Kyoshi Corporation

Kyoshi Corporation
Empire Info
Capital		Tokyo, Earth
Leader		President of the Board of Directors Akari Norimoto
Government Type		Megacorporation
Dominant Species		Varied
Population		275,000 in directly governed stations and colonies
Anthem		n/a
Color Scheme		Green

The Kyoshi Corporation, also known as simply Kyoshi, is an large Earth based mega-corporation dating back to the days of the Solar Empire. The corporation has several subsidies, but its area of expertise remains in bioresearch and biomechanical subsidies. Its most direct presence on Onia remains a Shock Trauma Armed Rescue Service operation. Kyoshi is a shareholder in the White Belt Administration.

Kyoshi is most well known in the Belt for their stray or active vatborne based artifical intelligence units, mainly Autonomous Laboratory EXperiment Assistants and Multi-Purpose Engineering Units, though it also has several active subsidiaries in the region from security subcontractors to a logistics firm. Still, to most citizens of the White Belt it remains another faceless entity in a sea of governing corporations. Like many corporations of its size, Kyoshi has a historic rival through long-time competitor Ulysses Industries, with whom relations range from cold to open conflict depending on the sector of space.

History

Founding & Early Expansion

The Kyoshi Corporation was founded by Tanaka Kyoshi in 1951 as a small electronics consulting company during the early stages of the Japanese Economic Miracle, lasting from 1946 to 1990, in which Japanese exports skyrocketed. Tanaka, a radio engineering officer in the IJN during the war, was an early proponent of transistors, and his work as a consultant with Sony would help lead to the 1957 release of the TR-63 transistor radio, which would revolutionize the field of electronics and see the vacuum tube entirely replaced within 30 years.

In 1980, Tanaka passed away, leaving the company to his eldest son, Kobayashi. Kobayashi, a Tokyo University business graduate, utilized his inheritance to rapidly expand the company, acquiring and integrating several competing companies, and forming partnerships with manufacturing companies to streamline production of Kyoshi-branded electronics. By 1985, Kyoshi had become a keiretsu, and would spend the next 47 years becoming a powerhouse in electronics, microchip production, and software development.

In 2032, with changes to Japan's laws regarding conglomerates and corporations, Kobayashi rapidly restructured the company into a classic zaibatsu, with the Kyoshi family acting as the CEO and primary owners of the Kyoshi Corporation, and all the partner companies coming under its control as subsidiaries. This streamlining allowed for further expansion of the corporation’s interests, and they soon branched out into the field of biomedicine. Kyoshi Laboratories was founded in 2035, being Kyoshi’s oldest subsidiary.

WHile Kyoshi had established itself through its work in the electronics field, its early steps into biomedicine yielded staggering results, and over the next 60 years, the company would largely pivot into this. This took place in a time at which humanity was both reaching for the stars, and for a greater understanding of itself, and Kyoshi made multiple breakthroughs around the late 21st century. These included pioneering the processes for gene stretching and RNA modifications, resulting in the ability to halt, and experimentally reverse, the condition known as aging. To this end, Satoru Kyoshi, who had ascended to power after Kobayashi’s death in 2042, became the first Kyoshi executive to have an artificially extended life, living to 2204 using these methods. The effect of ending aging had dramatic effects on the rest of humanity, with a joint project with the early House Ajnoria on Mars leading to the perfection of this technology; the current Arch Duchess of the house, Anya Saydi Ajnoria, is one of the longest living Humans known, currently over 750 years old.

Interstellar Beginnings

By 2109, humanity had first harvested W-1 fuel for faster than light travel, and Kyoshi, as one of humanity’s most powerful megacorporations, was positioned to immediately start commercializing it. Kyoshi Engineering was founded in 2115, with the purpose of designing, building, and manning new research and colony ships. The Bōken-sha, or Explorer, was the first such Kyoshi colony ship, and was part of the fleet of corporate and government ships that founded New Babylon, Earth’s first extrasolar colony, in 2119.

