The trading companies

Worldbuilding for the four outfits in companies and contracts. Proposed; change by pull request. Tone as in the worldbuilding bible: dry, terse, let the player imagine the rest.

A rule for this page: the companies are inspired by real-world types (the chartered trading houses of history, the corporations of science fiction, the co-operative movement) with plenty of poetic licence, but none of them is a real company, and no real company, person or agency is portrayed. Rumours in the game stay rumours: never confirmed, never quite denied.

Hexon Holdings

Continuity of care.

The villain in a clean white coat. The biggest outfit in the galaxy, and the most polite.

Where it came from

Two houses, one merger.

• Hale & Ostrander were carriers, older than most stations. In the first years of the Galactic Co-operative they were granted the Charter of Carriage: the right to carry the Co-operative's own freight, collect its tariffs, and keep order on the routes they served. They built warehouses, then ports, then, in a few systems, the police. (Inspired by the chartered trading companies of history, which ran ports, armies and whole countries in the name of trade.)
• Hexagen Biologics began as Project Lantern, a vaccine stockpile set up by the Bureau of Continuity, the Co-operative's quiet intelligence office, after the Grey Fever emptied three colony worlds in a year. Lantern was spun off as a private company "to bring its benefits to market". The Bureau kept a seat on the board. It still has it.

When the Charter came up for renewal, Hexagen bought Hale & Ostrander outright. The new company took the name Hexon Holdings and a mark of two H's back to back. Officially the H's stand for nothing. Old hands say Hexagen–Hale. Older hands say Heads, Hexon wins; tails, Hexon wins.

What it does

Medicine, biologicals, luxury goods and anything that must arrive on time, across the safe core: Corporate States, Democracies and Confederacies. Hexon contracts pay well, pay promptly, and come with paperwork. Late deliveries are not forgiven.

What people say

• When a plague breaks out, Hexon's medicine is already on the way. Some say it's already in the warehouse a fortnight before. Nobody has proved it. The people who tried to are hard to find.
• Some cargo travels in sealed containers, class-4 biologicals, never opened, never scanned. Customs officers who ask are thanked, and transferred.
• The Bureau's seat on the board is empty at every meeting, and every vote goes its way.

Mark and livery

• Insignia: two capital H's back to back, sharing one central upright, inside a thin hexagon. In-game: about a dozen lines, drawn like the ships.
• Livery: gloss-black hulls with thin white bands; cold cyan running lights; sealed containers glow a faint, sterile green on the scanner.
• Logo prompt (for concept art):

  Minimal corporate logo: two capital letter H's placed back to back so they share a single central vertical stroke, enclosed in a thin regular hexagon. Monoline vector, white on pure black, sterile pharmaceutical aesthetic, 1980s vector-display style, perfectly symmetrical, no gradients, no text.

Its ship: the Coral

Named for the coral snake: beautiful, bright, and deadly. (Original class; not from Elite.)

• A long, smooth bio-freighter with few faces and no visible weapons: the menace is in its cleanliness.
• An armoured central hold, the vault, that can't be scanned and survives the ship's destruction as a single sealed canister.
• Fast for its size; relies on escorts rather than guns.
• Concept prompt:

  Wireframe spaceship, sleek elongated freighter with smooth tapered hull and a heavily armoured central cargo vault, no visible weapons, minimal faces, black hull with thin white lines and cold cyan lights, clinical and sinister, vector-display style.

Story hooks

• A Hexon vault canister drifts in the lanes. Scoop it, and everyone wants it back: Hexon, the Bureau, and someone who'll pay more.
• A world's plague started three days after a Hexon convoy passed through. A Mutual hauler saw something. Find her.

Vorg Industries

We build. You survive.

The villain who gives speeches. A frontier conglomerate that makes everything and sells it to everyone. (A nod to Zorg Industries in The Fifth Element*, and to the arms-and-everything dynasties of history.)*

Where it came from

Aurelius Vorg started with a scrapyard in an anarchy, at the edge of the old frontier wars. He paid salvage crews in cash and no questions, stripped the wrecks they towed in, and rebuilt them into armed haulers that could get through where no one else would.

