Companies : The Interstellar Cartography Group (ICG)
revised 2010.03.15 at 02:26
A politically neutral consortium formed by representatives of many Colonial Authority corporations and major governments, built on technology-sharing and standardization agreements, with the stated goal of the acquisition and dissemination of verified stellar cartography data to ship-builders, defense contractors, and other interested parties.
ICG has been around long enough to become a - fiercely neutral - political entity in its own right. To serve its interests, the company has developed the Discovery class long-range long-duration survey vessel and the Foundation class starship, a long-duration "follow-up" vessel, similar to a cruiser but outfitted for detailed orbital survey of planets of interest. ICG spacecraft can be purchased or leased, though all such agreements include clauses that mandate or encourage the sharing of all newly acquired cartography data with ICG.
In the 570s, Heirotus leased a number of Discovery class vehicles for an unspecified deep-range survey mission. Since then, the company has revised the agreement to a retro-active purchase of two of the craft, with the remainder returned in the late 590s.
All modern starships use standard verified ICG navigation charts. Most organizations that keep private charts keep them in an ICG-compliant format, as the majority of navigation computers are hardware-optimized to process ICG stellar cartography algorithms.
[eventual link to Discovery type]
[eventual link to Foundation type]