Atreus

Atreus was a corporation that was founded in Medina by Eusic Mori shortly after the end of the Syndicate Wars. Funded largely by a big fat noble inheritance (Eusic was a son of the Montressori house of Guardian nobility) and driven by cheap Mystic labor, Atreus sought to fill a corporate void left by Syndicate collapse in the Gate Dimension.

The Rise of Atreus

After Gate's entry into the Web of Worlds, Atreus branched out and expanded its production of weaponry, competing directly with firms like Kuat and Saeder-Krupp. The space race pushed Atreus into even greater prominence: helping to develop and construct the Guardian and Medinan space fleets brought Atreus into a unique sort of status thus far not duplicated among the Web's large corporations: Atreus became sovereign.

The Gate Three

As a sovereign entity, Atreus formed one third of the Gate Three with Guardia and Medina. Together the Gate Three colonized half the Web of Worlds, and became a dominant and unrivalled force in Web politics. This era of Gate dominance would come to an end just as powers like Esper and Tasnica were throwing their full weight into the space game.

Move to Tasnica

Eventually, Derik and Eusic would have a falling out that would separate Atreus from Guardia and Medina. Eusic's plan was to flee Gate and have Atreus become a Tasnican corporation, but Derik was willing to go to war to prevent that from happening. Rhodes Palmerston would step in to broker the truce, and in the end Rhodes would be the biggest winner from Eusic and Derik's falling out: just under half the Gate Dimension's colonial empire was to become Tasnican in the deal. Atreus itself would get very little, but Eusic's gambit was that, in the long run, his company would prosper under the umbrella of corporation-friendly Tasnican rule.

Decline of Atreus

Atreus, at first, did fairly well on the market. There was a buzz about Atreus that gave its stock value. But after the first year of Atreus' being Tasnican, the company began to lose its sheen. Contracts that Atreus had reliably held as a sovereign corporation-state were lost (likely due to intimidation from King Derik), and new contracts were hard to come by (by this time Kuat and Saeder-Krupp dominated the field of aerospace design and weapons manufacture; two's company, three's a crowd).

Atreus' infamy had earned it a place on the AAA corporate council, but it held little real clout. Just to hang on and make ends meet, Atreus found itself producing consumer electronics -- and even then, they found it hard to compete against Gatian imports (of all things).

Eusic Mori's untimely (and somewhat scandalous) demise didn't help the company much, either. Atreus has gone through a string of CEOs in the years since, but most doubt Atreus will ever recapture its lost glory.

Atreus Legacy

Atreus' most recognized contribution to Web high technology is nanotechnology. Atreus technicians were the first to pioneer the use of nanites in applications ranging from medicinal to military. All of the modern innovations in the field are directly attributable to work done in Atreus labs during the heyday of the Gate Three.

The first space colony in the Web of Worlds on Gate IV still bears Atreus' name, even though the company's logo hasn't so much as been hinted at in the Dimension since the Gate Three split up.