IEC

The IEC's Pulse City offices.

The **Integrated Energy Conglomerate**, also known as the IEC, is one of the largest corporate states on Pulse. It originally ceded the territory which now makes up Pulse City and was instrumental in the creation of a new intercorporate order under the Colonial Corporate Council (C3.)

## History

The IEC, as its name implies, was originally created as a merger of nearly a dozen different stellar energy corporations, including Lanzhou Dyson Sphere, Western Arm Energy, and Marmara Interstellar. It was one of the galaxy's largest energy suppliers, with holdings in dozens of star systems, even holding property in AEKI territory.

When AEKI first colonized Pulse, one of its land surveyors, Ernst Ashenko, found a massive range of lithium deposits on the planet. Realizing the immense wealth such a deal would represent, he fabricated the survey data, then sold information about the lithium deposits to the IEC.

The IEC offered to buy the continent where the lithium was located, and AEKI, seeing Pulse as a colonial backwater, quickly accepted the deal.

When the IEC began extracting massive amounts of lithium from the land, AEKI officials were furious. Ernst Ashenko's fate is unknown, but it's believed he either fled deep into the IEC's interstellar holdings, or was assassinated by AEKI agents for his betrayal.

The grudge between the IEC and AEKI took a back-seat during the chaos of the Visitation. While the IEC's local office was still shipping large quantities of lithium to the war-ravaged galactic powers, they were eventually convinced by Harlan Traat, AEKI's planetary head, that the war was unwinnable. Along with House Helgema, they agreed to demand the deletion of the colony from all corporate records, and hunkered down as the galaxy burned.

In the years after the Visitation, as dozens of refugee ships and pirate fleets arrived on Pulse, the leadership of the IEC was instrumental in creating a world government. Arguing that the top-down system of corporate states was insufficient to develop the planet and feed the population, it helped create the Intercorporate Development Zones, the Colonial Corporate Council, and the opportunity for independent companies to form, buying or leasing corporate land to help develop the planet's interior.

Through currying favor with dozens of smaller corporations, the IEC has a significant advantage in C3's intercorporate order, and under its current leadership has gained a reputation as the more reformist, populist planetary power. It was instrumental in the compromise which allowed Chitans to immigrate to Pulse City, ending the political stalemate surrounding the Long Reach colony ship.

However, its reformist tendencies have clear limits. The IEC supports public and private bans on Abundantism, does not legally consider Androids to be people, and, while it supported prosecuting the doctors whose malpractice caused the Clipper Riots, they also supported the violent suppression of the riot by the police and military.

## Corporate Philosophy

Unlike AEKI, the IEC's power comes not from direct control, but from its relationships with a number of smaller corporate allies and vassals.

The IEC allows independent companies to act as "incubators" of new ideas--picking out promising products and talented officials and paying handsomely for the opportunity. In turn, their corporate vassals compete with one another to produce better and more impressive results, chasing the lucrative opportunity of creating the IEC's newest standard infantry rifle, mining drill, or atmoengine.

IEC operations, therefore, tend to be equipped with more advanced and specialized tools than their AEKI equivalents, but at the cost of reliability and compatibility. Engineers often joke that "buy 3 IEC products and you'll need 5 adapters."

Their control of the planet's lithium deposits (which can be used in battery production) remains their highest military priority.