Interstellar Commerce Commission

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**INTERSTELLAR COMMERCE COMMISSION**

The Interstellar Commerce Commission is an organization designed to monitor and conduct interstellar trade. They enforce shipping restrictions and biological and chemical quarantine procedures for Earth and all other colonies with a population of 200,000 or more. In addition to performing spacedock inspections, the ICC can randomly detain, seize, and search cargo and personal craft for suspected contraband.

**HISTORY**

After a rash of communicable disease outbreaks on several space stations and Luna, the UA and 3WE made rumblings about creating governmental agencies that would restrict the transport of resources and maintain shipping lanes. Weyland- Yutani beat them to the punch with the formation of the ICC, rationalizing that self-regulation would be better than governmental regulation. Satisfied that the ICC could handle the task, the two governments let business return to normal.

**LEADERS**

The Interstellar Commerce Commission is run by a board of directors with representatives from every major corporation and government. The ICC will send an executive to meditate on matters important to the trade commission.

**LOCATIONS**

The Interstellar Commerce Commission is headquartered on KOI 812.03 “Ruby Colony.” The largest spaceport in the Outer Veil, most spinward and rimward traffic between the Outer Rim and the Core is routed through the Commission in this system. The ICC operates inspection teams and coast guard cutters at every major space station in the UA, 3WE, and ICSC, while also patrolling the UPP border.

**PAUL VAN LEUWEN**

EXECUTIVE, INTERSTELLAR COMMERCE COMMISSION

Van Leuwen was the ICC representative who chaired Ellen Ripley's tribunal over the loss of the commercial freighter Nostromo. Finding no evidence to support officer Ripley’s claims of an alien lifeform that boarded the ship on LV-426 and killed her crew, Van Leuwen dismissed her claims, revoked her flight status, and remanded her to psychiatric evaluation. When the colony on LV-426 went silent, Paul at first thought it was a coincidence—likely a downed transmitter or solar flare up. When he found out that a platoon of Colonial Marines with Ripley as an advisor were sent to investigate and also disappeared, he began to wonder if the former Nostromo officer had been telling the truth. Learning of the destruction of the colony and Robert Morse’s Space Beast book, Van Leuwen launched an ICC inquiry to get to the bottom of this alleged alien. Skeptical and jaded from a lifetime of experience, Paul is nonetheless now seeing the galaxy through fresh eyes. Booking private passage on W-Y corporate shuttles, Van Leuwen can be seen coming and going from Anchorpoint station as his investigation proceeds.

**RELATIONS**

While they are allegedly an autonomous entity with loyalties to no particular party, the ICC is in fact owned and operated by Weyland-Yutani. Make of that what you will.

**CURRENT ACTIVITIES**

Every commercial starship is required to pass inspection, and each crew member must hold an ICC license in order to operate a vessel designated to transport food, persons, raw materials, or goods from one star system to another. As rumors of bizarre alien lifeforms and pathogens circulate the colonies, the ICC has been cracking down on ships returning from both deep space and the Frontier—making sure they have licensed crews, certified cargoes, and nothing else on board.