Unumot Weapons and Utility

Unumot Weapons and Utility, often abbreviated as UWU, is a small-scale, yet notable corporation in the Coalition of Intelligent Organisms that manufactures a variety of products. However, it is most well-known for the private military and security services it offers, which have been used by numerous corporations much larger than it to protect their assets and, occasionally, attack competitors.

The Underdog
UWU was formed near the end of the First Coalition Golden Age by Habber Slinc, a notably eccentric Jyrian that had inherited a great deal of wealth from his father, a wealthy Human aristocrat by the name of Pero Slinc. Unlike many Jyrians, who are slaves to their carnal impulses, Habber had been taught restraint and self-reliance by his father, and although he wasn't completely immune, he was able to suppress his urges enough so as to not squander his wealth. After this inheritance, Habber created the Unumot Weapons and Utility corporation on his home planet of Unumot, and used most of the money to build factories and hire workers. Habber believed that one did not necessarily have to sacrifice aesthetic for function, and he incorporated this belief into the design of UWU's products, making them just as visually appealing as they were practical. The emergence of his business gave Unumot a noticeable boost to immigration, and improved the economic standing of what was already a fairly wealthy colony.

Habber thought UWU could capitalize on the need for weapons and survival equipment in the recently-settled Kiracian Group, but his hopes were misplaced, as, although its products were of excellent quality, UWU failed to market itself well outside of a small sphere of influence near its headquarters, beaten out easily by long-standing arms manufacturers like Villis Armaments, as well as promising newcomers like KONAR. Although the small size of UWU prevented it from being remarked as a threat by larger competitors, it didn't have the economic or political influence to do all that much within Coalition markets outside of the Eastern Colonies. Habber was able to keep his company in the black, but he saw no way of expanding it further given the circumstances, and considering the hostilities between large corporations that often led to outright violence, he wasn't sure he wanted to. After much thought, Habber eventually realized that preexisting corporate rivalries were actually the key for UWU's survival, and it is this realization that marked UWU's transformation into a multi-faceted private military organization.

"Discretion Guaranteed"
The very first armed forces used by UWU were freelance mercenaries, offered a substantial and reliable salary for their service in the newly-formed security division of the UWU corporation. To build up its reputation, UWU security forces were enlisted by a few small colonies for protection against space pirates and hostile alien nomads. Equipped with high-quality UWU equipment, these security forces quickly gained notoriety for their efficiency and reliability, creating a higher demand for UWU mercenaries. It didn't take long for UWU to become one of the most significant security and private military contractors on the edge of the Eastern Colonies, so much so that the profits it derived from its militaristic endeavors surpassed those created from the sale of UWU weapons and equipment. This only drove UWU to expand its contracting services further, offering them to even more colonies, organizations and individuals. To satisfy its growing demand for mercenaries. UWU created yet another new division dedicated to training its armed forces, an investment that increased both the supply and skill level of UWU troops.

Colonial defense contracting, though a reliable business, was not the ultimate goal of UWU's military consolidation. The most lucrative opportunity for their contracting services was to be in the employment of other corporations, especially those that dominated Coalition markets in their respective industries. Following in the footsteps of Ardent Sliver, another contracting company known for the services they provided to large corporations, UWU sought to give corporations the chance to settle their differences through more direct means. Under the iconic tagline of "Discretion Guaranteed," UWU mercenaries were hired by various corporations to sabotage, intimidate or assassinate their rivals. Although it was overshadowed by older competitors in this field, UWU had the advantage of being completely self-sufficient when it came to training and arming their forces. UWU mercenaries, trained by the corporation itself, were armed with high-quality UWU equipment and weapons. This meant that UWU did not have to maintain loyalty to most other corporate entities and could not be threatened with sudden price surges, as they did not get their troops or supplies from an outside manufacturer. While its impartial business practices guaranteed profits from multiple sides of the market, UWU often found itself the subject of controversy when offering its services to various competitors, a controversy that came to a boil when the Coalition government decided to get involved.

