Fireball, founded two centuries previously, runs:
a spaceship line;
extraterrestrial mines and factories;
freight services;
scientific foundations;
trade in luxury goods.
Employees live in Fireball communities, send their children to company schools and often have a formalized loyalty to the company transcending nationality. The company deals with governments but avoids becoming one. We remember similar arrangements in other future histories.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteI immediately thought of the Polesotechnic League in Anderson's Technic Civilization stories. And Nicholas van Rijn's Solar Spice & Liquors company, for example.
The nearest real world analog for a company like Fireball that I can think of would be Hudson's Bay Company, which is much older than Fireball, the former having been chartered in 1670.
Sean