System: Minette

3067] Based at Clam Falls on Minette, Green Star Corporation is perhaps the newest mega-corporation within the Federated Suns. Green Star Emergency Services, formed in 3008, is its parent organization, but, thanks to booming business, several remarkable merger deals, and significant anonymous financial backing (some say from the Davion family, some say from others), Green Star grew to much more. It now provides products and services to most of the FedSuns’ Outback, as well as a not-insignificant percentage of the entire nation. While the corporation provides much-needed services, some have come to think of it as a shadow government, running the Outback through its near-monopolies. Others say it’s just another megacorp looking to exploit the already disadvantaged.

Green Star Emergency Services provides relief services primarily during disasters and other times of emergency, assisting local governments in feeding, sheltering, and caring for disaster victims, as well as consulting in reconstruction efforts — for a fee, of course. Green Star began when the Federated Suns government privatized emergency response teams, gave them some ancient equipment that would otherwise have been scrapped, and assigned them to the fledgling company. Never lacking for business, Green Star became a wild success, eventually opening up subsidiary offices across the FedSuns Periphery.

The growing Green Star absorbed two other up-and-comers — Federated Arbitrators and Judges as well as McRae Quik Construct, companies that also focused their efforts on the Outback — within short order (though only through the help of its anonymous financial backers). Both fit right into the Green Star corporate model. As the largest construction firm in the Outback, McRae Quik Construct (reeling at the time of its 3057 acquisition from a series of scandals) added much-needed heavy equipment and took over all construction and engineering contracts issued during Green Star-administered operations. Federated Arbitrators and Judges, which already ran de facto civil courts on numerous Outback worlds, grew larger, taking a huge burden off of the FedSuns’ judicial system.

Consolidated Utilities and Services and Crimson Star Permanent Assurance were two other natural additions to the Green Sun fold. The first was a loose alliance of utility companies that serviced about 15 percent of the Outback; once merged under Green Star management, that percentage grew to the point that numerous groups brought anti-trust suits against that division (often using Federated Arbitrators courts, ironically). Crimson Sun is the fourth largest insurance provider in the Federated Suns, famous for offering low cost insurance to traditionally destitute worlds; in addition, it has built quite a network of hospitals and clinics on those same worlds. Both, of course, make extensive use of Green Star and affiliated services.

Green Star has numerous other smaller divisions all focused on the Outback. Perhaps the oddest additions have been The Pit, a huge chain of popular clothing stores, and Andrea Hu Enterprises, designers and manufacturers of “affordable everyday wear.” Merging those acquisitions into one division, Green Star has already built several clothing factories in the Outback and near the Chaos March to take advantage of the lower labor costs and fewer regulations in those regions.

There are no functional factories located on this planet.