Today Vorg Industries makes hulls, lasers, missiles, mining gear and "pest control" (its Thargoid-response division), and runs freight wherever the law is thin: Anarchies, Feudal and Multi-Government worlds. Aurelius still gives a speech every year. It is always about freedom, and always very long.

What it does

Freight through dangerous space, with big danger bonuses; weapons, alloys and machinery; and, for commanders it trusts, cargo described on the manifest as irregular. Some of it ticks.

What people say

• Vorg sells weapons to both sides of every civil war, and freight insurance to both sides too.
• The pest-control division arrives very quickly after a Thargoid incursion. Some say it arrives before.
• Aurelius has outlived three attempts on his life and two of his sons.

Mark and livery

• Insignia: a heavy V made of two blades, crossed by a short bar like a gunsight.
• Livery: dark grey, riveted plate, orange hazard stripes, the V stencilled big on the hull; no two ships quite alike, since half of them were someone else's once.
• Logo prompt:

  Bold industrial logo: a heavy letter V formed from two angular blades, crossed by a short horizontal bar like a gunsight. Stencilled, rugged, orange on dark gunmetal grey, 1980s vector-display style, aggressive and utilitarian, no text.

Its ship: the Gaboon

Named for the Gaboon viper: fat, slow, and the longest fangs of any snake. (Original class.)

• A heavy armed freighter: broad, slab-sided, bristling with turrets.
• Slow to turn, hard to kill; carries more cargo than a Cobra and fights back.
• Comes off the line in kit form: commanders bolt on whatever they can afford.
• Concept prompt:

  Wireframe spaceship, wide heavy armoured freighter with slab sides and multiple gun turrets, riveted plating, dark grey hull with orange hazard stripes, brutal industrial design, vector-display style.

Story hooks

• A Vorg shipment of firearms bound for a civil war goes missing. Both sides think you took it.
• Aurelius Vorg wants a commander to carry a speech, by hand, to a rival. It's not a speech.

The Carriers' Mutual

No hauler flies alone.

The honest ones. A mutual society of independent haulers, chartered by the Co-operative, owned by its members. (Inspired by the Rochdale Pioneers, the 28 weavers who founded the co-operative movement in 1844, and by the mutual insurance societies of shipping history.)

Where it came from

When Hale & Ostrander pulled out of the frontier routes to cut costs, they left the independent haulers who worked for them stranded: no contracts, no insurance, no one to come for them when pirates did. Twenty-eight captains met in a station bar, pooled what they had, and agreed to three rules: share the risk, share the work, and come when called.

The Co-operative granted them a charter, partly out of principle and partly to annoy Hale & Ostrander. The Mutual is now everywhere with a government: one member, one ship, one vote.

What it does

Ordinary freight at fair rates. Members share insurance (a lower excess), answer each other's distress calls, and vote on everything, slowly. It's the first outfit most new commanders fly for, and the one most of them come back to.

What people say

• The Mutual is honest, and broke, and always arguing.
• A faction of members wants to take on Hexon. Another wants Hexon's contracts. Both have a point.
• The twenty-eighth founder was never named. Every Mutual station keeps an empty chair for her.

Mark and livery

• Insignia: a carrick bend, the sailors' knot that joins two ropes, inside a ring of 28 small dots.
• Livery: members fly their own ships in their own colours, with a white Mutual band and the knot.
• Logo prompt:

  Emblem: a carrick bend knot (two ropes joined) inside a circle of 28 small evenly spaced dots. Clean monoline vector, white on deep blue, honest and handmade feel, 1980s vector-display style, no text.

Its ship: the Garter

Named for the garter snake: common, harmless and everywhere. (Original class.)

• A cheap, rugged starter hauler the Mutual sells to new members at cost.
• Small hold, easy to fly, simple to repair at any station; slower than a Cobra but forgiving.
• Concept prompt:

  Wireframe spaceship, small rugged boxy cargo hauler, simple and friendly, patched hull, white band with a knot emblem, workmanlike, vector-display style.

