Hephaestus Industries

History
Originally founded in the year 2137, seven years after the advent of Warp technology, Hephaestus Aeronautics was formed out of a conglomeration of several failing aerospace companies. They combined their assets and expertise in an attempt to retain a niche in the FTL market. With humanity in a growing state of adventurousness, Hephaestus profits by designing and selling warp drives, with heavy competition between themselves and Einstein Engines.

When the Second Great Depression struck in 2260, Hephaestus had no other option than to file for many massive bailouts. Barely saving their company from the pit of bankruptcy, they shifted their focus from warp travel to industrialization. As the years passed, they secured more and more industrial centers from many other small producers, both land-based and orbital. Recognizing Hephaestus’s presence along with the growing unrest in the frontier at the time, the Sol Alliance promised them commissions for providing them with machines of war; starships, arms, and armor. Hephaestus gladly obliged.

Every handful of years, another smaller production company, and their assets, seized by Hephaestus. By 2400, Hephaestus Industries had become the number one producer in all of the inner colonies, owning almost one hundred percent of the heavy industry. Owning two gargantuan orbital factories in the Sol system, and another under construction in Tau Ceti, it was clear who the industrial powerhouse of Humanity was. Nanotrasen was quick to step up to the plate, however, and when they claimed the rights to the Romanovich cloud and discovered the pivotal resource Phoron, Hephaestus was forced to find another avenue of profit once again.

After the discovery of the Skrell, and the introduction of artificial intelligence, Hephaestus began shifting its research focus from mineral processing and engine design to robotics. Dedicating several research stations to this project resulted in their facilities, mainly their factories, being overhauled to remove unnecessary systems and make way for streamlined central intelligence cores, as well as dedicating several lines of production to the creation of commercialized workforce robots.

Present Day
Hephaestus Industries is the largest provider of heavy industry for the Inner Colonies, lead by the charismatic and firm CEO Titanius Aeson. They are also supported by an advanced robotics division that produces new technology for artificial intelligence and commercialized robots for the working and military world. Recently, Hephaestus Industries has pledged to bring forth another wave of colonization of the frontier, and promises support for struggling colonies. This isn’t coming from the bottoms of their hearts, of course. These colonies would be bound to provide resources to Hephaestus in trade for the company’s support.

Although they deny it, they also actively participate in corporate espionage - stealing technology from other corporations to claim as their own, or even sabotaging the efforts of other corporations to gain a position of power over them. Despite, or perhaps because of all of this, they remain the second largest and most wealthy transstellar corporation in the galaxy, with a net worth of 420 trillion credits.

Hephaestus Industrial Division
Nearly all of the advanced starships produced for the Sol Alliance Navy are built by Hephaestus Industries. They get extremely lucrative commissions for this by the Sol Alliance Navy. As well as this, they have the power of their Industrial Megacomplexes. These are truly massive industrial centers that dwarf entire small cities in scale. Most of them are placed in orbit, and produce a truly staggering amount of tools, luxury items, mechanical parts, and anything else that could feasibly be produced on an assembly line. Each Megacomplex can employ over a hundred thousand people at any one time while still being highly mechanized, and are unquestionably the powerhouse of the Inner Colonies industry. Goods produced in these complexes are then shipped almost everywhere else in the civilized galaxy.

Hephaestus Research Division
This branch works with all the other divisions of the corporation. Hephaestus Scientists are highly dedicated and well paid individuals kept on retainer to work to find new ways to streamline production, form new patents, or reverse-engineer technology secured for their use. Hephaestus scientists have many achievements to their name, including the integration of Artificial Intelligences' into Hephaestus factories and industrial centers, increasing their efficiency over 200% of a traditional terran factory. Safety is also improved, as an AI can quickly shut off equipment automatically if there is a danger to an employee.

Hephaestus Robotics Division
Currently the poster child of the company, the Robotics Division have been pioneers in robotics. They are the creators of the original IPC chassis, despite Nanotrasen overtaking them shortly after creating their own version. Hephaestus cyborg models also compete with Nanotrasen's, with each corporation sharing roughly half of the number of manufactured cyborgs. One advantage Hephaestus has is in capability: cyborgs and simple task drones are constructed and manufactured at levels that outpace Nanotrasen.