Heirotus is the galaxy’s premiere manufacturer of mass abstraction hardware, a leader in carbon computing and genetic engineering, and the sole manufacturer of the Biomagnetic Transfer System (BTS), humanity’s first entirely synthetic means of FTL travel. The company originally specialized in academic research until a crucial discovery in the early 1960s generated a massive patent portfolio, making Heirotus founder and sole shareholder Brandon James the richest man in the galaxy.

Heirotus aggressively defends its FTL monopoly and has conducted operations against possible competitors, combating industrial espionage with methods ranging from slashed tires to nuclear strikes. While the company is not the sole supplier of mass abstraction hardware, Heirotus technology is decades ahead of other offerings. The company has maintained this lead using a combination of genuine technological superiority, a robust legal department, and the occasional hostile takeover.

In addition to supplying FTL and mass abstraction systems to government contractors, Heirotus has an internal shipbuilding program considered by many to be superior to state-sponsored efforts.

While the Heirotus Corporate Security Service has hired thousands of former soldiers and security experts, they also make extensive use of an internal genetics program (officially classified, widely known to be the Addicaine program). Small arms and equipment are supplied under the terms of a technology sharing agreement with Barghosa Aerospace.

Heirotus has accumulated enough liquid assets, intellectual property, engineering patents, land, hardware, and political influence to qualify for Colonial Authority status. When this status was conferred in the mid 1980s the planet Helios was ceded from state control and is effectively the Capitol world of the Heirotus industrial empire.

Officially, Heirotus and the Heirotus Colonial Authority are separate entities, with HCA Security being staffed primarily by volunteers. HCA performs the administrative duties of a state bureaucracy, while Heirotus (and the HCSS) does pretty much whatever it wants. Which is whatever Brandon James wants.