Story hooks

• A Mutual distress call, deep in the lanes. Answer it, and the Mutual remembers; ignore it, and so does everyone else.
• The empty chair. Who was the twenty-eighth founder, and why does Hexon still have her file?

Wexley-Yorozu

Better worlds, built to order.

The villain with a twenty-year plan. Terraformers and shipwrights: they build the stations, the colony ships and, given time, the worlds. (A nod to the terraforming company of Aliens*, and to the company towns and colonial land companies of history.)*

Where it came from

Edmund Wexley built atmosphere processors: towers the height of mountains that turn a poison sky breathable over twenty years. Haruki Yorozu built the ships and stations to carry them. Neither could afford a world on his own. Together they found a way to make the worlds pay for themselves: the colonists.

A Wexley-Yorozu colony is free to join. The passage, the prefab housing, the air: all on credit, at fair rates, repaid from the colony's work over a generation. Most colonies repay it. Some are still repaying it four generations on. A few stopped answering, and Wexley-Yorozu sent a ship to see why. The ships came back. The reports were sealed.

What it wants, and the people inside it

A company is people, and people are driven by feelings, not strategy. Wexley-Yorozu's plan is a twenty-year one (become the landlord of the frontier: clause 214 hands a defaulted colony, its world and its people to the company), but what makes it real is who carries it out, and why. Glad, sad, mad, bad.

• Glad. The colonists who signed up. Free passage, a world of their own, and the first breathable morning. Most of them are glad still.
• Sad. The families at home, listening to a relay that says "all well" because nobody has switched it off.
• Bad. Corwin Ashe, Regional Director, Colonial Accounts: not a monster, just a man who writes "relief: 31,000,000 Cr; recovery: 4,000,000 Cr" and signs the cheaper one. He is promoted.
• Mad. Teodor Vasse, administrator of the Ninefold, who sealed his bridge rather than hand his people over; Sam Dray, the tug pilot who was told not to answer and answered; Dr L. Marsh, the agronomist who warned them and was reassigned.

The Ninefold is the first of these stories (exploration): an untested seed, a failed harvest, a debt, and clause 214. The explorer who finds its report decides who learns the truth.

What it does

• Builds things. Atmosphere processors on half-finished worlds, Coriolis stations under licence, and the heavy ships that carry both.
• Hauls heavy. Station modules, processor parts, machinery and colonists to the edge of settled space, often through Vorg's frontier.
• Buys knowledge. Its Science Division pays more than anyone for survey data, especially from worlds no one has charted, and pays most of all for anything unusual found out there.

What people say

• The Science Division has standing special orders: certain finds are to be brought back intact, whatever the cost to the crew. Nobody admits to having seen one.
• Wexley-Yorozu knew about the Thargoids before anyone. Its oldest survey files have pages missing.
• Every colony charter has a clause on page 214. Nobody has read page 214.

Mark and livery

• Insignia: a W whose arms rise like wings over a planet's horizon arc, with a small Y set into the base of the W.
• Livery: off-white and pale grey, construction-yellow markings, the W on the bow; working ships scuffed and patched, like heavy plant.
• Logo prompt:

  Corporate logo: a stylised capital W with arms rising like wings above a curved planetary horizon line, a small Y set into the base of the W. Clean monoline vector, white on dark slate blue, optimistic 1970s space-age corporate style with something cold underneath, vector-display style, no text.

Its ship: the Bullsnake

Named for the bullsnake: big, heavy, and loud when it's annoyed. (Original class.)

• A slow, stubby workhorse (70 m as built) with an ore hopper slung beneath its spine; bigger loads, station modules and processor sections, go the same way, slowly.
• Barely armed and hard to stop; drones and tractor booms instead of guns.
• A frequent sight at Wexley-Yorozu worlds, where a half-built station or an atmosphere processor stands in orbit (a point of interest for explorers).
• Concept prompt:

  Wireframe spaceship, enormous slow construction tug with a long spine, a huge station module slung underneath, tractor booms and work lights, off-white hull with construction-yellow markings, industrial and functional, vector-display style.

The fleet: the Titanoboa and the yards

Named for Titanoboa, the largest snake that ever lived. (Original class.)

