparent that everyone and their mothers were all working with Spyglass to try and get a leg up on the competition, the public response was scathing. By then, however, the corp was ready to change its gears and move into a brave new world beyond slinking around in the dark. They took a public stand, saying that over the course of their careers, they’d witnessed deceit, manipulation, outright coercion and overall disregard for public promises again and again. They were dealing with wolves in sheep's’ clothing. Everyone was a liar, everyone was a cheat, and most importantly, everyone had to be or the system wouldn’t function. But they were trying to save face for the public, and that sort of rampant misdirection of the public view was exactly the sort of behaviour that brought Earth to a bitter end centuries earlier. And so the Spyglass Corp Community doctrine was established: we will be every bit as bad as everyone else, and we’re not going to pretend it’s not happening.
Since then, Spyglass’ primary goal has been the promotion of a truly open market without the facade of decency that has forever clouded it. Let the buyer beware, as they say. But more than that, let the seller beware that the buyer may shoot them in the face for lying to them, and if Spyglass courts find that there was, in fact, a lie involved, the buyer will be absolved of all crime. It’s a harsh system that leads to two possible outcomes: you get a lot of very honest people, or you get a lot of people who are very good at lying. Spyglass breeds both and holds both in equal regard. If you’re going to deal with someone, anyone, know that they are a liar. Know that they want to cheat you. If you can accept that and pick your battles accordingly, things move along at a pretty even keel. If you want to call them on it, you call them as hard as you want to. But if they’re a good enough liar to survive legal scrutiny, well. You should have thought of that before you pulled your gun. Spyglass does not promote open violence
or murder, but it does hold other general rights and decency in fairly low regard.
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