Major Caledonian Commercial Ventures

Some Major Caledonian Commercial Ventures include the following.

• This list is arranged by business grouping or non-astrographic sector.

Description (Specifications)

This article describes businesses that operate within the Principality of Caledon.

History & Background (Dossier)

No information yet available.

Consumer Sector

Abercrombie & Rajahendra: A huge retailer of consumer goods.

• Headquartered on a vast commercial estate on Stirling.

Glasgow & MacGlennie Endeavours Pty: Caledonians are famous - borderline stereotypical - in their love of beverages. Fermented, brewed and distilled beverages have been part of Caledonian culture since pre-historic times; brewing and distilling was a useful way to preserve cereal grains and fruits between harvests in the anscestral Caledonian home. While breweries and distilleries dot most Caledonian areas, Glasgow and MacGlennie dominates the mass market. Headquartered on Stirling, G&M manages the entire supply chain, from the agricultural developments and distilleries on Dunbarton to the immense export warehouse on Rob Roy, the company and its numerous subsidiaries own a 35% large share of a large market throughout the Principality of Caledon. They also conduct much of the bulk export trade in liquor, especially higher-end spirits, to the Imperium, selling loads wholesale to shippers looking to make a profit.

Communications

No information yet available.

Financial Sector

Bank Of Caledon: A major bank with branches throughout the Principality, the Bank of Caledon deals primarily in commercial and government lending. Its currency-transfer ships might seem a ripe target for a buccanneer - which was the last dumb idea had by not a few buccanneers. Headed for generations by the Scott family, currently headed by Sir James Scott (22nd Earl of The Skaw, COG).

Gareloch Surety: Gareloch - owned by group of nobles (whose elected chief exectutive is Sir Robert MacKenzie, 22nd Viscount of Craigness) - insures space vessels and commerce. Gareloch offices at major starports in the Principality (as well as offices in the Imperium, affiliates in Vargr dominated territory and in friendly neighboring states in Reaver's Deep and Scotian Deep) will write coverage for ships and their cargoes based on the cargo, the experience of the crew, the insurability of the vessel, and the risk of the passage. Insuring a load of cereal grain travelling on a new ship with an experienced crew on a well-travelled safe route will require a premium less than 1% of the value of the cargo. A cargo of chemical weapons in a sketchy Free Trader with an unknown crew through pirate-plagued territory may well draw a premium over 10% of the value of the cargo (if it'd get covered at all - getting insurance requires good references for a vessel's owner, captain, officers, crew, and vessel).

Some unscrupulous merchants occasionally try to submit fraudulent claims - for example, faking pirate raids for the insurance payout. Gareloch is very ingenious at detecting scams (the ones they don't prevent via their screening process). Some, the Caledonian Court system settles. And for scammers who skip beyond the reach of the courts, Viscount MacKenzie's connections to the Navy, the Expeditionary Service and the Caledonian Special Service also provide ample means to seek redress. This redress frequently violates both the letter and spirit of Principality law.

Malárteagh Treágtacht - The term literally means "Commercial Exchange" in the ancient Caledonian tongue. The Malárteagh Treágtacht is essentially a galactic commodities, bond and equities exchange, where speculators bank on futures prices for everything from stocks and bonds to precious metals and agricultural commodities futures, intellectual property dividends, and derivative markets. Read more here.

• The Malárteagh Treágtacht employs, and when necessary subcontracts, trusted help to guard the couriers that bring currency and information between systems.

Legal Services

Caledonian law, outside of Peerage Law (dealing with cases of noble lineage and inheritance) and Constitutional Law (dealing with the reach and scope of government, parliament and monarchical powers), is not especially complex; certainly not compared to the pointillistic nightmare of Imperial jurisprudence.

But contracts matter in Caledonian business; sloppily-written contracts can cost companies, and merchants, dearly in Caledonian civil court, which works effeciently and aggressively to not only adjudicate settlements, but enforce them. It is also very important for foreigners to ensure their contracts are valid and enforceable under Caledonian law.

Any Caledonian city will have dozens of small law firms; in larger cities, larger firms may conduct business throughout a planet or system. But there are also some very large firms with practices spanning the Principality:

• Stromness, Kaplan, McIntyre & Rajmagandra: Based in the capital city of Selkirk, on Caledon, "SMR" writes and litigates commercial contracts on every system in the Principality, and has (small) offices on every Caledonian system either at or above TL9 or with more than 10 million people.

