The Corporate Constellations are not a single corporation but a fractured alliance of pre-Fracture megacorps, industrial houses, research conglomerates, and private security firms that refused to abandon the Reach when the hyperlanes collapsed. Unable to leave, unwilling to lose their holdings, these corporate remnants fused into a constellation of semi-independent power blocs—held together by necessity, paranoia, and shared infrastructure.
The result is a hybrid entity: part corporation, part government, part cartel… and entirely dangerous.
The Constellations control Iron Pass, its moons Hardspar and Cindermere, and a network of supply routes stretching across the outer Reach. They present themselves as stabilizers of civilization. In reality, they are stabilizers of their own dominance.
When the Fracture severed long-range communications and crippled interstellar logistics, most megacorps fled the Reach, abandoning mines, refineries, research stations, and countless employees. But several couldn’t evacuate in time—or chose not to.
Leaders of these stranded corps met in the iron boardrooms of Iron Pass and realized three things:
They had no rescue coming.
They could not compete with one another alone.
Together, they could rule what remained.
Their merger documents were signed not in ink but in desperation, backed by private armies, locked warehouses, and the cold logic of survival.
The “Corporate Constellations” name came later, a branding attempt to present themselves as unified, celestial, and forward-looking.
Most citizens of the Reach call them “the Corps,” “the Constellations,” or simply “them.”
With only two moons remaining in active use, the Constellations now operate under three primary divisions:
Headquarters: Coreline City, Iron Pass
Focus: Extraction, resource control, worker management
This is the brutal industrial heart of the Constellations. They control the mining pits, the ore elevators, and the deep-shaft operations that make Iron Pass invaluable. Their focus is productivity at all costs.
They command:
Worker barracks and contracts
Mining crawler fleets
Orbital freight relays
Security forces for ground operations
The Dominion believes resources are the true power of the Reach.
Headquarters: Furnace Spires, Hardspar
Focus: Refining, logistics, corporate defense
Hardspar is a moon-sized refinery, and its Directorate oversees every smelter, transport hub, and docking spine. The Directorate maintains the corporation’s private military fleets and handles all large-scale manufacturing.
They control:
Refinery citadels
Freight terminals
Orbital defense platforms
Corporate customs checkpoints
They believe discipline and order guarantee survival.
Headquarters: Emberline Research Arcology
Focus: Energy production, experimental tech, classified R&D
The Bureau handles high-risk, high-reward experimentation using Cindermere’s geothermal power. Most citizens only hear rumors of these projects.
Known specialties include:
High-efficiency reactor designs
Energy field manipulation
Rift anomaly studies
Weapon prototypes
Biological adaptability projects
They believe innovation justifies any method.
The Constellations are governed by a tri-directorate, a council composed of:
The Iron Dominion Executor
The Hardspar Director-General
The Cindermere Chief of Research
Each division has equal voting power but wildly different agendas, resulting in:
back-room deals
internal sabotage
aggressive lobbying
covert security operations
strategic withholding of resources
The Council publicly presents unity.
Privately, they are three wolves sharing one carcass.
The Corporate Constellations no longer chase profit. Profit requires markets. Markets require stability. The Reach has neither.
Instead, they pursue:
Resource dominance
Technological superiority
Territorial security
Self-preservation
Leverage over rival factions
Their guiding philosophy is simple:
“If you cannot control the world, control the parts that matter.”
They see Credence and its Provisional Government as a useful, if stubborn, trading partner. They see Wayfarer Crown as a strategic keystone. They see Freecrews as annoyances—essential, unpredictable, and impossible to fully own.
Within Constellation territory, life is a mix of corporate efficiency and authoritarian oversight.
“Employment contracts” determine everything from housing to healthcare. Breaking contract is a punishable offense—sometimes legally, sometimes not.
Private forces enforce corporate law. Marshals have no authority on Iron Pass or its moons.
Corporate slogans, morale screens, and performance charts cover walls like religious scripture.
Promotions follow family ties, bribery, blackmail, or usefulness—not performance.
People who try to leave often get “reassigned.” No one knows where.
An uneasy partnership.
The Constellations need Credence’s markets and water exports.
The CPG needs refined ore and energy shipments.
Relations are diplomatically warm but strategically cold.
Mutual dependence under a veneer of courtesy.
The Constellations respect Crown’s neutrality but constantly attempt to push its regulations.
Professional hostility.
Marshals see the Constellations as corrupt authoritarian remnants; the Constellations see Marshals as lawmen trespassing on corporate soil.
Necessary contractors, high-risk assets.
The Corps mistrust them but use them constantly.
Business competitors, black-market partners, and occasional enemies.
Deals are struck, secrets traded, backstabs inevitable.
For all their power, the Constellations face three structural weaknesses:
The three divisions often sabotage or undermine each other.
Rebellions, strikes, and defection attempts are common—especially in Hardspar’s refineries.
If Iron Pass’s production falters, the entire faction collapses.
Their empire is vast but brittle.
For their reach, wealth, and willingness to do anything.
For their stability, technology, and reliability in commerce.
For their exploitation, secrecy, and ruthless suppression of dissent.
Because without them, half the Reach’s infrastructure dies.
The Corporate Constellations are villains, benefactors, employers, devils, and saviors—depending on who you ask.
The Constellations exist to create plots, tension, and opportunities:
Resource wars
Worker rebellions
Corporate espionage
Heists and extractions
Secret research gone wrong
Hostile negotiations
Covert alliances with PCs
Power struggles inside the Council
They can be antagonists, uneasy allies, employers, or the final boss of an entire campaign arc.
Iron Pass and its moons make perfect staging grounds for:
infiltration missions
sabotage runs
rescue operations
political brinksmanship
industrial survival horror
high-tech corruption arcs
The Corporate Constellations embody the idea that human greed, discipline, and ambition survive even when profit does not.
They are the dystopian counterpart to Credence’s rough democracy.
They are the cold steel engine opposite the Freecrews’ wandering spirit.
They are the necessary antagonist—the faction that proves the Reach is built not on hope alone, but on machinery, control, and the willingness to sacrifice anything to stay in power.