The company saw continued expansion during Satoru’s extended reign, though not without complications. The early Solar Empire was a tumultuous time for any corporation, particularly one in Kyoshi’s fields. Satoru’s children, twins Kenji and Kanae, spent most of their lives preparing to take their father’s place. Learning the politics of their roles and interactions with both shareholders and the solar empire itself; which saw corporations as a means to serve the empire more than true independent enterprises. Skillful diplomacy was needed to navigate this complicated landscape; which was ultimately Kenji’s failing; dying of suspicious causes while in college at the family’s alma mater; Tokyo University. While widely speculated he was poisoned by Solar Empire forces due to his liberal worldviews, this was never definitively confirmed or denied and the records of such are now lost to time. What this did mean, however, was his twin sister Kanae would ultimately ascend to the head of the company with Satoru’s eventual death, after 164 years at the head of the Zaibatsu in 2204.

Kanae would be the first interstellar head of Kyoshi; exploring Kyoshi’s corporate settlements outside of the Sol System. While most of these colonies would be seen as a ‘short hop’ by today’s interstellar travel standards, interstellar travel was still seen as immensely risky to many in the upper classes at the time, and Kanae’s highly publicized travels broke the stigmas of faster than light travel and its effects on the human body to many outside of spacer communities. FTL travel was starting to become ‘normal’ to humanity.

Her wanderlust would be her downfall, however, for she would be the first Kyoshi head to die in space during her third tour in 2299. Little is known of the actual circumstances save for scant colony records. Kanae was visiting a Kyoshi asteroid lab in Alpha Centauri, when a nearby W1 mine of Ulysses Industrial, a rival Earth corporation, detonated, destroying the Kyoshi colony, the Ulysses mine, and Kanae and her executive yacht. To this day, the explosion remains the source of dispute and conflict between the two corporations, with Ulysses claiming the mine was well marked and Kyoshi ignoring warnings not to construct their lab near it, and Kyoshi claiming the mine was deliberately sabotaged to take out the head of the corporation.The Solar Empire officially faulted both parties, but no charges were pursued against either. To this day, a memorial to Kanae and the victims of the blast remain at the site of the lab in system space.

Birth of the Interstellar Corporation

Kanae’s daughter, Aya, ascended to the head of the company despite her comparatively ‘young’ age of 39 after learning of her mother’s death. Without her mother to guide her on the runnings of a corporation that’d rival a nation state just two hundred years prior, she relied heavily on a Board of Advisors. Under prior executives this board purely advised on specific technical matters. Starting with Aia, though, this board slowly assumed more and more real power within the Zaibatsu; however under Aya they still remained relatively controlled.

Yielding more power to a board wasn’t meant to be Aya’s destiny, however, for just 21 years after she took the reins, Humanity met its first interstellar aliens through the Rokhandan Directorate. Aya found the creatures fascinating; curious, far more advanced scientifically than humanity, but despite that friendly. Despite knowing full well the Solar Empire of 2320 may have very well attempted to subjugate the dog-like creatures had the technological scale been reversed, Aya set out to work with and make friends with them. Through a successful partnership with Hruldi, one of Fen’s clans focusing on research, Kyoshi established its first joint lab on Fen in 2335. The Hruldi-Kyoshi Laboratory remains open to this day, and was vital in initial RRCT research and eventually the A.L.E.X.A Program.

Though she had no way of knowing it at the time, this early partnership with Rokhandan researchers - Kyoshi was the first Earth corporation to establish a permanent presence in Rokhandan territory - would slingshot Kyoshi into dominance in the bioresearch field. She wouldn’t be making deals on Fen for long, though, for at home the cracks were beginning to show in the Solar Empire.

Collapse of a Solar Empire

Kyoshi and megacorporations like it had to maintain at least cordial relations with the Solar Emperor/Empress and their court. The simple reality of this forced generous concessions from corporations, appointing friends/family of the monarch to relevant positions, and making ‘gifts’ that’d equate to exceptional tax rates. Though far from ones to publicly say it; Kyoshi itself in essence was ran by a royal family, the realities of this form of government had always irked Kyoshi and other relevant megacorporations; a delicate balance of power meant that while the Emperor could effectively nationalize any megacorporation, the risk of the others allying against him or her kept this tool in check. As such, the Solar Emperor was always inclined to put these corporations against each other; some maintain this was the real motivation behind the Alpha Centauri incident of 2299 which originally made enemies of Kyoshi and Ulysses.

