Galactic Mining Company

The Galactic Mining Company is an expression of a particular life form know as a corporation.
In fact, there are no planets; there are no peoples. There are no Klingons. There are no Romulans. There is no neutral zone. There is no Alpha Quadrant. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast interwoven, interacting, multivariate multinational dominion of credits. Petrocredits, electrocredits, gold-pressed latinum, klingomarks, romulorubles, andorianrin, tellarpounds and star-shekels. It is the intergalactic system of currency that determines the totality of life in this galaxy. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic, subatomic and galactic structure of things today. It is the interstellar system of currency that determines the totality of life in this galaxy. That is the natural order of things. You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Captain Kirk? You get up on your little bridge and howl about the Federation and Democracy. There is no Federation. There is no democracy. There is only CBS and Paramount and the CW and Playmates, Blockbuster, Marvel and Tribbles R Us. Those are the governments of the galaxy today. What do you think the Klingons talk about in their councils of state? Kahless the Unforgettable? They pull out their isolinear programming charts, hyperstatistical multi-decision theories, and minimax solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do. We no longer live in a world of interstellar unions and ideologies, Captain Kirk. The galaxy is a college of corporations inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. The galaxy is a business, Captain! It has been since humanoid life crawled out of the slime. And our children will live to see that perfect galaxy in which there is no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company for whom all lifeforms will work to serve a common profit and in which all beings will own a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And we, the Galactic Mining Corporation, we have chosen you to preach this evangel.
:History records that Kirk declined this offer, but Jean-Luc Picard more than happily picked up the mantle a cenutry later.
In the 23rd century, though, the Galactic Mining Corporation's main enterprise was strategically placing massive automated lithium refineries in the most inaccessible places in the Federation, in the hope that they would be employed as service stations to be looted by talented thieves who managed to blow out their warp drives in the middle of nowhere. TOS: "Last Chance for Gas: 750,000 Parsecs". The ore ships that called on these cracking stations were similarly automated. In fact, re-purposed 20th century oar ships, or galleys, comprised the GMC fleet. TOS: "The Galley Slave".