KONAR

The KONAR corporation is a massive industrial combine formed in the Coalition of Intelligent Organisms around 2600 C.E. Though it started out as just a simple company that manufactured industrial equipment, KONAR expanded to become one of the largest and most powerful corporations in the entire Coalition, monopolizing the market for military goods by manufacturing almost all of the Coalition's military supplies.

Founding KONAR
KONAR was founded by Rubert Mallan, a Human entrepreneur that had already amassed a sizable fortune in the earlier years of his life. Rubert had accumulated most of his wealth by building factories and industrial equipment during the Zoxian-Syluxian War, which he then sold to the Coalition so they could use them to help their war effort. Through this simple system, he was able to turn quite a profit, which made it easy for him to start his own company shortly after the war had ended. In 2602 C.E, the KONAR corporation had been officially founded, starting strong thanks to Rubert's careful investment. He returned to his factory-building practices, but this time, he retained ownership of most of his factories, selling only their products on Coalition markets. As the Coalition swept into their First Golden Age, Rubert took this opportunity to expand his company's power, selling his industrial services to the burgeoning empire. KONAR's factories helped the Coalition manufacture the excessive amounts of products and materials they needed during this time of rapid expansion and advancement, and they even contributed slightly to Dyson Sphere construction, deriving a large profit in the process. Even despite its massive success, Rubert was stingy with his company's funds, spending them extremely carefully. He kept the corporation largely restricted to industrial equipment manufacturing, as he was worried that expanding the capabilities of his company would make it vulnerable to competition from more specialized corporations, which had begun to sprout up during the First Golden Age. He never let his paranoia get the better of him, however, and died a decently happy and incredibly wealthy man, with the ownership of the company moving onto his daughter, Janni Mallan. The future of the KONAR corporation looked very bright.

Consolidation in the Military Sector
As the First Coalition Golden Age progressed, KONAR kept to its roots as a strictly non-military manufacturing company, establishing itself as a very powerful corporate entity within the Coalition. However, as the energy of the golden age died down, KONAR looked for alternate methods of generating profit, since they wouldn't be able to expand as a corporation if they were so limited in scope. The widely unexpected Avatar Invasion helped the corporation achieve this goal in at least one sector; the military. The Avatar Invasion pushed the Coalition military harder than any conflict in the past, which gave manufacturers like KONAR the perfect opportunity. Many KONAR factories and industrial facilities became focused on military manufacturing, supplying the Coalition with a hefty surplus of guns, vehicles and other crucial equipment. As the money rolled in, KONAR's military manufacturing was expanded further, eventually resulting in the formation of an R&D team for the company that could do research independent of the Department of Galactic Sciences or Department of Experimental Warfare. This R&D team worked hand-in-hand with both government-run institutions for the rest of the corporation's history, giving KONAR a technological edge when it came to innovation. At the end of the invasion, KONAR had consolidated itself as the top manufacturer for military goods in the Coalition. After this point, almost all ships and weapons used by the Coalition military and Galactic Police were produced by KONAR, making them all share the same blocky, function-first design that became widely associated with the Coalition military as a whole. The corporation didn't completely stop here, however. It continued to accumulate influence over other industrial sectors, including robotics and even medicine, though KONAR never managed to dominate these sectors as much as it did the military, and its control over them was severely reduced by specialized competitor companies.

The Dark Age: Spying and Subterfuge
During the Coalition Dark Age, the KONAR corporation started to become challenged in ways it hadn't expected. It's dominance over the military had remained mostly secure, but attempts at controlling other industrial sectors were failing. KONAR's biggest competitor, Golu Synthetics, had emerged during this time, and the two quickly became fierce rivals. KONAR, though adored by the Coalition government and wealthy Sphere-dwelling citizens of the empire, failed to market itself to the inhabitants of Coalition border colonies, as its products were notoriously expensive outside of the Coalition core zones. Golu, on the other hand, was a hero among the disenfranchised Coalition colonists, selling them reliable colony equipment (mostly robots and tools) at very affordable prices that KONAR simply couldn't compete with outside of the core zones. When Golu Synthetics bought up Clinmat Shipyards, a vehicle manufacturer also stationed in the border colonies, and expanded their industry to include ships and ground vehicles, KONAR realized that Golu could easily overpower them if they continued to consolidate at such a rate. KONAR attempted to damage Golu through market warfare (and, occasionally, actual minor warfare) but was eventually halted when the Coalition government made the decision to create the Kiracian Commonwealth. Since Golu was now technically part of a completely different government, KONAR's options at reducing their power were diminished greatly, as the market split between the Coalition and Commonwealth gave Golu plenty of elbow room that they could use to continue consolidating. Admittedly, KONAR's dominance over Coalition military manufacturing, its greatest achievement as a company, was never in any real danger during this time, but the paranoia associated with the existence of a powerful competitor never left the company.

