Eridani Federation Military
The armed forces of the Eridani Corporate Federation are split into two branches, the Federal Navy and the Federal Army. The armed forces of the Federation are composed of private military companies, which when not required by the state are contracted out across the Orion Spur. If a threat to Federation sovereignty arises, the Board of Five has the power to cancel these contracts. These contracted soldiers can be found in any situation ranging from active war zones to mere private security. While the Federal Army is composed of native contractors often sent abroad, the Federal Navy is made up of majority foreign-contracted vessels and crew, with few native Eridanian companies specializing in naval contracting.
The Federal Army
Eridani private military contractors are recruited primarily from the Federation itself, with higher ranks being more immediately available to those able to pay. Five major companies make up the private side of the Eridani military, with different specializations and backgrounds, though some smaller companies do exist. These five companies are often referred to colloquially as the Golden Fist. Each seat on the Board of Five has a degree of control over one of these companies. Equipment used by these private companies varies, though across all of them is a strong and fervent focus on the most modern technology, especially in the realm of combat augments and electronics. Contractors are often trained in using both lethal and non-lethal weaponry due to being employed both privately and publicly. Specialized combat augments include eyes with built in FoF (Friend or Foe) indicators, implanted drug injectors, and thermal vision. Contractors who are employed by megacorporations are rarely sent with proprietary combat augments in order to preserve their secrecy.
The Golden Fist
These companies are the oldest and most influential military contractors in Eridani, tracing their history back to the Solarian military contracting companies employed during the Interstellar War. The traditions and structures of these companies were forged in that conflict, with this foundation of experience being instrumental to their continued dominance in Eridani.
Ringspire
A company known for working with anyone with enough funding, Ringspire contractors can be seen on any side of a conflict or job with enough credits to pay them. This has given them a reputation as being little more than hired guns, leaving higher than usual casualties in their wake. The company is also well-known for its indiscriminate use of heavy weapons, ranging from simple rocket launchers to orbital artillery bombardments, in its assignments. It is often said in Eridani’s mercenary community that Ringspire operations zones are easy to identify: simply search for areas with high amounts of corpses, looted buildings, and shell craters.
Ringspire’s most notable recent engagement was their involvement in the S'rend'marr Coalition on Adhomai. Hired by the People’s Republic of Adhomai to guard officials, flush out liberation army cells, they participated in the failed attempts to break through ALA lines on the Ras’nrr fronts and left a trail of devastation in its wake through its use of indiscriminate bombardments, autonomous combat equipment, and heavy amounts of looting by its mercenaries. While the S’rend’marr deployment is one of Ringspire’s most costly operations, company figures estimate that anywhere between fifteen and twenty-five tajara died for every Ringspire fatality. Despite this “kill ratio” (in Ringspire’s own terminology) the PRA opted not to renew the company’s contract.
But for an enterprising commander, Adhomai’s peace led to a far more profitable venture. A small faction of Ringspire remains in the DPRA city of Crevus to lead the company known as Olokun Curios. This smuggling operation posing as an art dealership allies to Adhomai’s low-lifes and self-proclaimed “archaeologists” to locate, secure, and ship tajara artefacts to sell in Eridani. Tajara attempts to investigate Olokun Curios have discovered nothing illegal about the organization, and many investigators have “coincidentally” had fatal accidents during their investigations.
Eagle Corp
With enlisted ranks being filled by lower-class citizens drawn across human space, this company has a reputation for doggedly pursuing its goals no matter the effort required. As one of the more merit-based companies for promotion within the ranks, many officer positions are occupied by people from lower —questionable — backgrounds. The latter are often offered ‘new lives’ within the corporation, turning criminals about to meet the end of their careers into passable, and even valued operatives. The extensive training and ‘reintroduction’ programs sometimes employed in this process are viewed by some as a merciful second chance, and identity-destroying by others.
Recently, the company has launched initiatives to appeal to an even wider base of employees, with advertisement campaigns targeting potential alien contractors all over the Spur. These hopeful (or desperate) recruits find themselves thrown into competitive or dangerous missions, either ending with their promotion or an untimely severing of contracts. Unathi and Vaurca employees have seen especially good rates within the company, as pragmatic and goal-oriented employees are valued greatly by the management.
