Founding and Domain:

Founded in the early years of the Consortium, Smertios Security serves as the army and the police force for the Consortium: their services include providing anything from private security to full planetary assaults if necessary. Large actions are conducted according to the will of the Senate, but smaller actions are at their own discretion – they are provided wide latitude for keeping the Consortium safe.

Instead of charging for individual actions, they are awarded a percentage of every company’s income every year. This provides all of their (legal) income. Whispered rumours abound that they raid ships with little or no reason to boost these numbers.

They maintain a large number of bases – one in orbit of each planet as border control, one at each of the Jump Gates, minimum security prisons on space vessels (for low-level offenders) and many onplanet bases for training and troop barracks. Smertios Security prides itself on its training, both onplanet and in zero-gravity. Their troops are considered the best in the Consortium – not just the best trained, but the most well-equipped and the most experienced. These bases all have production facilities to produce military supplies and weapons, which they also sell to other companies. Many of these bases also build their own ships, but Aeron builds the majority of both their own fleet and all ships in Consortium space.

They control a huge fleet of warships – hundreds of vessels, which is more than double the number of warships of all other registered companies in the Consortium combined – and a massive army of ground troops and their support vehicles. These enforce the Consortium’s laws on every planet and in space. Although for many years they allowed collectors to purchase obsolete hulls, since the events involving Shaun Hardcastle, where several of their old ships were refitted with modern weapons and used against them, Smertios Security has not allowed anyone else to decommission or own any of their disarmed vessels, and doing so is punishable by seizure of the vessel and imprisonment.

Executive Structure:

Smertios Security is run by the board. Each of the board members is given wide latitude to run whatever black projects they wish to, as long as they are both secret and profitable. The CEO, in practice, has very little control over the actions of the company, as each board member manages their own section of the company. Of course, if the projects become a liability for any reason, the removal of the responsible board member is guaranteed – if not by the CEO, by another board member. The upper hierarchy of the company remains on Aeron, formerly the Scaffold and the largest space station in Consortium space – and, of course, the place where nearly all of the military ships in the Consortium are constructed.

Relationships:

Smertios Security has a strong and long-standing relationship with Hayden Bank, which often provides them with intelligence and work with them to enforce the will of the Big Eight. They also work closely with Lugh Chartered Records, who regularly have to interact with them for law enforcement related record searches. They have proven their worth several times in protecting the Consortium, but are now under intense pressures to eliminate the current threat by destroying the Resistance as soon as possible.

In the Big Eight, they are seen as ardent isolationists, preferring always to consolidate what the Consortium already possesses.