Things started to change only around the end of the dark age, near the beginning of the Galactic Revolution. Tiazym'Ok, a male Heumvak who had recently been appointed as the CEO of KONAR, became extremely paranoid of the potential collapse of his company. Instead of taking steps to secure sectors KONAR already dominated, however, he pursued interests outside of KONAR's typical scope. During the Mhrinian-Coalition War, the Coalition had requested considerable amounts of ships, weapons and funding from KONAR directly, which they happily provided. As compensation, they were allowed to collect and research Mhrinian technology found in the war for their own purposes. Tiazym encouraged KONAR R&D to develop advanced cloaking technology based on what they had managed to steal from the Mhrinians. He believed that KONAR needed to push a new line of high-tech products if they wanted to stay relevant with the advancing technology markets, and even more so if they wanted to compete with corporations like Golu. Many associates of the corporation thought his idea was idiotic and would jeopardize KONAR's existing monopolies, but Tiazym was insistent, and went along with the plan. KONAR's R&D team made incredible breakthroughs into Ockium-based cloaking technology, reverse-engineering it from the Mhrinians, but sadly, it proved to not be the saving grace of the company. The rarity of Ockium prevented KONAR from mass-producing their cloaking technology, rendering their existing stock prohibitively expensive. A few of the ultra-wealthy did purchase such technology, but KONAR simply lacked the resources to make it another core feature of the company. Luckily for them, however, the Bedlam Society had become extremely interested in their research, and was looking to acquire it, as it would help their Blue Hand spying agency. The Bedlam Society agreed to use their funds and influence to ensure the survival of the KONAR corporation for the foreseeable future in exchange for complete access to KONAR's cloaking technology research. Seeing no other viable options to keep his company afloat, Tiazym agreed, and KONAR became a servant to the mysterious society for the rest of the Coalition's history. To keep up with the increasing demands of the Society and the Blue Hand, KONAR expanded its cloaking research division considerably, eventually turning it into a major facet of the company. Since such technology had proven to not be viable in the Coalition public markets, however, it remained mostly a secret, even to KONAR's best customer, the Coalition government.

Preparing for War: The Agamemnon Prototype
Fortunately for KONAR, the Bedlam Society kept their promise. KONAR was no longer greatly threatened by rival companies for the rest of its history, as many of these companies either went into bankruptcy or were completely destroyed during the Galactic Revolution. The power of Golu Synthetics had been greatly reduced, allowing KONAR to reinstate itself as the top military equipment manufacturer in all of Coalition space. Slithantha Toxu, a merciful Syluxian CEO that was appointed shortly after the conclusion of the Galactic Revolution, took steps to increase KONAR's presence outside of the Coalition Core Zones. She built more factories and set up transport networks that made it easier for KONAR products to reach isolated border colonies, reducing the prices of such goods in distant Coalition territory.