By the 2370s, a series of accidents and deaths led to a series of weak Solar Emperors, and Kyoshi and other corporations seized the opportunity; leading to corporations earning seats at the Solar Court and having a more direct say in the running of the Empire, with Corporations slowly replacing the noble houses of the Court of Sol for relevance within the Empire. This transition was not bloodless, but ultimately, The Solar Empire and its houses would never again be a direct threat to Kyoshi’s expansionism. This weakened Solar Empire would ultimately be the one to collapse 120 years later.

With these at the time reforms, the early 2400s were known as a era of peace and expansion within the Kyoshi Zaibatsu; the Solar Empire stabilized (If only briefly) relations cooled with Ulysses and other rival corporations, and business exploded with the Rokhandans and then the massive boom to business that was first contact with the Onk Conglomerate in 2342. As with all happy times, though, they’re destined to end.

Kyoshi was never at the forefront of Artificial Intelligence research; a biomedical corporation through and through, and so the news of the rogue Styx A.I glassing entire systems hit the Board and Aya with denial, then surprise and shock, and eventually a determination to terminate it. By this point Kyoshi had a half sizable corporate fleet; to fend off both pirates and rivals; and this fleet was pledged to the Solar Empire to combat the A.I. This would prove a costly business venture; though a worthwhile political one. With the war, the power balance briefly swung back towards the Solar Emperor; then Hermius Pertinax, who argued ‘everything be done’ to save Humanity. While Kyoshi survived nationalization with the contribution of its fleets, several costly battles set the company back a hundred years in resources, revenue, and savings.

With the war, though, the fear of A.I went through the roof in all empires; and Kyoshi’s biomedical programs saw new light with early cloning techniques. Kyoshi’s first commercially successful clone line saw success during this period, as a scared galaxy turned away from mechanical Artificial Intelligence in droves. It was during this war that Kyoshi’s first open weapons manufacturing subsidiary, Highland Armories, opened in New Babylon. This was quickly followed by a mercenary service; Momentum Corporate Security, which quickly became Kyoshi’s military in all but name during the war against Styx.

Still, the war had a costly toll on Kyoshi; by its final bloody end in 2497, Kyoshi has been reverted from a gigantic megacorporation rivaling Sol’s most powerful noble houses, to a shambled company on the verge of bankruptcy. Kyoshi only survived as its rivals weren’t any better off. It was in this environment that the sickened government of the Solar Empire finally began to fall; both with the creation of the Galactic Assembly in 2499, and Hermius Pertinax’s formal abdication in 2509. With the creation of the Galactic Coalition, Kyoshi was finally free of the pomp and circumstance a solar empire brought.

Aya did not live to see the abdication though; while Kyoshi had nearly perfected the art of keeping someone alive by 2495, the prosecution of the war had stressed Aya to the point where she died of sudden cardiac arrest. Though by this point she likely could have been resuscitated well after the fact, her final will stated she wished to die ‘naturally’. Despite the irony of this wish coming from the head of one of the known galaxy’s largest biomedical corporations, it was respected.

Aya’s first born daughter, Ryouko Kyoshi, assumed control in 2495. Her hand held the company firm during both the war’s final years and the subsequent economic collapse around the fall of the Solar Empire, barely scraping past collapse while many rival corporations; which had been dependent on Solar Empire contracts and subsidies, did not survive.

