Independent Neuralnet Division

This is a player faction. For the affiliated NPC faction, see Interspace Commerce For the server rules for this faction, see Independent Neuralnet Division ID.

Interspace Neuralnet Division
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Origin	Liberty
Alignment	Lawful/Corporation
Profile
Date of founding	218 A.S.
Founder(s)	Agiera and DSE
Base of operations	Newark Station, New York
Primary role
Cargo insurance
Secondary role
Cargo transport and trade

Description

In 218 AS, as mass production of jump gates moved into high gear, funding became an issue for many foreign corporate and government entities that wished to finance jump routes of their own. To encourage construction, Agiera Technologies and Deep Space Engineering capitalized a wholly independent entity, Interspace Commerce (IC), to offer loans and assist in the financing of jump-gate construction. By 350AS, IC became the primary financier of trade lanes for the other houses.

In a joint venture, IC and Agiera Technologies recently developed a new real-time scanner system, called Universal Ship Identification (USI), that can be installed in jump gates and trade lanes. It allows IC to track shipments and levy tariffs appropriately. Some houses suspect that IC is using this data to gain a competitive advantage, but so far, nothing can be proven.

Interspace is now heavily into insurance, an insures most high value cargo throughout Sirius.

History

"On behalf of Interspace allow me to welcome you to Roppongi Station. We are honored by your interest in our company and its history."

Yoshi Takagari stood beside his wife with no small displeasure etched across his face. He scratched irritably at one of his arms, pulling the suit back to reveal a second sleeve of artistic tattoos. The trip to Roppongi had been her idea, for their anniversary. Though the damned lifts to the restaurant promenade were down, leaving the two of them stranded whilst they waited on a quickly 'impressed upon' security guard to summon one of the security back lifts.

Now he stood burning time while watching a holographic man dump the history of some gaijin organization into his ears, the place stank of the foreign scum and he could have sworn that a he spotted a Chrysanthemum in the distance. His anniversary night better end spectacularly.

"The advent of jumpgate technology in 185 A.S. prompted a huge demand in Bretonia, Kusari and Rheinland to quickly establish trade networks to mirror those being laid in Liberty.

However, the astronomical costs associated with the venture discouraged the possibility of rapid growth. With the market need clearly evident the Interspace corporation was founded in 218 A.S. by Ageira and Deep Space Engineering who could pool the necessary capital in insure and finance the vent*static*"

The security guard looked over with a grin, "If I may sir, let me switch to something a bit more interesting."

Quick navigating down the directory listings he selected another option with what looked to be practiced ease. As the Kusarian businessman hologram was replaced by that of its 'artistically designed' female counterpart. Yoshi noted a dreamy gaze overtake the man's face and imagined it was a well practiced file access indeed.

"The events of 521 and 523 AS were significant ones for Interspace Commerce. Incensed over supposedly inflated construction costs and heavy debts incurred in their rush to acquire trade lane networks, the nations of Kusari and Rheinland enact embargoes on Liberty and refuse all payments to Interspace.

Suddenly bereft of her lifeblood of foreign material imports Liberty and Interspace formed a compromise, allowing the two nations to wipe their debt and nationalize their tradelanes in exchange for a payable toll for tradelane use to be paid to Interspace for two hundred years. Regardless the company suffered a grievous financial loss in addition to their planet side facilities in both Rheinland and Kusari.

This dramatic change in the landscape of Interspace's commercial purpose, in addition to investor worry and the political backlash following the defiance of Rheinland and Kusari Interspace was put in a position of adapting to a new purpose or fading from existence.

In 535 A.S. Interspace shifts its market from insuring and financing tradelane construction to encompass the insuring of interstellar freight. The following century is one of rapid growth as the bulk of Interspace's political prowess and massive commercial capital is applied to ruthlessly dominating the industry and to gaining local governmental favor by working to protect the tradelane networks from the threat of piracy.

In 700 A.S., Interspace Commerce and Ageira technologies developed a revolutionary new cargo scanning and tagging system. In conjunction with advances in neural net technology the concept of real time interstellar freight, banking and vessel insurance services become a sudden reality. Possessing the raw capital required to launch such a venture in conjunction with their relationship with Ageira, Interspace was in the position to utterly monopolize the interstellar insurance market overnight. ---- weak paragraph. Look again.

