Pan-Galactic Corporation

The Pan-Galactic Corporation logo

Consensus has it that the Pan-Galactic Corporation is the largest business entity in the Frontier, but no factual data has been released to support this belief.

PGC has offices on nearly every inhabited planet, but has now confined most of its operations to financial areas, industrial research, funding Frontier exploration, loans for business ventures, investments, the backing of new governments, and so forth.

PGC is a major influence on commerce, and exploration - so much so that their trade language, time scale, and trade system is used across the known Frontier. They are also very conscious of their public image, so if they need dirty work done, they work through a smaller corporate "front" (usually the Galactic Task Force).

Headquarters: Port Loren, Gran Quivera, Prenglar

Chief Executive: Chang Kim Lee (Human)

Subsidiaries: PGC owns innumerable small and medium-sized corporations, including Trojan Enterprises on Kraatar.

Allies: Galactic Task Force Inc.

Enemies: Streel Corporation, MercCo

Occasional Opposition: CDC, Capellan Free Merchants

Corporate History

The first large interstellar company was the Pan-Galactic Corporation; it is no exaggeration to say that the PGC ruled the Frontier in the early days. Like the great railroad corporations of late 19th- and early 20th-century Earth, the PGC was the only fast, safe way to travel through an unknown frontier for the millions of pioneers who yearned for land and their own fortunes. The PGC had its fingers in every pie, controlling financing, transportation, mining, industrial, and agricultural organizations, and more on the Frontier worlds.

There is a lot to thank the PGC for in this early developmental period. It founded a common unit of currency (the credit), established the Galactic Board of Trade, created and spread the Pan-Galactic common language, financed innumerable scientific breakthroughs that led frontiersman further and further into space, and did much, much more.

But there were great problems inherent with the one-company system. Corporate corruption became rife on the less civilized worlds.Often whole planets and races were at the mercy of the PGC's concept of “morality,” and too often aesthetic values were lost to financial ones. No competition meant stagnation in many industrial areas and complete control of the economic system by a single entity.

Possibly the worst problem, however, was the lack of autonomy on a planetary and interstellar scale because of the overwhelming dependence of the Frontier on one source for all its needs. Because of this last factor, it was inevitable that PGC would lose its monopoly on the Frontier.

During the period between the Sathar Wars, secret financial groups sprang up, investing money in land and various industrial operations and gaining power until their size could no longer be hidden from the PGC’s eyes. Many of these initial investments were made in cities, planetary governments and militias - even in the UPF itself. By the time PGC recognized its potential rivals, it was too late; their footholds were established, and with them came planetary autonomy. Pan-Galactic's hold over the Frontier was broken at last.

The new corporations decided to fight PGC on its own ground, making diverse investments and establishing their operations in the same areas as PGC’s operations. This last point is very important, because without it, the Sathar could not have presented a serious threat to the UPF in the form of a Second Sathar War.

Escalating competition between the larger companies, particularly PGC, the Streel Corporation, Greater Vrusk Mutual Prosperity Institution, and Cassidine Development Corporation, led to armed conflicts that required much of Star Law's and Spacefleet's time and energy to monitor and quell. Many galactic historians agree that without this debilitating distraction, the UPF forces would have been far better prepared for the Second Sathar War.