Defining Humanity

Ryouko saw the birth of the Galactic Coalition as the head of Kyoshi at the time. As Kyoshi predated the governments forming; and was one of the relatively few corporations to survive the economic struggles of its founding, Kyoshi initially enjoyed relative independence from this new government. As with any republic, though, the new Galactic Assembly feared rival power blocks; and after the Noble Houses had been gutted of power, the remaining corporations became an easy target. Ryouku turned out to be quite the skilled diplomat; however, and ledgered Kyoshi’s at this point 200 plus year presence in the Rokhandan Directorate to fight off attempts by the Assembly to curb the corporations power; Kyoshi became one of the first true interstellar corporations; now with established presences in the Conglomerate, Directorate, and Coalition; any one of these governments regulating the corporation became increasingly difficult, and as attention spread towards exploration with the contact of the Grand Tide in 2523, attention of the new empire faded elsewhere. Kyoshi had, once again, survived nationalization and regulation despite at this point holding an objective monopoly in several sectors.

Now free to act accordingly; Ryouko saw the corporation's second era of exploration; founding several corporate colonies, albeit this time behind governmental scouts. Kyoshi never attempted to stake any official governmental claim to any of its colonies; Ryouko had proven that through maneuvering and pitching governments against each other, they didn’t need to. This brought the downscaling of Kyoshi’s Corporate Fleet as well; the corporation became comfortable using galactic governments to do its dirty work when the time required. The next two hundred years brought relative peace and prosperity.

Still, conflict remained; Kyoshi and Ulysses had, by this point, a nearly 400 year long rivalry by the time of the Volkter Expedition in 2679, with which both corporations had won differing supply and resource contracts. An escalated conflict over a supply convoy that led to open conflict between a Kyoshi and Ulysses corporate supply fleet in 2699, though, crossed the two over into corporate warfare. The Galactic Coalition attempted to mediate the issue, but by this point the Coalition quickly realized both corporations were to the size where legal rulings were more suggestions. Relations between the two corporations remain hostile to this day. It was in this environment that Ryouko oversaw the founding of Shock Trauma Armed Rescue Service branches in Kyoshi’s outlying outposts.

After twenty years of off and on corporate conflict; culminating in the Battle of Terminus IV in 2717, the issue could not skirt the Coalition Assembly any longer; the Assembly forcing mediation between the two corporations, threatening the use of the Coalition Navy if they wouldn’t meet at the table. A line of demarcation was effectively drawn; allowing Ulysses to focus around the Volkter Zone, Grand Tide, and Conglomerate, and allowing Kyoshi to focus within the inner Coalition and Directorate systems. While both corporations routinely crossed these zones, forcing them to ‘their own corners’ would, in essence, stall significant conflict for a hundred years. The eerie comparisons between the ‘zones of business’ imposed on these rival corporations and the eventual final borders after the Secession War only 95 years later remains a topic of historians and conspiracy theorists alike to this day.

It is said upon hearing of the successful development of RRCT in 2727 on Fen, which Kyoshi had a large stake in development of, the then 275 year old Ryouku is quoted as saying, “Soon we'll truly be asking what it means to be Human.”. She never made it back to Earth after seeing a demonstration of the technology on Fen; her yacht being lost in space during the jump.

It is here that the Board of Advisors first stepped in to run the corporation during the three week period of confusion that followed; adopting the title Board of Directors, the Board all but ran the company until the heir to the zaibatsu, Akihito Kyoshi, could be found from a vacation on Merik Reuir with his wife, Ibuki. By the time of Ryouku’s death, living ‘forever’, or at least until someone as powerful as Kyoshi’s CEO “felt the time was right”, was more than possible. Akihito thought he’d never actually assume the company ‘throne’ as a result, or at least he’d have plenty of warning, and by the time he was declared the CEO of Kyoshi, he and his wife had no heirs. Needless to say this was unacceptable to the corporation's old guard, and Asashi Kyoshi is born on March 30th, 2735.

A Glimmer of Hope

WIP! Come back later for more!

List of Executives

1. Tanaka Kyoshi 1951-1980
2. Kobayashi Kyoshi 1980-2042
3. Satoru Kyoshi 2042-2204
4. Kanae Kyoshi 2204-2299
5. Aya Kyoshi 2299-2495
6. Ryouko Kyoshi 2495-2727
7. Akihito Kyoshi 2727-27XX
8. Asashi Kyoshi 27XX-281X
9. Board of Directors 281X-Current

Diplomatic Relations

Despite being a Earth-registered megacorporation, Kyoshi maintains diplomatic relations almost like a sovereign state; due to its considerable holdings in multiple galactic empires. Officially, Kyoshi like other corporations will do business with whomever asks, but unofficially favorites are always played.

