Post by The Astronomer on May 9, 2015 7:23:51 GMT
The Trustwell Corporation was one of the major forces behind industrializing wormholes for the purposes of exploiting alternate earths for valuable resources. They're very much the Standard Oil of wormholes, in that they almost had it monopolized via shady practices like enforcing patents and discrediting competitors. Prior to that, they were primarily a defense contractor and often designed and built equipment for the U.S. government, hence the tight relationship between them. They also do a lot of business with American PMCs, and have access to private armies of their own.
They are not the only company to work with wormholes, but in America, they more or less had a monopoly on it, as they had copyrighted all the vital equipment.
The Reign of the Supermen made Trustwell very unpopular, and the banning of wormhole tech killed almost 75% of their revenue overnight. They're still defense contractors, but they have a lot of lobbyists trying to reopen wormhole research.
Recently, they have privately become very interested in the Starborn phenomenon, and have several scientists working on exploiting it somehow. They're probably the only American company to hire Starborn, and through legal loopholes, have the ability to declare them 'company property', in the same sense the militarry treats its soldiers. Trustwell obviously has a lot of pull in Ambrosia, as two of their facilities here were famously targeted at the beginning of the Reign.
Major NPCs:
Lionel Hargrave: Hargrave's job is officially "Senior Solutions Analyst" and can be thought of as Trustwell's voice in Ambrosia. He can often be seen in City Hall and Fort Kirby, mingling with major politicians whose constituents are employed by Trustwell and military backers who regularly contract Trustwell's services.
Dr. Yorick Vaughn: The 'American Einstein', so-called for being the chief architect of the U.S.'s multidimensional travel program. He has recieved two Nobel Prizes, one in Physics and a Peace Prize for his work promoting awareness of the Starborn plight in America. He passed away recently of congestive heart failure. There is already talk of renaming a major university in his honor.
Dr. Hans Willingham: Dr. Willingham's contributions to multidimensional travel came shortly after Vaughn's initial breakthroughs, and many of his innovations would be impossible to explain to a layman. The best analogy is that wheras Vaughan found the wooded path, Willingham laid down the pavement. Today, he remains a leader in the scientific community, but unlike Vaughn, he is very vocal in his disdain of the corporations that exploited his work prior to the Reign.
Dr. Kazuo Ogami: Of the three major figures in wormhole research, Dr. Ogami is certainly the most polarizing. While Vaughn and Willingham were career physicists, Ogami was a molecular biologist. He was the mastermind behind preparing humanity for the task of colonizing an entirely new universe, and is even remembered today as being the man who predicted the existence of alternate strains of humanity would be found in time. Today, while still revered in scientific circles for his work, Kazuo Ogami is considered a pariah by mainstream society for his insistence that Starborn not only share the same innate rights as other sentient life, but are the inevitable next step in human life as we know. Dr. Ogami has repeatedly been denied access to the U.S.
They are not the only company to work with wormholes, but in America, they more or less had a monopoly on it, as they had copyrighted all the vital equipment.
The Reign of the Supermen made Trustwell very unpopular, and the banning of wormhole tech killed almost 75% of their revenue overnight. They're still defense contractors, but they have a lot of lobbyists trying to reopen wormhole research.
Recently, they have privately become very interested in the Starborn phenomenon, and have several scientists working on exploiting it somehow. They're probably the only American company to hire Starborn, and through legal loopholes, have the ability to declare them 'company property', in the same sense the militarry treats its soldiers. Trustwell obviously has a lot of pull in Ambrosia, as two of their facilities here were famously targeted at the beginning of the Reign.
Major NPCs:
Lionel Hargrave: Hargrave's job is officially "Senior Solutions Analyst" and can be thought of as Trustwell's voice in Ambrosia. He can often be seen in City Hall and Fort Kirby, mingling with major politicians whose constituents are employed by Trustwell and military backers who regularly contract Trustwell's services.
Dr. Yorick Vaughn: The 'American Einstein', so-called for being the chief architect of the U.S.'s multidimensional travel program. He has recieved two Nobel Prizes, one in Physics and a Peace Prize for his work promoting awareness of the Starborn plight in America. He passed away recently of congestive heart failure. There is already talk of renaming a major university in his honor.
Dr. Hans Willingham: Dr. Willingham's contributions to multidimensional travel came shortly after Vaughn's initial breakthroughs, and many of his innovations would be impossible to explain to a layman. The best analogy is that wheras Vaughan found the wooded path, Willingham laid down the pavement. Today, he remains a leader in the scientific community, but unlike Vaughn, he is very vocal in his disdain of the corporations that exploited his work prior to the Reign.
Dr. Kazuo Ogami: Of the three major figures in wormhole research, Dr. Ogami is certainly the most polarizing. While Vaughn and Willingham were career physicists, Ogami was a molecular biologist. He was the mastermind behind preparing humanity for the task of colonizing an entirely new universe, and is even remembered today as being the man who predicted the existence of alternate strains of humanity would be found in time. Today, while still revered in scientific circles for his work, Kazuo Ogami is considered a pariah by mainstream society for his insistence that Starborn not only share the same innate rights as other sentient life, but are the inevitable next step in human life as we know. Dr. Ogami has repeatedly been denied access to the U.S.