• McBrady, Hill & Clark: Not a "law firm", per se - "BHC" records results of criminal and civil litigation throughout the Principality, and distributes the results via subscription to lawyers and courts througout the Principality. A network of researchers on every Caledonian system large enough to have a court, working through extensive contacts among court reporters and clerks, dispatch the raw data about criminal and civil filings and decisions via the Royal Caledonian Mail, to the firm's home campus, Stirling, where teams of editors process the information to send back out to lawyers and law firms (via the RCM as updates to their local legal info databases.

• Toth & Campbell, Pty: Based on Caledon, Toth and Campbell specializes in two types of cases: arguments before the Crown Bench.

In Referee Terms

Lawyers will sometimes need to book passage to (or away from) a case in a big hurry, and are willing to pay very well for it. Also - sometimes information needs to get back to a firm's home office from a system not immediately on the RCM's main route; getting the information transported quickly and reliably is worth top credit to a law firm). Finally, law firms frequently need to hire investigators to gather more information for upcoming prosecutions, defenses, and civil litigation.

Manufacturing

Armstrong Shipyard Ltd.: Headquartered on Caledon, with major starship yards on Caledon and Douglass (and a major sub-light craft yard on Rob Roy). Along with Fairmile, Armstrong is among the biggest shipbuilders in the Principality.

Fairmile Aerospace Pty Ltd - With offices and yards located on Stirling, Fairmile has for generations been among the Principalty's leaders at starthip technology, building everything from scouts and far traders to warships for the Caledonian and other Navies. Its "Fairmile Model G Class Scout" platform - initially built as a 200-ton high-endurance scout for the Royal Caledonian Expeditionary Service - has been a huge seller, serving as a scout for the RCES and other such bodies, a packet boat for the Caledon Royal Mail, a dispatch boat and light utility vessel for the Royal Caledonian Navy and other armed forces, and as a free/far trader and passenger ship in commercial service.

Midlothian Yards: The new player in the shipbuilding market, Midlothian operates out of the Skye starport, building a variety of commercial, naval and recreational space vessels.

Starstream Enterprises - major commercial shipyard with major yard on Caledon.

The Stafford Works: A primary builder of weapons, from infantry and civilian arms to starship weapon systems. The quality of their products is celebrated, and the company - run by Lady Ingrid Murdoe, (Dutchess of Overgarrigle) - serves a large domestic market and a thriving export market.

Media and Entertainment

The Principality of Caledon has a large, vibrant media culture, whose output ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Infostreams

The Princpality has many "infostreams" - multichannel presentations of holographic, video, audio and text content delivered via the system's prime data transmission media.

• Semaphore: Dating back to the days when news was distributed on paper and via crude electromagnetic modulation, Semaphore (founded in 367, is the oldest, most prestigious infostream in the Principality . Its programming is regarded as the "go to" source for the latest information about the government, business, and goings-on around the Principality. When the monarchy or the government wants the public to find something out, it's often through Semaphore.

Semaphore has news bureaus on every planet in the Principality (except Firth and Culloden, and the reporters at these bureaus feed a constant stream of information throughout the entire area. Semaphore pays a premium to the Royal Caledonian Mail to ensure its content is loaded and unloaded first at docking time as a courier arrives in-system.

• The Observer: The main principality-wide competition to Semaphore, The Observer started in 958 with the merger of twelve smaller infostreams. The Observer traditionally focused on high-profile news on Caledon, Stirling and Rob Roy - although it has expanded its net in recent years.

The Observer and Semaphore are locked in a ferocious competition throughout the Principality to deliver the most news, fastest - which often leads to journalists covering stories on outlying systems to launch bidding wars for private merchantmen to haul them (and their information) back to Caledon.

• Bannockburn After Dark: For a few centuries now, Bannockburn After Dark (BAD) has been a sensationalistic, racy, sometimes sleazy chronicler of Caledonian politics, entertainment and business.

BAD was founded in 780 by Giles Burns - a former soldier and failed mining entrepreneur who purchased the assets and staff of a failed infostream and turned it from serious news to lurid, sensationalistic coverage of celebrities. BAD's breakthrough came with the coverage of Prince Mother Colleen, mother of Prince Ian X, and a series of shocking affairs while married to Ian's father, former Prince Morris.

BAD is still run by the Burns clan - Edward and Portia Burns, a brother and sister team that runs the stream with the same commitment to titillation and splashy provocation that their ancestors used to shock the Principality hundreds of years ago.