• Galactic Coalition While Kyoshi comes up as an occasional political goal in some starry eyed representative to 'cull the monopolies', these always go nowhere. Relations maintain generally favorable, as Kyoshi remains an Earth based corporation and, mostly, pays Coalition taxes.
• Rokhandan Directorate Kyoshi's first interstellar business partner, Kyoshi remains favorable with the Directorate who treats it almost as one of its clans.
• Ayun-Ji Kyoshi maintains decent relations with Ayun-Ji by proxy; the same can't be said for any Poliesu shadow governments.
• Federation Kyoshi maintains questionable relations with the Federation; due to its historic business rival Ulysses Industries operating out of Volkter. Relations seem to be cooling; sometines.
• The Holy See The Holy See seems questioning of all corporations; Kyoshi is no exemption. No significant foothold exists.
• House Ajnoria Despite being on opposite sides of the 'stellar curtain', Kyoshi maintains some ties with Ajnoria due to historic co-projects around biomedical research in the 22nd and 23rd centuries, prior to the House's exile from Solar Empire space.

Organization

Kyoshi Laboratories

Kyoshi's oldest subsidiary, Kyoshi Laboratories dates back to the 21st century; originally for the express purposes of developing RNA technology towards reducing aging, cancer, and other related degenerative diseases. Over the years, Kyoshi Labs has become an all-encompassing biomedical firm, with time making them experts in modern medicine, pharmaceuticals, and eventually RRCT technology. Kyoshi Labs eventually became far more known for their strides in Vatborne technology though, with two primary successful lines of Vatborne seeing mass production today.

Multi-Purpose Engineering Unit (MPEU)

MPEUs or Multi-Purpose Engineering Units are the immediate relatives of the PMEU Program, PMEU Standing for Prototype Multi-Purpose Engineering Unit. Development started in 2790 on Kyoshi Station itself; and utilized more mechanical parts than organic, in opposition to their siblings at the ALEXA program. Development took 11 years with the first models becoming functional in 2801.

MPEU’s are highly obedient protogens designed mostly for engineering and lab work. They can as well take on light combat or security roles. Some are used by Momentum Security as combat engineers or equipment specialists whenever the need arises. They are much more expensive than ALEXA Units due to their replaced organs and extensive upgrades found inside of them, this making them over 50% synthetic. They do possess the ability for full self awareness along with a full range of emotions. Most are kind and devoted to service, others fully focus on their service to the company. MPEU's do not have control chips like ALEXA's as their longer developmental process is presumed to make them fully loyal.

Autonomous Laboratory EXperiment Assistant (ALEXA)

Main Article: Autonomous Laboratory EXperiment Assistant

Stemming from a wartime need for manpower during the Secession War, the ALEXA program began out of the now famed Hruldi-Kyoshi labs on Fen. Facing a dire need for lab assistants and other professionals; and with the older MPEU line too expensive and too timely to mass produce, ALEXA's more closely resemble direct clones of their Rokhandan ancestors, but with several key internal differences that allow them to function more as computational assistants. While cheaper than MPEU's to produce, ALEXA's are still vastly more expensive than typical mass produced Vatborne lines, owing to their intense indoctrination into their given tasks and on-board hardware to allow them to function much like lower class Artificial Intelligence despite being 99% organic.

Kyoshi Engineering

A poster for the Kyoshi Shipbreaking Yards at Kepler-452. Shipbreaking has become a extremely profitable venture after The Secession War as fleets of now mothballed ships await deconstruction.

Kyoshi Engineering was founded in 2115 to facilitate the creation of an FTL colony ship for the Proxima Centauri expedition. Since then, it has grown into the Kyoshi zaibatsu’s most reliable subsidiary; while Kyoshi Laboratories still take the limelight in progress and development, Kyoshi Engineering’s production of all manner of starships nonetheless brings in the most stable profit. In addition to the company’s duties of implementing and producing Kyoshi Laboratories designs for consumer use, the company operates 42 dockyards orbiting numerous worlds and moons in Kyoshi controlled or influenced systems, and a dozen shipbreaking yards which process and recycle hulks or decommissioned vessels.