The Interspace Neuralnet Department was originally created to oversee the development and implementation of this new program. Upon wholesale universal adoption, however, the department was tasked with the supervision of high end insurance accounts and banking needs in addition to providing nearly all of the company's investigative and shipping services beyond the four colonies and into the Borderworlds."

With a bow, the image of the woman flickered out and was again replaced with that of the station map and directory. With a small sigh the guard tore his gaze away to smile at the couple. "Please then! It would seem that our elevator has finally cleared up, we'll have you at your destination shortly."

Cutting their way amongst the grumbling lines the guard reached a far wall, of which a portion slid away to reveal a utilitarian service elevator. Quickly ushering the pair in they began their assent to the station's promenade. Yoshi reflected that, while it was a shame that he would not be afforded the opportunity to gaze upon his native world during the ride, at least he would be able to eat within this lif- a small pinging noise broke him from his reverie - glancing up he noticed an urgently flashing light adjacent to a small screen.

"Sir?" began the guard "Would you mind hitting that button for me? Just activates the camera so they can see who's in here. Give the screen a good look though so they know who you are."

With a slight shrug Yoshi turned back to the panel and pushed the red button.

With a burst of white noise a rush of rapidly shifting lights and color flooded from the monitor to play across Yoshi's widened eyes. A long minute passed before the monitor went silent again leaving Yoshi's mouth to slowly fall open as he stared transfixed at the panel. Eventually his jaw seemed to come back to life, muttering a series of what sounded to be nonsensical babble before he fell to a heap on the deck.

The elevator opened on the promenade of the station, from where crowds were being disgorged from a full compliment of working lifts. Yoshi stepped cautiously forward, looking around in some confusion. Taking a glace behind he noted a smiling security guard accompanied by a woman.

"Thank you sir! Please enjoy your stay on Roppongi."

With that the lift closed and he was left to wonder why on earth he had decided to book passage all the way out here just to buy lunch.

Elsewhere, a neat man stood behind a technician watching as he decoded the harmonic code placed in the series of mumbles dictated by their unwitting charge. Yoshi's 'wife' strolled up from behind accompanied by the guard, affixing a nose plug drawn from her neat suit as she went, pausing but for a beat to inhale with pleasure.

With a short bow the man addressed the pair. "In but a moment we'll have the timetable and route of the artifact shipments in hand, your vessel has been prepared and will have the information uploaded shortly.

As the pair took their leave the man returned to follow Mr. Yoshi's progress across a series of monitors. Mr. Yoshi wouldn't know his part in today's latest step in a campaign of systematic attacks on artifact trade within the region, which is just as well, so much neater to conduct business when violence could be sidestepped... But just as well when that same violence could be enacted by another's hand

The Hogosha should really have known better than to attempt to attempt the two and a half percent price increase.

The technician glanced up to a monitor as Mr. Yoshi took up a menu and began to order.

"Should we at least comp his lunch, sir?"

With a smirk the man turned on his heel and strolled back towards his office.

"We're running a business here, son. Not a charity"

Waterloo

Foxhunt Limited, a small independent trading firm attempting to get its start in Bretonia had become a problem. The small company had recently reported multiple instances of cargo loss, destroyed ships on the resource run between Liberty and Bretonia. Normally this wouldn't be such an issue, rating a sweep or step-up of escort craft, but this small company had opted for one of the best policies openly available to a enterprise of their size and it was beginning to cost money. So the investigators were launched.

Herman Dustrang was now idling in his Eagle above the general vicinity of the Leeds/Magellan jumphole, waiting for the day to wrap itself up with the inevitable result. Herman's contact on Freeport 4 had signaled some time ago that the Crown Jewel, A Foxtrot transport, had been spotted passing in the distance but had not approached the trade lane leading to Manchester.

Could be that they were running a load of supplies to a mining platform out there, but the cargo manifest taped to his dash spoke of boron heading towards Leeds. Idiots were making for the shortcut to save a little cash on Interspace's dime.

With a mutter about idiot traders Herman activated the 'bully' another time, sending out a pulse which would awaken the beacon hidden on the Jewel if she were in system. With glee the ship announced that the beacon had been activated and would be passing by in but a few short minutes.

Firing up the burners he made to meet with the fool of a transport, the rough plan being to deliver the news that utilizing dangerously unstable wormholes was a violation of some bit of the contract or another to scare the idiot into -not- flying by pirate bases on someone else's dime. Then fine the heck out of him.