KONAR's greatest calling came many centuries afterward, directly prior to the start of the Second Cluster War. After many breakthroughs in material science and graviton manipulation, the Department of Experimental Warfare was looking to put their new technology to the test by building the largest warship in Coalition history. Dubbed the Agamemnon Prototype, this ship was the precursor to the first Coalition hypercruisers that would eventually be used during the Second Cluster War. Since their manufacturing capabilities were second to none, the DEW asked KONAR to construct the ship for them. Always wanting to stay on good terms with the Coalition government, KONAR agreed, and started to work alongside the DEW to build the Agamemnon Prototype. This project was highly classified, even to the Coalition government itself. Like many experimental weapons, no information about the Agamemnon Prototype was ever revealed to the public. When the ship was finished, the DEW wanted to test its destructive capabilities, but couldn't figure out what to attack with their new superweapon. Most of the Coalition's enemies had already been destroyed in wars prior, so attacking a foreign empire was not an option. They couldn't use it inside of Coalition territory, either, since it had been a secret project and would attract the attention of other government agencies if it was unleashed on unsuspecting criminals. Eventually, they settled on giving the ship an AI crew and ILM captain and deploying it deep in the Perseus Arm, south of Coalition territory. The ship would be given orders to attack any non-Coalition entities it found, allowing the DEW to gather plenty of combat data. KONAR was entitled to a portion of this research because of its help, and they were allowed to retrieve the Agamemnon Prototype and sell it to anybody they wanted if the ship didn't meet the DEW's expectations. The plan was enacted, and the Agamemnon Prototype was launched inside of the Perseus Arm. For several decades, it idly wandered through its predetermined territory, annihilating any non-Coalition ships it encountered and feeding any information it gathered back to the DEW via long-range tachyon relays. Stories about legendary battles with the so-called "God Ship" began to circulate in that region of space, though they never caught the attention of the Coalition. Eventually, the Agamemnon Prototype met its match when it encountered the Perseus Arm's local Astral Mauler, which had also been known to inhabit many of the areas the ship patrolled. A brutal fight ensued against the space-borne creature, which resulted in the complete destruction of the Agamemnon Prototype. KONAR was somewhat infuriated that a ship they had poured considerable time and resources into had been destroyed so easily, but the DEW was glad. They claimed that the destruction of the Agamemnon Prototype had given them excellent insight into improvements they could make in future ship designs, and they thanked KONAR for its help in the project, though they did not reimburse the company for the cost of producing the ship. This put KONAR on somewhat rocky terms with the DEW from then on, though, later on, they still agreed to build hypercruisers for them during the war, owing to their company's devotion to the Coalition military.

Products and Operation
For its entire history, KONAR has been a manufacturing company, producing goods for the general Coalition public. Originally, these were of a benign nature. KONAR started out by producing basic industrial equipment, such as tools, robots and some safety devices. These were in high demand during the Coalition's early history, which ensured steady profits for KONAR. As the Coalition became more militaristic, KONAR shifted its focus towards military goods, eventually dedicating themselves exclusively to military goods. Early products of KONAR, including the GI Combat Suit Series and several brands of firearms, quickly became staples of the Coalition military. KONAR also was one of the first companies to produce weapons that made use of energetic ballistics, directly acquiring the rights to manufacture the technology from the Department of Experimental Warfare. Since KONAR quickly monopolized all of these characteristic military technologies, almost all Coalition military equipment looks the same, since it is all bought from the same company. KONAR, being an efficiency-focused, pragmatic corporation, design all of their products simply, cheaply and effectively, rarely making use of fancy design features. Everything produced by KONAR, from their guns to their ships, are blocky, tough and thick, built for reliability and strength. In a fitting coincidence, these are the exact traits usually associated with the Coalition military. KONAR is so heavily intertwined with the Coalition that they almost never invest in alternative color schemes for their products, either. Dark cobalt blue, the signature color of the Coalition, is the default.

Despite boasting about the accessibility and reliability of their products, KONAR is notorious for sometimes cutting a few too many corners, especially when it comes to their non-military products. While KONAR continued to produce consumer goods late into its history, most of its manufacturing resources were diverted away from this sector and towards military production. KONAR's industrial tools and robots became riddled with flaws and imperfections that weren't present in their military products thanks to their careful manufacturing practices. A civilian freighter design marketed by KONAR, the KN-55HF, was one of the more extreme examples of this, as a flaw in its fusion reactor design gave the ship a tendency to randomly explode, leading to considerable controversy. A combination of KONAR's poor consumer product quality and distasteful business practices made many people distrust the corporation. KONAR did very little to address its poor reputation, however, as it always remained on excellent terms with the Coalition government and military, its biggest contributors.