Planetary Expeditions
Planetary Expeditions (also known as Plan-Ex) is an enormous corporate enterprise formerly hailing from the Centauri Republic whose primary mission is the unearthing of alien artifacts, and lifeforms for the express purposes of selling at an enormous price; as well as reverse engineering and selling alien technologies whenever possible. Planetary Expeditions mount a number of major expeditions into Pardian space as well as a few others along the Jred Frontier, even establishing several colonies to support or maintain those expeditions. They also, as a byproduct of their operations have managed to come into contact with scattered human colonies thought lost in the chaos surrounding the Great Cataclysm. Planetary Expeditions is perhaps the first corporation since the Cataclysm to receive the title Megacorp, and is a grey eminence on frontier politics, establishing many settled worlds throughout charted space and beyond, an act which has put them at odds with some states.
Structure
Planetary Expeditions is, first and foremost a corporation and maintains a corporate structure. At the top lies the Board of Directors and the Central Directorate themselves. Underneath them lie regional offices, responsible often for Plan-Ex operations in a sector of charted space, though sometimes less in particularly expedition-dense sectors of space. At the local level are the individual facilities, expeditions, colonies, and ships of Plan-Ex which carry out any number of specific functions in service of the corporation as a whole.
The Corporate Board
The Corporate Board is the central head of Planetary Expeditions. Formerly this was located in the Alpha Centauri System. As the company has expanded, and its powers have grown, however, the Board was moved to Aurum in the Huria System. The board itself consists of a dozen members, generally longstanding members who have been very successful, and who more often than not come from backgrounds of wealth and privilege. This board of directors is responsible for managing the general direction of the corporation. They elect from their number a Central Director, who serves as first among equals for the board, and is its public face, for a nonrenewable ten-year mandate, after which they must step down at least until another CD has completed a mandate. Directly under board control is the Central Corporate office which is the primary data center and heart of the corporate bureaucracy that keeps Planetary Expeditions as well as the Corporate Enforcers, an armed paramilitary wing of Planetary Expeditions that serves as the board's muscle protecting against outsiders, and enforcing the will of the board on errant branches.Regional Offices
Regional offices have been established in every sector of civilized space, and several additional offices have been established in the frontier sectors. In total there are fifteen major regional offices scattered wherever the Company can establish corporate extraterritoriality. Regional offices are managed by Regional Managers who in turn have their own miniaturized corporate bureaucracies and private security forces that can be used to deal with minor threats. Regional offices are responsible for managing operations generally within a sector of space. Different regional offices often have different responsibilities, with those in civilized space usually brokerages more than they are carrying out expeditions on their own. Frontier offices are often responsible for many smaller corporate colonies and expeditions. Generally, the regional offices from the frontier wield outsized influence on the affairs of Plan-Ex, and it is often from those frontier offices that the Central Board draws veteran talent.Corporate Colonies
When an expedition uncovers an unusually large archaeological site, or captured alien species prove unusually profitable, a more permanent corporate colony is established. This practice is especially common in the frontier where there are fewer territories claimed by major states, or even presently inhabited at all. Corporate colonies receive additional resources from the relevant regional office and receive a corporate charter providing some measure of interstellar legality to their actions. The charter authorizes a relevant corporate official as a Branch Manager, states the purpose of the colony, and what it is present for, and lays claim to a world, or an entire Star System. In rare, though increasingly common circumstances, Plan-Ex will establish a colony not for extractive purposes but as a manufacturing facility to produce assets that the company needs independent of outside actors.Expeditions
The bread and butter of Planetary Expedition's activities, expeditions are generally fairly small, short-term surveying and extraction operations. Frequently these expeditions fail, though the uncovering of even small artifacts yields enormous profit margins if sold to the right buyer, and so these operations continue at a rapacious pace. Expeditions are managed by a low-level manager, and often have fewer than a couple hundred employees and only a handful of major assets committed to them. An expedition may occasionally last for a long time, though frequently they last less than a year.Corporate Enforcement