UWU Answers for its Crimes
Although they usually avoided intervening in corporate affairs that didn't directly influence their own survival as an organization, the Coalition Galactic Police began to address UWU directly when news of their tampering with the Coalition government surfaced. According to a variety of reports, UWU mercenaries had broken into many government facilities to steal valuable information, including confidential market control data from MIDAS, and intimidate government employees that refused to submit to the demands of certain corporate entities. However, the most worrying reports were those of numerous technologies that had been stolen from the databases and laboratories of the Department of Galactic Sciences and Department of Experimental Warfare. These organizations reached out to the Coalition government directly, who then pushed the GP to do something about UWU by threatening to cut some of their funding if the problem wasn't resolved. The GP zealously took to suppressing UWU operations by amplifying their presence near government installations and arresting UWU mercenaries. The GP commissioner reached out to UWU's CEO directly and demanded that the company cease all operations that could potentially interfere with the government, threatening to completely revoke all of the company's licences and throw them into financial ruin if they did not comply. UWU didn't want to risk incurring the wrath of the GP, but the corporation couldn't just leave the government alone, either, since that would severely restrict the kind of services they could offer to their clients and dramatically reduce their profits. With the GP unwilling to negotiate and very few options remaining, UWU took it chances with the Coalition underground by contacting the Steel Syndicate for help, offering them free equipment and military aid if they could direct the GP's attention away from UWU itself.

Ever since the creation of the Kiracian Commonwealth, tensions had been steadily rising between the Coalition and its colonial holdings, and the Steel Syndicate had been exploiting every chance it got to discredit the Coalition and incite violence against its government. In addition to the free UWU equipment and mercenary assistance it was promised, the Steel Syndicate saw the conflict between the GP and UWU as the perfect opportunity to further its ideological agenda. Using its influence over media outlets such as the Colonial News Conglomerate and TIIRVOICE, the Steel Syndicate fabricated an elaborate controversy surrounding the GP and UWU, convincing the general public that the GP's actions were the result of deliberate prejudice against an organization that catered to disenfranchised alien races and the Coalition underclass. These reports, which circulated throughout the entirety of the Coalition, drew scorn from a striking majority of the Coalition populace, especially those that were affiliated with the Colonial Party and Tekker Party. The political fallout of these reports was extreme, and further increased the divisiveness between the Commonwealth and Coalition. Realizing that pressing the issue could lead to the outbreak of a civil war, the Coalition government forced the GP to cease their investigation and harassment of UWU, hoping to quell complaints and maintain what little stability still existed in the realm of colonial politics. While the GP knew that the Steel Syndicate was most certainly responsible for the media backlash against their investigation, there wasn't much they could do to stop them that they weren't already trying, given their limited budget and distribution of forces. After the heat died down and the controversy fell out of relevancy, UWU stood as a unique example of a relatively small corporation that, against all odds, had succeeded in evading the wrath of a much more powerful organization, a rare accomplishment within the high-stakes free market of the Coalition.

Keeping a Low Profile
During the years preceding the onset of the Galactic Revolution, UWU became much more cautious in regards to the types of services it offered to its clients. It turned down offers that had the potential to damage relations between UWU and the Coalition government, and trained its mercenaries to be more diligent and stealthy. To further improve the discretion of its forces, UWU purchased some of KONAR's Ockium cloaking technology and developed Camo Shields, simple, yet effective devices that could mask the presence of an individual. When war broke out between the Commonwealth and Coalition, the demand for UWU's contracting services dropped significantly as corporations focused their efforts towards wartime profiteering. UWU followed suit, and was able to expand its previously overlooked military equipment enterprise by selling weapons to the various factions of the revolution. Since Unumot, along with the rest of the eastern colonies, was not greatly affected by the Galactic Revolution until its later stages and formation of the Proxima Group, UWU was not directly threatened as a company until the Coalition started to divert its military towards quelling the insurrections of the eastern colonies. However, another clever corporate maneuver would help keep the company alive even through this brutal conflict.

Even as they pressed into the eastern portions of the Spur Trinity, the Coalition military was still busy in the Kiracian Group, cleaning up isolated pockets of dissidents and dealing with the weak, yet troublesome, Second Myon Empire. This prevented them from devoting a sufficient portion of their forces to the conflict against the Proxima Group, which gave the rebellion more time to grow and build up their forces. To help suppress the Proxima Group while their military was otherwise occupied, the Coalition enlisted the help of UWU mercenaries, sending them to attack installations owned by the Proxima military and harass their forces. Since the Proxima Group was preoccupied with its defensive preparations against a retaliation from the Coalition, these attacks largely went unnoticed, but the Proxima military suffered greatly, and were barred from launching many direct assaults on Coalition territory due to their newfound logistical limitations. When the Coalition military finally redirected the bulk of its forces towards the Proxima conflict, the Proxima Group was quickly eradicated. UWU, however, remained strong, as its contributions to the Coalition war effort had led the Coalition government to spare it the trials and punishments faced by other corporations that had sympathized with rebel movements during the Galactic Revolution.

