Giga-corporation

A giga-corporation, often called a gigacorp, is an immense privately-owned commercial entity that operates not only on a planetary scale but also across the broader Solar Cluster, controlling large portions of one or more key markets. These corporations have grown to become the most powerful and influential institutions in Vexian society, often overshadowing the former nation-states and governmental structures. With their enormous financial and infrastructural resources, gigacorps are central to the operation of Vex’s economy, pseudo-political landscape, and the daily lives of its inhabitants.

Gigacorps gave birth to the concept of hypercapitalism, the operating ethos of the Post-Sovereign Economic Phase (PSEP).

Gigacorps are the dominant power structures of Vex — privatized entities that superseded governments, nations, and legacy institutions. Each gigacorp operates independently, enforcing its own legal architecture while adhering to the planetary standard of Universal Contract Law (UCL).

UCL compliance ensures trust, enforceability, and accountability across the decentralized economic landscape. Corporate formation is a rigorous process, often requiring up to a year of legal onboarding. Contractual breaches are met with systemic penalties classified under Malignant Corporate Conduct; consequences can be severe.

GigaCorp Criteria

To be considered a gigacorp, a company must meet a few loosely defined criteria:

• Company must be solvent
• Owners must be active at the helm
• Assets must be verified and considerable
• Company must be able to withstand stress testing
• Company must control sizeable portions of a market or markets
• Company must have immense assets

There is no singular defined criteria for what makes up a gigacorp. However, a company is considered a gigacorp when it can adequately retaliate in response to hostilities from competitive forces.

Gigacorps have usually absorbed several entities and consolidated several segments of the markets they operate in before they are considered to be immense. Recognition from other gigacorps is the most straightforward method for being considered a gigacorp.

Operating Characteristics

Gigacorps are the dominant power structures of Vex — privatized entities that superseded governments, nations, and legacy institutions. Each gigacorp operates independently, enforcing its own legal architecture while adhering to the planetary standard of Universal Contract Law (UCL).

UCL compliance ensures trust, enforceability, and accountability across the decentralized economic landscape. Corporate formation is a rigorous process, often requiring up to a year of legal onboarding. Contractual breaches are met with systemic penalties classified under Malignant Corporate Conduct; failing to cooperate can result in severe consequences against the offending party.

Internal Structure

A gigacorp is not regulated or overseen by any centralized authority. Every gigacorp has a corporate charter that serves as its operating mandate and entity structure. Generally accepted standards for any corporation exist throughout Vex, the most frequent being:

• There are 3 main categories: Owners, managers, and workers
• The free market will serve as the equalizer between supply, demand and regulation
• A corporation does not begin to exist unless it possesses some semblance of verifiable capital

Position titles are not used very often among gigacorps. Internal management structures determine delegation of responsibilities, allocation of human capital, and protections from encroachment. The remittance of wages is done through the CAG, meaning every single person or entity's earnings of CU are public domain. Obfuscation of data from the CAG is extremely difficult.

Due to the lack of regulation, corporations and gigacorps informally agree to "keep one another in check", which means nearly every aspect of daily life on Vex is modulated and regulated by severe market competition. The normalcy and consistency this affords has enabled regions to experience unparalleled prosperity, while systemic shocks, inequality, corruption and uneven distribution of necessary infrastructure also run rampant.

GigaCorp Variation

See also: GigaCorp Variations

There are many known variations on the concept of the gigacorp. The most notable and well known is the milcorp. A milcorp is known to own and operate private military personnel and assets.

Another well known variation is the bancorp. While the nomenclature may be outdated, as banking is considered an obsolete Sovereign Phase practice, a bancorp owns and operates infrastructure related to the Consolidated Asset Grid (CAG). Typically, a bancorp is a premier lender of CU, among other proprietary functions or corporate organizational structures.

A devcorp is a gigacorp primarily involved in infrastructure or property development on a massive scale.

There are no official distinctions of what makes up a gigacorp variation other than the structure and wording of the gigacorp's corporate charter.

Notable GigaCorps

See also: List of Known GigaCorps

Gigacorps, while highly fragmented in nature, can also span not only the entire planet, but spill out into the Solar Cluster. "Ranking" gigacorps holistically, apart from registered CU reserves and income, is a daunting task due to the highly unique emergent phenomena that accompanies a gigacorp.

Notable gigacorps exist in the global zeitgeist due to their immense influence:

• Cybus Corporation
• JohnAI, Inc.
• Vanta Corporation

The textured and varied history of gigacorps has given rise to several organizations that have grown over decades. The Eos 4 are universally known due to their central roles in the advent of the PSEP and are still highly influential in the present day.