That's when he saw the Molly ships, two O'Malleys and an O'Kelly, dissidents who hadn't taken to the new era of peace and good times which had fallen over the land. It looked like they were going to beat him to the transport by at good heartbeat at least, but while he hadn't come looking for a fight he'd be damned if he was going to watch another load of premium insurance go tumbling into space.

That's when he noticed that the Molly's had fallen into formation with the transport.

"Warte mal, was zur Helle..."

Hastily he commenced a scan of the transport, earning himself nothing but a screen full of interference rather than the expected neat lineup of Ageira tagged goods.

Ignoring the incoming flood of neigh indecipherable warnings emanating from the Mollies Herman proceeded to knock the transport out of cruises, scoring him a solid scan of the vessel's hold. What that revealed did little for his mounting sour mood.

The sons of bitches had been dumping their own cargo and running contraband on the sly! As Molly Trefoils began to batter on his shields Herman hastily packaged the data and sent it to Waterloo in New London. Foxhunt wasn't going to walk away from this one unscathed. Probably wasn't going to walk away at all.

Engaging his cannons he readied the Eagle to return the fight. The Molly ships were laying an intimidating amount of fire in his path, but with a little luck he might be able to perform his good civic duty and remove another unlawful smuggler from the world. Maybe even do it without getting his ship turned inside out in the process.

Bonn

Samantha followed the pilot's gaze to a Republican train, also apparently thinking of running the same gambit, furiously firing at a swarm of small Xeno fighters less than 6k down their path. With the Cross' engines cold there was no way they could make it through relying on maneuvering thrusters. With a resigned grin Samantha reckoned that mayhap a little fun might come out of things yet, she trusted the Cross to see her through the trouble.

"Welp! Was a good shot! Fire up the spinner and get ready to shuck and jive a bit. Let the gunners know that I'm perfectly fine with donating company plasma to the Xenos, terrorists or no everyone deserves fair treatment in that regard!"

As the ship flickered to life Samantha flicked a switch, issuing the general call to arms; it also fired off a signal to the trio of escorting fighters trailing a few minutes behind. Best part about being cocky concerning a fight was having the guns to back it up.

"Oh" Samantha added to the pilot "If the Xenos manage to nab the Republican train see about getting the paperwork together on salvage rights for rescue."

Could be a good day was only going to get better.

The Skinny

It’s important to note that Interspace is not a “shipping” company, they deal in securing the financial endeavors of her sister corporations via insurance, economic backing and vigil supervision of the tradelane networks that serve as the vital arteries of the four houses of the Sirius sector.

That is not to say that Interspace does not ship freight. Either under specific contract or client request an additional fee can ensure that Interspace will utilize the resources at its disposal to see virtually any cargo reach virtually any destination intact.

As an Interspace Commerce faction the IND is charged with maintaining the surface perception of that organization as well as being the best possible example of conduct by which players can portray themselves on the discovery RP server. In pursuit of achieving that objective the IND will largely be concerning itself with the business of managing 'premium insurance' shipping in addition to her secondary role of trader escort/lane security.

That being said, the primary purpose of the IND is to serve as a launching platform for a rich array of interaction with whatever persons or organizations with whom we might encounter in our various travels. Also there's something about becoming embarrassingly wealthy (we lied, we're not embarrassed at all) in the process.

The IND is one of the oldest factions on the Discovery RP server, its founding members serving as some of the server's founding members. With a rich and robust history providing for the foundation of what many might consider to be an overly shady branch of Interspace Commerce running behind a winsome front of being entirely legitimate. Or we're perfectly legitimate atop an undercurrent of shadiness, or we're perfectly legitimate and have not an ounce of shady in our bones. Heck we're so good to go we're practically glowing.

That’s enough of the tour, head on down to the gift shop and go buy a spoon or something.

Owned Bases

• Newark Station, New York
• Bonn Station, New Berlin
• Waterloo Station, New London
• Roppongi Station, New Tokyo
• Furyoku Station, Okinawa

Other bases populated

• Planet Manhattan, New York
• Planet Denver, Colorado
• Sheffield Station, Manchester
• Glasgow Outpost, Leeds

Diplomacy

Faction	Relationship
Liberty Police Incorporated	Allied
Liberty Security Force	Allied
Liberty Navy	Allied
Liberty Corporations	Allied
Lane Hackers	At War
Outcasts	At War
Criminals	At War

See Also

Feedback

Message Dump

Faction Status Post (#5)