Unexpected Allies: The GP Becomes a Client
While military spending and job creation during the Galactic Revolution had revitalized the Coalition in many ways, the long series of wars had hurt many corporations far more than it helped them, especially those that weren't based in the Coalition core zones. UWU, though in a much better situation compared to similar corporations in the eastern colonies, found a distressing lack of clients as the heat from the Galactic Revolution died down. Consolidation of core zone industries and subsequent dissolution of many smaller companies had led to a number of monopolies across the Coalition markets, and with no competitors to attack, corporations had no incentive to enlist UWU mercenaries. The company couldn't fall back on weapon and equipment sales, either, since the aftermath of the Galactic Revolution left little demand for such products. Many UWU shareholders worried that the company's survival was at stake, for their profits would quickly fall into the red if they were not able to market their goods and services. Thankfully, UWU was about to gain a highly-profitable, if unexpected, client.

Although the warring had concluded, the dissent and political instability that led to the Galactic Revolution was still widespread among the Coalition's colonies, forcing a significant escalation of the GP's presence in these parts of Coalition space so as to prevent more insurrections from starting. Although their funding was being bolstered by the government, the GP didn't have enough resources to cover all of Coalition space equally, especially in regards to the eastern colonies, which were vastly more culturally and technologically isolated from the rest of the Coalition. UWU, however, had a much greater presence in the eastern colonies and were already fully militarized, meaning they could, feasibly, respond to potential disturbances in the eastern colonies almost instantaneously. These facts led the GP to secure a collection of long-term contracts with UWU, which would allow the corporation to act as a de-facto police force within the eastern colonies in exchange for considerable payment and a degree of government protection. With the GP offering more money than most of their previous clients combined, UWU saw no reason to turn these offers down, and carried out the orders of the GP diligently for many centuries afterward, greatly bolstering the strength of its mercenaries and the quality of its military technology with its newfound wealth. The inhabitants of the eastern colonies did not take kindly to this, and fiercely resisted UWU's attempts at policing them, often with little success. As time went on, the GP rescinded some of their contracts and decreased their reliance on UWU, especially after the Helburg Reformation gave them the military might required to keep dissidents in check. However, UWU didn't suffer dramatically from this change, as it had found other clients by then. The company even made a return to its origins by offering colonial defense contracting during the Coalition's brief period of extragalactic colonization that preceded the Second Cluster War.

Products and Operation
Much like competitors such as KONAR, Magydan and even the odd Norobu Arms, UWU manufactures a wide selection of military equipment, including weapons, armor, various combat gadgets and a few models of small combat robots. UWU equipment is often designed with dark black and purple colors offset by bright pink decals and lights, and retains the sleek design principles commonly found in Jyrian culture, such as circular/oval shapes and modular parts. While it is expensive compared to the mass-produced goods of companies like KONAR, UWU takes pride in the reliability and effectiveness of its equipment. Its researchers and engineers have a keen eye for quality, so all UWU products are designed and built with excellent precision. This has made the company very well-liked by those that use its equipment regularly, as they are rarely disappointed. In addition to their quality, UWU products are celebrated for their uniqueness and innovative designs, which often make them more versatile compared to equivalent products sold by competitors. Innovation, as a whole, is a concept very well-rooted within the UWU corporation, and has led to a number of practical inventions, such as the aforementioned Camo Shield, PPDs and Gravity Knives. Although these technologies have a wide number of applications, their prevalence outside the eastern colonies is low, as UWU cannot compete with larger competitors in these regions that sell at vastly cheaper prices.

Across the entirety of Coalition space, UWU is best known for its contracting services. Individuals of all different skill levels, from seasoned assassins to new recruits, are enlisted by UWU to serve in its corporate military. UWU maintains a large network of training centers and barracks across numerous planets in the eastern colonies, which its mercenary forces stay in when not active. It is at these centers that UWU equips its troops with their own high-grade equipment and train them for combat. Being a company that has always been based in the eastern colonies, the training carried out by UWU mercenaries is extremely rigorous, as it is designed to prepare them for combat against a wide variety of deadly adversaries, many of which make use of strange technologies found only in the eastern colonies to defeat their foes. This training has made UWU's troops respectable combatants within the eastern colonies, and absolutely lethal combatants in the rest of Coalition space, where their ruthless and bizarre tactics often catch people by surprise. It is widely known that the most experienced UWU mercenaries use nanomachine injections and a wide variety of drugs to dramatically enhance their physical abilities while simultaneously nullifying their perception of pain, an effective, if unhealthy, method of gaining an advantage over their opponents. Although they can easily dispatch most infantry forces, UWU mercenaries are often at odds against large vehicles or robotic warmachines, limiting their usefulness in heavily militarized conflicts. In these situations, UWU has sometimes relied on other corporations to supply them with heavier equipment the company doesn't have the ability to manufacture itself, a striking point against their principles of corporate self-reliance.