• The Blue Sheet: The Blue Sheet is neither a sheet (any more) nor blue. The Blue Sheet (TBS) is a Principality-wide business stream, listing the most up-to-date prices for currencies, bonds and equities, and especially trade goods throughout the Principality and its environs. TBS is really a decentralized network of "curators" on every starport in the Principality (and many in nearby space, especially the Imperium) who canvass traders for data from the systems they've visited, cross-check the data against other sources, and stream the information to traders at the starports (for either a subscription price or a fee for single access.

TBS curators pay a premium for reliable information.

Mining

Arbuthnot Minerals and Resources - A mining corporation, famous for its involvement in the skirmish over its lanthanum mines in the Linda system.

Mineral Ventures Ltd.: Started in 774 as a joint venture by the credit pools of five Caledonian noble clans, "MVL" has grown into a mining and refining conglomerate that has accreted over the years by the purchase of many smaller mining companies. MVL is now the largest mineral production firm in the Principality. They very frequently need to rent freight hauling capacity - bulk carriers for commodity cargo, and smaller, higher-security vessels for more precious products - from firms big and small.

"Security"

"Private Security" is a sometimes-euphemistic term for "mercenaries". Veterans of Caledonian's all-volunteer military are not only sought-after by "security" firms, but sometimes the firms are private-sector extensions of their service units.

Selected Caledonian "security firms" include:

• Claymore Pty Ltd Security - Claymore, based on a large corporate estate on Stirling, builds custom-designed task forces for clients all over the Reaver's Deep.
• Caledon Highlanders - This firm, based on Caledon, is a brigade-sized unit that generally operates in full-strength.
• 7th Bn/ The Duke of Farrelleigh's Regiment and 7th Bn/"Lord Smith's Guards" are professional mercenary units that are private-sector offshoots of Budwick-based regiments. They are TL8 - but elite troops at that level

• Lochmorangie Export - Founded in 1056 by Captain Sir Thomas Duncan, a former Royal Caledonian Navy light-cruiser commander with years of experience in low-intensity and semi-covert naval operations, Lochmorangie (LX) is the largest naval mercenary firm in Caledon. Lochmorangie will hire trusted free-lancers for small jobs - but for the big assignments, clients contract for the use of Lochmorangie's own ships and crews - including:
  • Two 800-ton mercenary cruisers
  • Five 400-ton armed Far Traders
  • Six 200-ton Fairmile Model G Class Scouts:
    • Three ex-Royal Caledonian Expeditionary Service scouts
    • Three G/A class gunboats.

Trade

Caledon Ventures - a sprawling trading operation, made even moreso by its acquisition of Scotian Deep Trading Company.

Transportation

McTaggart & Singh Cartage: McTaggart and Singh specialize in hauling things nobody else can. They specialized hauling big, irregular loads - mining station components, asteroids, hulked starships and other large cargoes up to and exceeding 100,000 tons - through jump space. Owned by the eighth generation of owners, Sir Euan McTaggart (Sixth Baron of Invergarraich) and Lord Prakanth "Buck" Singh (Earl of New Mumbai, MOG), "M&S" freqently has need for independent security as well as support shipping.

Their needs have led to the production of a number of specialized heavy-hauler vessels, including the "Three Sisters"; three immense vessels designed to haul outsized cargoes through jump space.

The Royal Crescent Lines: The premiere passenger and cargo service in Reaver's Deep, Royal Crescent runs everything from scheduled inter-system freight services to passenger services (luxury and less-so)

Nova: A high-end transport service serving destinations along the high-traffic, big-money core route. Nova serves Knoydart, Dunbarton, Stirling, Stuart, Caledon, Rob Roy and Victory (with service also to Pulou, Yedidah and the Aslan Hierates to spinward, and Concorde and the Imperium to driftward). Nova liners carry discerning travellers in luxury - for double the normal cost of a high or mid passage. A favorite of Caledonian business executives after making a huge sale.

Overcarraigh & Berwick: Not a "transportation" company, per se, as much as transportation brokers. They connect cargoes with haulers, and sometimes customers with sources, for a small (1%) fee. They frequently also arrange cargo insurance (working with the likes of Gareloch Surety (see above) to insure cargoes and guard against scams. Headquartered on Rob Roy, "O and B" brokers are found at the major starports on the main trade corridor through the Principality (Knoydart, Dunbarton, Stirling, Stuart, Caledon, Rob Roy and Victory), although they contract for cargoes with destinations everywhere in Reaver's Deep.

References & Contributors (Sources)

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• Author & Contributor: User: ‎Mitchberg
• Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science