Guardian Corporations
The major Corporations of Guardia, with the exception of MerthCorp, are in one way or another descendents of the Guardian Technology Syndicate.
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The Tech Syndicate
Founded in 1978 AD, the Tech Syndicate was tasked by the Royal Government with modernizing the Kingdom's industrial (and especially military industrial) infrastructure during the Second Guardian-Porrean War. Guardia's victory over Porre, and subsequent political dominance over the Gate Dimension, was at least in part due to the Syndicate's development of advanced military hardware, including Antipode weapons and JetDrive hover engines. Through the 1980s, the Syndicate accrued substantial post-war political power, trumping that of both Guardia's Parliament and its King and entrenched Nobility. By 1992 AD, the Syndicate was the dominant political authority in both Guardia and the larger Gate Dimension.
The Three Syndicates
In 1999 AD, on the Day of Lavos, the Syndicate's director was killed in the massive volcanic eruption that created Death Peak. The resulting struggle for power on the Board of Directors resulted in a three-way split of the Syndicate. The corporation and its assets were divided evenly between the Vice Directors of the Syndicate's three largest branch offices: Arris, Trann and Proto. The three Syndicates would co-exist peacefully until the year 2270 AD, when open war broke out between the divided corps for control of Guardia's government.
Post-Restoration Guardian Corps
When Doan Pendouris restored power to Guardia's monarchy, the first thing he did was nationalize the assets of the Syndicates. With the aid of key figures from all sides of the Syndicate Wars, Doan broke apart the diversified assets of each of the Syndicates and re-formed them into specialized government-owned corporations, each of which had a specific technological focus. This was the condition of Guardia's various corporations when Gate was discovered by the Grand Army, and the corporations remained government-owned until the post-Cleansing Wars reforms.
Derik's Reforms
After the Cleansing Wars, in 2322 AD, King Derik Nadair Pendouris introduced sweeping governmental reforms intended to curb future abuses of the power of Guardia's Throne, as were commonplace during the rule of Archbishop Meres as Regent. Among these reforms, almost as an incidental side-effect, was the Government's release of the former Syndicate assets. Each of the formerly government-owned corporations became a sovereign corporate entity as part of the reforms, each free to compete as it saw fit with both the other Guardian corporations and those of other nations. The one exception is the Guardian Robotics Concern, which remains dominated by Government bureaucrats due to the sensitive nature of AI technology.
The "CCC"
Under the governmental reforms, the corporations of Guardia are represented within the government's system of concensus by a Corporate Concerns Council -- the CCC. The Council is chaired by MerthCorp CEO Mace Merthor, and is comprised of the CEOs of all corporate entities who are incorporated within the Kingdom of Guardia. The CCC's job is to represent the interests of corporations and industry by interfacing with both Parliament (especially the Business and Finance Committee) and the Bureaucracy (in the form of the Labor, Colonial Affairs and Home Ministries).