Nobody tows a station across the stars. A Coriolis is millions of tonnes; hauling that between systems would cost more than building it. Wexley-Yorozu does what any sensible builder does: it brings the factory, and makes the station from what's already there.

The Titanoboa is the factory. A constructor ship kilometres long: smelters, refineries, fabricators, a reactor, and quarters for a few thousand workers. It arrives in pieces: Bullsnake teams bring its modules through a rift and it's assembled in orbit for the months of the build, then taken apart again when the station opens, its modules going on to the next job. (Modular since October 2026: see the Titanoboa design.)

How a station gets built:

1. Survey. Survey ships (and explorers' data, bought by the Science Division) pick the site: a stable orbit near a moon or an asteroid field, because that's where the raw material is, and lifting ore off a small moon costs almost nothing.
2. The constructor is assembled. Tug teams bring the Titanoboa's modules through a rift and couple them in orbit near the moon, the maw facing it. Mining drones and Bullsnakes start running ore up from the surface.
3. Refining. Ore goes in one end of the Titanoboa; structural alloy, plate and cable come out of the other. The bulk of the station is made here, from the moon.
4. What can't be made locally comes by trade. Electronics, computers, machinery, life support, medicine, food for the workers, and the workers themselves. That's the work for traders and haulers, and why a yard pays well.
5. The spine. The docking axis goes up first: it's the station's backbone and its spin axis.
6. The frame. The truss shell grows around the spine, the familiar Coriolis shape in outline.
7. Plating and pressure. Panels go on, sections are sealed and pressurised one by one, and the first berths open.
8. Spin-up. The finished station is spun up, slowly, over days, until its rim gives a comfortable gravity. Traffic control comes online, the market opens, and the Titanoboa comes apart, module by module, perhaps leaving one behind on the new station.

What you see at a yard: the Titanoboa in orbit by a moon, a stream of ore haulers between them, the station in whatever stage it's reached (a bare spine, a skeleton, half-plated, spinning up), and a corporate fleet around it all: Bullsnakes, tenders, survey ships, and a security wing that doesn't like visitors.

Moving a station happens almost never, and it's an event when it does. The station is de-spun, a Titanoboa is assembled with a drive module fitted (the only time it carries one), and it docks rigidly through the slot, which sits right on the station's axis and centre of mass. It pushes rather than pulls (cables can't push, and a towed station would swing like a wrecking ball every time the tug changed speed), and makes short, slow jumps.

• Concept prompt (the yard):

  Wireframe space scene: a colossal constructor ship kilometres long, with an armoured spine, open refinery bays and glowing smelters, parked in orbit beside a small grey moon; a stream of small ore haulers running between the moon and the ship; beside it a half-built Coriolis space station, its central spine complete, the truss frame partly built and partly plated, work lights and welding sparks along the frame. Off-white hulls with construction-yellow markings, vast scale, vector-display style.

Story hooks

• A colony has gone quiet. Wexley-Yorozu wants a commander to fly out, look, and report to the Science Division only. The pay is generous. The contract has a page 214. (Built as the Ninefold trail.)
• Where did Sam Dray take the forty? Who is looking for him, and who gets there first?
• Corwin Ashe, promoted, has another colony running short.
• A Bullsnake is hauling an atmosphere processor through Vorg space. Vorg would like it to arrive late. Hexon would like it not to arrive at all.

Between them

• Hexon and Vorg need each other: Hexon's worlds buy Vorg's weapons, and Vorg's frontier buys Hexon's medicine. In public they despise each other.
• The Mutual carries for both when it has to, and trusts neither.
• Wexley-Yorozu builds the worlds the others trade with, and owns the debts of the people on them. Hexon sells its colonies medicine; Vorg sells them protection; the Mutual carries for them at cost and asks awkward questions.
• The Bureau of Continuity sits on Hexon's board, buys from Vorg, and chartered the Mutual. Nobody is quite sure whose side it's on. That's how it likes it.

Think something here should change? Say so on the ideas board, where others can vote it up, or email hello@witchspace.org.uk. If you code: this page is docs/companies.md on GitHub, open to pull requests.