Hellfocker Arms Corporation

Hellfocker Arms Corporation GmbH is a defence manufacturing conglomerate that manufactures armoured vehicles, small arms, and directed-energy weapons and operates in diverse business areas such as real estate, retail, and interstellar transportation. Based in Aachen, but operating most its facilities on the planet Tartarus in the Inner Colonies, the company was a major arms company in the Terran Empire and its allies, and continues to be a major arms supplier in the Central Galactic Union. Its diversified industrial interests across the scope of defence manufacturing have enabled it to have a solid presence in the human arsenal for centuries.
== History ==
The Hellfocker Arms Corporation was established in 2500 during an expansion in the Terran arms industry to feed the ongoing civil war in the Empire. Its founder Josef Hellfocker supported the Imperial government and its claims of sovereignty over the feudal domains of the far-flung colonies. While other arms companies trafficked arms between factions, Hellfocker made a point of his loyalty to the Crown. For over a century, Hellfocker received preferential contracts on the design and sale of small arms to the Imperial Armed Forces. The company headquartered itself in Aachen in North Germany, but later consolidated most of its facilities on the privately-colonized world of Tartarus in the Outer Colonies. The complex of factories, ports, and business centers on the planet are part of a wholly-owned "company town" that largely services the business needs of the company, manufacturing products and shipping them to its points of sale. The commercial, residential, and entertainment needs are provided at low cost by the company to its employees who dwell in the colony's cities. Tartarus remains to this day a "model of innovation and efficiency" with respect of industrial conglomerates and their practices, though it has been criticized as a form of "corporate feudalism" since its beginning. Other companies have attempted to replicate Hellfocker's model, to little success. All throughout their history, the company licensed their weapon designs to the Imperial Small Arms Factory system to meet the production needs of the Army.
The preferential treatment of the Hellfocker Arms Corporation ended officially in 2617, in a series of military reforms. The acquisition process was 'meritocratized', though some corporations continued to receive unofficial preference. Hellfocker had to compete fiercely with other armaments companies for contracts, which many historians indicate as having compelled the company to make better products. They diversified into armoured vehicles and directed-energy weapons as well as traditional small-arms manufacture. Hellfocker has remained on the cutting-edge of innovation with laser and other energy weaponry for individual use, though the Terran Empire and its allies never adopted laser weapons for general issue.
After the reorganisation of the Empire and its allies into the Central Galactic Union, the Hellfocker Arms Corporation has remained a major supplier of weaponry. Its M-150 Battle Rifle is the dominant rifle in service with the Army and the Marines, and has spawned a series of variants for close-quarters combat and longer-ranged use, including a special application sniper rifle. They also have supplied weapons for police and special operations forces, and for the civilian self-defence and hunting weapon markets.