Sekhmet Intergalactic
Known for their wide reach and even wider history of assignments, Sekhmet has established itself as the premier provider of professional healthcare, no questions asked. The youngest of the now-legendary group, Sekhmet Intergalactic is made up of several smaller companies dedicated to cornering the ever-present market of medical aid and supplies. Though these corporations would get their starts on the advent of the Interstellar War they remained splintered and tied to other forces, located just about anywhere there were patients to save and profit to be generated.
Nowadays, each company within the collective acts as a ‘branch’ on a respective frontline, extending the corporation’s presence to rival that of its peers. Due to this, and the propensity to extend morally dubious contracts, Sekhmet often comes into rivalry with the Interstellar Aid Corps. The IAC offers humanitarian relief with both health and rights considered; in contrast, Sekhmet entices customers with predatory, yet government-grade deals that are at times the only way out. Though many of their doctors, surgeons and front-line medics are happy to take a pretty bonus to their paycheck for a shady assignment, a considerable number of their employees are uncomfortable with this reputation and actively fight it with a consummate work ethic and heaps of experience from all around the Spur.
N4NL Incorporated
A company that had its start in meagre technical upkeep and insurance, N4NL Incorporated is nowadays better known for their cutting-edge augmentation and air-tight cyber security. Specializing in technological warfare, N4NL operatives are often augmented with the company’s own brand of technology to guard and operate high-tech equipment, frequently testing prototypes in the meanwhile. Officially the corporation is split between the departments of Asset Insurance and Asset Development, in practice, most employees are found in the former branch. Asset Insurance is famous for everything from contracting civilian employees out as telecommunications engineers or server network maintainers, to operating and testing electronic warfare equipment in the backline of many conflicts, to guarding and maintaining advanced cybersecurity apparatuses across the Orion Spur. N4NL Asset Insurance teams are perhaps the most widespread representatives of the Golden Fist, with most megacorporate facilities having at least a small team on-staff to combat and prevent data security issues. These teams are particularly common on Mictlan due to the planet’s history of intellectual property theft. Many conspiracy theorists speculate that N4NL Incorporated has had a hand in many “unfortunate accidents”' that have befallen famous Mictlanian copyright violators, but the company has consistently denied these rumours.
N4NL’s Asset Development is much less publicly visible than its Asset Insurance counterpart and is primarily concerned with finding new and powerful technologies the company can use for its own benefit. N4NL does their best to disguise this side venture from the view of the public and of their customers, and Asset Development agents are often “seeded” into Asset Insurance teams in order to conduct what the company refers to as “passive corporate observation” in order to discover emergent technologies of interest to the company. While not limited to the department, hefty bonuses are offered for investigating and securing new technologies found out on the field. Many of their contractors are also given experimental augments to field-test, and good performance often correlates with more personalized, high-quality cybernetics offered to an employee, thereby keeping them loyal and dependent. N4NL additionally employs many positronics, both free and company-owned, in its ranks due to the ease with which many modern IPCs can interface with electronic systems and accept new augments.
Index Security Solutions
One of the few military contractors to employ IPCs, which make up the majority of its employees, Index Security Solutions is known for its top-notch security contracting for both public and private facilities, as well as personal bodyguard detailing for high-level individuals. IPCs owned by this company receive high-quality maintenance and conditions, but operate under a permanent ownership contract, with freedom or transfer to another owner being impossible.
The company’s reputation is quite polarizing thanks to several factors, one of which is Index’s very own ‘Advanced Threat Assessment’ (ATA) data pack which many of its employees come equipped with, allowing units to analyze and respond to potential threats in a nearly super-human capacity. Though a complex program to insert into a positronic, this development has been known to save the lives of many Eridanian officials; most famously preventing a shuttle-bombing targeting the former representative of Oran in 2436.
This same tool is seen as oppressive and terrifying by others, particularly by Dregs, who have been personally targeted by harsh profiling algorithms that discriminate by acting on even slight transgressions. Index has mostly refused to comment on this, citing that their units are simply more sensitive than that of others in their field.
The Eridani Federal Navy varies wildly in size and composition, with vessels and personnel being contracted as need arises from various internal and foreign sources. On average, it has about two fleets’ worth of craft employed at any given moment in peacetime. Unlike the Federal Army, the navy has a semi-permanent command structure which answers to the Board of Five as a whole.