The primary muscle of Plan-Ex is Corporate Enforcement. Corporate Enforcement is generally responsible for protecting corporate officials and operations from interference from outside actors, especially pirates, activists, and other renegades that are alarmingly common in frontier space but are also responsible for internal security, enforcing the mandates of the central board, and engaging in loss prevention. Enforcers are generally posted in small numbers accompanying every expedition and are known as "Security". Dedicated corporate enforcement is a smaller body, but is extremely heavily armed, and often recruits from state and independent militaries, making it a frighteningly potent force. Though Planetary Expeditions denies the public veracity of these claims, it is an open secret that Corporate Enforcement is also responsible for managing espionage rings that spy on, and sabotage the operations of competitors and independent worlds the company seeks to establish direct control over.Corporate Citizenship
Planetary Expeditions is a large enough, widespread enough organization with enough extraterritorial systems under its rule that some amount of corporate citizenship is necessary for the sake of convenience if nothing else. Anybody who becomes an employee of Planetary Expeditions is given documents asserting that they have corporate citizenship contingent on continued employment within Plan-Ex. This citizenship, at least on Plan-Ex's behalf, does not contradict any other citizenship. Though Plan-Ex, as a rule, discourages procreation when out on an expedition, those who are born in Corporate Colonies are given provisional citizenship until they can obtain citizenship somewhere else.Public Agenda
Planetary Expeditions' agenda is fairly and deceptively simple. As a megacorporation, Planetary Expedition's primary, and perhaps the sole goal is the acquisition of ever greater profits. To achieve this aim, Plan-Ex gets most of its funding from launching expeditions into frontier space to obtain exotic alien artifacts, lifeforms from the frontier, and in rare cases working examples of alien technology to sell to prospective buyers, and reverse engineering whatever technologies it can sell on the public market. It has also become a manufacturing enterprise, producing most of its own materials and selling whatever excess it has on the open market.
Assets
Planetary Expeditions has an enormous portfolio of assets. Foremost of these are the Corporate colonies of which there are a few dozen established colonies, mostly in frontier space. These colonies are supplemented by smaller expeditions which number in the low hundreds at any given time. Plan-Ex also maintains a very large fleet of ships of a wide array of types including smallcraft, and some defense boats. Plan-Ex is one of the few organizations in charted space to maintain a fleet of colony ships, enormous constructs that require a lot of resources to construct and maintain, as well as a fleet of warships, including it is rumored a former Sol Sector Battleship used by Corporate Enforcement. They also maintain a broad array of vehicles, heavy equipment, and corporate offices. Until recently, Plan-Ex was mostly dependent on the Standard Build Template for most of its constructions, though recently it has begun constructing ships and other heavy assets of its own design with exotic technology.
History
Planetary Expeditions was founded, by Alexander Pendleton III and the crew of the Free Rider, as the galaxy began to recover from the effects of the Great Cataclysm. Pendleton, part of the quasi aristocracy of the Centauri Republic had a lot of excess money and resources to expend on long-haul expeditions and remember the tales of his late great grandfather regarding the treasures uncovered by expeditions deep into what is now known as Jred Space. The Free Rider launched an expedition deep into the Jred Frontier with the rumors from his ancestor as the guide. Despite numerous trials, and the near mutiny of his crew, this initial expedition proved a success, and Pendleton used his connections to sell the artifacts obtained at an enormous profit. Using these profits the company was founded, and several new survey ships were produced.
Planetary Expeditions expanded throughout the decades after its foundation, setting up a large corporate office, and later manufacturing center on Centauri Prime, purchasing an enormous fleet of ships seeding expeditions far and wide, and selling the products of those expeditions to a growing list of exclusive and wealthy clients. In the late AC 250s, Plan-Ex made a huge discovery, an intact Pardian data crystal, with a host of alien technologies, some of which could, in theory, prove useful to humanity. After this, an R&D branch was opened to reverse engineer any alien technology they found on the data crystal, an operation that continues to this day. Alongside this operation, manufacturing centers were opened to build that technology and sell it to prospective customers.
When Alexander Pendleton died in AC 265, a new method of appointing a Central Director was established, and the new Director Wilhelmina Smythe, another descendent of the Centauri aristocracy sought to give Plan-Ex independence from any government. To this extent, she used Corporate Enforcement to assault Huria, and force on them a corporate extraterritoriality on the moon of Aurum, an extant corporate office. The company moved operations to this extraterritoriality, though their office on Centauri Prime would remain a prominent asset and the Regional Office of the Sol Sector. In the years since Plan-Ex has continued its expansion, and in particular, has been developing an increased number of Corporate Colonies to give the company more control over its operations.
Digging up the past, selling the future
UOP - Planetary Expeditions 34584
Maximum Tech Level - 16
Maximum Tech Level - 16
Founding Date
AC 227
Type
Corporation, Conglomerate
Alternative Names
Plan-Ex
Demonym
Exer/Exers
Related Professions
Comments