Megacorps

A Megacorp, or Megacorporation, is a truly gigantic corporate entity. It is the evolved form of a trend towards ever-larger business enterprises that began with the first Joint-Stock companies such as the Dutch East India Trading Company on Earth, and almost simultaneously with the formation of the giant Chaebols in Jurvain society, and the Corporate Clans of the K'Nes Tor. On Earth, what were originally Royal Monopolies became multinational corporations with ownership, facilities, employees, and customers spread across many nations on several continents. After Gehenna, this model was exported to the stars, as Multinational Corporations became Multiplanetary Corporations. Many of these megacorps, like the Multinational Corporations before them, were front organizations for The Syndicate, and thus the Technocracy. But either way, they commanded resources and numbers of personnel previously only seen in the governments of major nations.

Following the Second Civil War and the breakup of Harrington Industries and several other Megacorps, the so-called "Daughter Corporations" began putting themselves back together, much like the broken-apart fragments of AT&T slowly reformed through mergers and acquisitions back on Earth two centuries before. This process was somewhat interrupted by Arthur Clarke's seizure of control over the economy through the Five Acts, but government control also meant guaranteed government contracts, and the corporations slowly but surely were regaining control over their destinies when the Caal Invasion put an end to Clarke and his Five Acts. What happens to the Megacorps in the new galaxy dominated by the Holy Terran Empire remains to be seen.

For convenience, any large corporation which gets an article will also be listed under this category, even ones that don't quite qualify as Megacorps.