Kyoshi-built ships fall into four categories; freighters, exploratory vessels, luxury yachts, and warships.

• Kyoshi freighters have a reputation for being rugged and reliable, if straightforward vessels with no frills out of the dock, though their simple, easily modifiable nature has endeared them to companies that choose to adjust commercial ships to fit their own specifications.
• Kyoshi exploratory vessels are, like their freighters, rugged and reliable, but this is necessary when operating in uncharted or far flung space. They are completely modular in nature, allowing for different lab, engineering, berthing, or various other modules to be added or removed as needed.
• Kyoshi executive and luxury yachts are universally sleek and stylish, combining the finest in comfort and entertainment technologies with the most modern FTL drive and calculation systems, permitting anyone wealthy enough to own one to bypass the established FTL routes at their leisure.
• Kyoshi-built warships differ greatly from their military counterparts; built for tighter budgets than governments have available, they focus on automation of most ship systems for a higher initial investment, but a far lower cost in man-hours over the life of the vessel. Generally a bit smaller than other ships in equivalent classes, they bear a stylized design reminiscent of historical Earth naval ships, with an elevated bridge and superstructure sitting proudly atop the hull.

Kyoshi Farms

With the rapid expansion of humanity throughout the stars, Kyoshi Farms was established in the mid 2200s to take advantage of discovered and manufactured temperate worlds throughout known space, leveraging them into providing one of the few absolute necessities required for life: food.

Now encompassing thousands of farms, fisheries, ranches, and food processing facilities throughout the Orion arm, as well as four wholly-owned, dedicated agricultural planets and moons, Kyoshi provides a not-insubstantial chunk of the food products found within Coalition, Directorate, and WBA space.

From natural livestock and game meat, to artificial imitations thereof, fine wine and saké to cheap beer, gourmet dairy products to government-issued poverty cheese, and instant self–baking bread loaves to pilot crackers, Kyoshi Farms’ line of products spans the entire gamut of culinary and budgetary preference.

Highland Armories

Throughout the histories of all known sapient species with any history of capitalism, there is one steadfast, ever-present rule: the defense industry makes solid money.

Highland Armories can trace its roots back to a small detached garage in the suburbs of Durham, North America, in 2032, when founders Roland Baywater and Arthur Terrik began milling and 3D printing aftermarket weapon parts for spending money. While this would soon become their primary employment, and the two would profit handsomely from the business, it wasn’t until 2080 when Terrik’s son, Evan, would begin acquiring other small weapon manufacturers across the then-United States, incorporating them under the Highland Armories brand. In 2110, the company’s first major breakthrough happened when they won a bid to manufacture sidearms for the Solar Imperial Armed Forces. Now with government protection and backing, Highland Armories began steadily expanding its influence, soon rivaling that of Raytheon Interstellar and Lockheed.

Unfortunately, this influence would wane after the Solar Empire’s reorganization into the Galactic Coalition. Mismanagement and poor handling at an executive level would see numerous military contracts lost to competitors, and within a decade, the current ownership was looking to sell. Previous collaborative projects with Kyoshi Engineering would lead to the salvation of Highland Armories; Ryouko Kyoshi would personally oversee the acquisition of company assets, and as a nod to the company’s long history and name recognition, elected to retain the Highland Armories branding.

Today, Highland Armories has regained a small number of contracts with various governments, but has found significantly more success in the civilian market. In addition to small arms, the company produces ship-mounted weapons and munitions of numerous types, and in conjunction with Kyoshi Laboratories and Engineering, are pioneering cutting-edge weapons technologies, most recently the high-pressure beam cannon, which features on Kyoshi’s latest battleship design.

Momentum Corporate Security Solutions

Formed from the merger of several small companies in the late 2200s, Momentum Security provided contracted security officers in numerous cities across North America, but never expanded outside of the continent.

