The Company (The Sun Makers)

You may be looking for the Earth-based company.

Clockwise from top left: the symbol of the Company; Megropolis One, Pluto's first city; D-Grade worker Cordo; and one of the Company's representatives, the Collector. (TV: The Sun Makers ^[+]Loading...["The Sun Makers (TV story)"])

The Company was an Usurian business that operated on many planets. Profit was seen as the primary target. Entire species were turned into workforces to create large quantities of production.

Ranks

The Company had many distinctive ranks. A Collector was in control of each branch and each was an Usurian. Gatherers were human officials charged with the collection of taxes. Together, Collectors and Gatherers were known as "Officials". Below them were "Grades" with each assigned a letter. For example an A-Grade worker was of a rank higher than a D-Grade worker. E-Grade work units performed the more menial tasks, such as clearing the walkways. All workers were marked by an insignia on the wrist (which had a number) at birth. Even when outlaws removed it via surgery, this left a mark.

Money

The sole aim of the Company was profit. One of the ways this was carried out was by many different taxes. The necessity of these varied, with the likes of death tax, recycling allowance and protection tax all having to be paid. This resulted in many workers having to work overtime to meet payments. Unpaid taxes had an interest rate of 50%. More funds were garnered through fines. These could be for such things as airspace violation and illegal parking (500 Talmars on each count) or a non-executive grade worker going into the sunlight. (5 talmars or a week in the Correction Centre)

History

When the human race was dying out, on Earth, the Company helped them move to Mars. There, the Company forced people to pay huge tax rates to recover their capital costs. When Mars' resources were depleted, the Company moved to Pluto; the planets between Mars and Pluto were deemed unfit by the Company's engineers. To maintain life on Pluto, the Company installed six in-station fusion satellites as artificial suns. They continued their policy of high taxation. The Collector was in charge of the Pluto branch and took on a human-like form.

The Fourth Doctor and Leela visited Megropolis One, a city belonging to the Company and the first to be created on Pluto. Gatherer Hade took the Doctor to be an Ajack trying to stir rebellion among the population. However, the Collector disproved this theory. He tried to have Leela executed by steaming, but she was rescued.

Following this, rebels from the undercity under the command of Mandrel began encouraging dissent among the population of Megropolis One. This, coupled with Mandrel stopping the released on the mind-controlling PCM, resulted in widespread defiance of the Company's rule in an event known as the Citizens' Revolution. Hade was killed and the Collector, unable to take the severe economic ramifications as well as the 2% (index linked) growth tax that the Fourth Doctor added, reverted to his natural form. (TV: The Sun Makers ^[+]Loading...["The Sun Makers (TV story)"])