A notable incident would change the fate of the company when, in 2307, a kidnapping attempt was made on Aya Kyoshi during a conference in a New York skyscraper. The attempt devolved into a hostage situation due to unforeseen issues, and a Momentum security guard, Thomas Scully, single-handedly thwarted the attempt, picking off the hostage-takers throughout the building over the course of several hours, and escorting the hostages to safety. While ultimately successful, Scully was mortally wounded in the process, and would die shortly afterwards. Moved by Scully’s dedication to his duty, Aya would order the company’s acquisition, expanding and integrating it into all aspects of Kyoshi’s businesses, and renaming it to Momentum Corporate Security Services.

Momentum now provides for nearly all of Kyoshi’s security and combat needs, with the sole exception being protection of the zaibatsu’s family estate, which itself falls to handpicked members of the branch families. This includes personal and facility guard work, both undercover and overt, corporate conflict-related combat and intelligence-gathering, and staffing the corporation’s warship fleet. All employees are excruciatingly vetted, meticulously trained, generously paid, highly valued by the corporation, and second to none in their fields.

Kyoshi Protectorate Fleet

Of all of Momentum's duties within the zaibatsu, the most important is its staffing of the Kyoshi Corporate Protection Fleet. This force is presently comprised of 89 vessels, ranging from light carriers and battleships, down to destroyer escorts and corvettes. While most of the smaller vessels are actively employed escorting Kyoshi convoys through low security space, the large vessels are assigned either to Kyoshi Exploration & Expansion Fleets, or to dockyards at various planets in which the zaibatsu holds significant interest.

The Protectorate Fleet consists of three fleets; the First Fleet, assigned to Eastern Coalition Space, the 2nd Fleet, assigned to Western Coalition Space, and the 3rd fleet, recently established as part of Kyoshi's (relatively) new policing duties as part of the White Belt Administration.

Shock Trauma Armed Rescue Service

Main article: Shock Trauma Armed Rescue Service

Founded as the rescue service for Kyoshi Corporation after noticing a lack of adequate healthcare and security on its mining colonies, STARS, short for Shock Trauma Armed Rescue Service, is a multifaceted tactical and technical rescue company providing advanced medical care no matter how hostile the environment. Originally founded exclusively for corporate operations, the company has since expanded to operate in civilian centers where law enforcement and medical care are either non-existent, overstretched, or underfunded/understaffed.

The crux of the service offered is emergency medical evacuation, but do not let this fool the observer into seeing the company as altruistic. The company operates on a ruthless basis of payment for services. Those seeking charity care should not utilize STARS. The program was designed for, and remains largely utilized by, society’s elite and wealthy. For those who can afford it, though, there is no better service when one’s life is on the line. STARS teams are known to head to incidents in numbers, and while not actively seeking out fights - they have no desire to be ‘company police’ - they aren’t afraid to engage any threats to their patients, either. Particularly out here in the belt, where things like “duty to act” laws aren’t on the books, STARS paramedics are known to prioritize the client over all other injured in an emergency.

Vayrand United Logistics

Vayrand Unified Logistics came from humble, relatable beginnings; six transport ship owner-operators forming a company for tax breaks. What it grew into was a network of freight yards, warehouse facilities, cargo distribution stations, and a staggeringly large fleet of transports, haulers, tankers, freighters of every conceivable make and model, and most importantly, an FTL communication-integrated organizational system to effectively and efficiently manage every individual item of cargo, from origin to destination.

Vayrand is Kyoshi’s most recent major acquisition; joining the zaibatsu in 2803 to facilitate the standardization of transport ships with Kyoshi Engineering’s shipyards. It currently handles all logistics for Kyoshi, staffing everything from small receiving stations on barely-colonized planets, to the exploration ships actively expanding the zaibatsu’s reach among the stars. No longer dependent upon outside contractors for all of its cargo services, Kyoshi has invested a substantial amount of capital into Vayrand, working to phase out old ships that don’t conform to the company’s new standardized designs. This has had the secondary effect of Vayrand becoming a notable purveyor of used vessels to the civilian market.