AeroKnights Inc.

Throughout Erethian history, one of the marked differences between the hierarchies of goverments and corporations has been the tendency for government power to pass along steady familial lines, whereas the success or failure of corporations is much more tuned to the capabilities of those in control. Businesses and their attendant wealth frequently pass from generation to generation, but where countries are able to more or less maintain themselves through periods of weak leadership, a corporation that passes to an incompetent executive is constantly at risk of failure. An entrepreneur who desires to leave a permanent legacy of wealth for his descendents must take care to disconnect the company's ownership from its decision-making branch, or find some way to ensure future generations advance through leadership ranks by merit and not due to quirks of fate such as birth order.

In 1859, Jameson Falco said bollocks to all that.

A naturalized Bayronite citizen of Brayan birth, Jameson Falco garnered his first successes running a series of shops specializing in steamtech trinkets. However, even as a middle-class merchant, he maintained two general beliefs that he felt would someday carry him into the upper echelons of society. One, that war equaled profit; and two, that when new technologies spread that can be used for war, they will be used for war, and woe be to those nations who lack the technology on which that war will be based. And a business properly founded on those principles could keep his family in wealth and power until the end of civilization. As such, he observed the rise of steamplanes and their integration into militaries the world over with particular interest, and began work on a small fleet of his own.

At first all the profits of his shops, and then some, were sunk into this new enterprise. The outlay for even low-end planes was extraordinary for the time, and low-end planes were prone to even more failures than the military grade. Returns on the investment were initially meager; rich daredevils paid handsomely for rides in two-seaters with experienced pilots, or even the chance to learn how to fly themselves, but the fallibility of steamplanes in general led most to stay away.

Eventually the technology stabilized, and Falco's retrofitted fleet became the envy of private collectors everywhere. AeroKnights Inc. was officially formed in 1868, specializing mostly in high-speed cargo runs around the Shirelands, and to Nantes and the Antonian States. It was around this time that slow increases in sea level were noted; this information did not spread far beyond the scientific community, but Falco decided to take no chances and located his first major airbase high in the Bayronite hills. As concerns about the sea level spread, AeroKnights quietly signed talented pilots to mercenary contracts; but much to Falco's chagrin, when the Melt took hold in 1876, worldwide panic did not. Worse, it was the UBS' King Edward that led the diplomatic push for peace and cooperation in dealing with the catastrophe at hand, and none of Falco's growing-but-not-substantial influence could sway him from seeking peace. Jameson Falco passed away in 1880, leaving AeroKnights to his son Samuel in a barely-surviving state.

The main problem for AeroKnights Inc., was that they had numerous talented, expensive pilots under contract doing little more than glorified shipping runs. They were frequently paid a premium due to the immediacy of the countries in need, but nothing close to the wages of a mercenary at war. Samuel Falco's theory on raising revenue, as he famously explained later to his son Roy, was, "The best money comes in a war. The second-best money comes when they think there's a war."

With long-distance radio communication still in its infancy, the AeroKnights began outfitting all its planes with at least basic weaponry and charging patron nations higher fees to recoup costs. Any time the new prices were questioned- which was very often, at least initially- AeroKnights officials routinely raised the specter of pirate attacks, sometimes with the implication of such pirates being funded by rival nations. With these nations invariably across the ocean and out of instant contact, government officials felt they had little choice but to pay up if their own resources were not available to do whatever job was needed. These governments, not being entirely full of fools, did send their own intelligence feelers out to gauge the truthfulness of AK claims; they generally found that, while the company might have been embellishing the threat to a degree, pirate attacks were very real and needed to be considered at all times. Some officials concluded that AeroKnights Inc. may have had their own pirates in the sky and on the water in order to help guarantee those larger paychecks, but no proof of such was ever uncovered.

Between the threat of piracy and their stellar record of delivering on their contracts regardless of said threat, AeroKnights Inc. was able to build a substantial war chest over the first half-decade of Samuel Falco's leadership. By the end of the Melt in 1887, a variety of diplomatic accords had been signed that continually pledged cooperation between devastated nations, but by then the AeroKnights had added low-level weapons manufacturing to their mercenary steamplane squadrons and taken a dominant role in Ereth's fledgling private military industry. At 53, Falco was poised to lead his company for another generation and secure significant influence within the major governments of Ereth. But four years later, in 1891, while perusing offers from a number of smaller nations struggling with conflict in what would become the Great War era, Samuel Falco dropped dead of an apparent heart attack. The company passed to his only son, Roy.

At 27, Roy Falco was relatively unknown amongst the major players in world affairs. His father had brought him up to know the ins and outs of their business model, but assuming he had several more years to work with, had never introduced Roy to any of the liaisons he would need to contract with in governments and other private industries the world over. Privately he was referred to most often as abrasive, unyielding, and unwilling to behave as a partner in business rather than the dominant force in any negotiation.

Unfortunately for his critics, during the war Falco was very much the dominant force in almost every negotiation. Nations with enough clout to rebuff his demands were rarely in need of AeroKnights' services, and the rest needed him too badly to risk pushing him into a contract with their rivals. Usually this meant contracting for military services, but it also included setting up factories for large-scale AK manufacturing operations in Nantes (who were willing to give him the world) rather than Falco's home, the UBS (who wanted as little to do with the war as possible). AK mercenaries turned the tide in several small-scale conflicts, and as their success grew, so did the price nations were willing to pay to ensure their survival.

Near the end of the century, with nations beginning to run short of resources necessary for war, Falco looked out across his empire and foresaw it going to rust. The end of war meant minimal need for AeroKnights' primary services, but without conflict AK's entire business foundation would crumble. So Falco devised the concept of "rational war at affordable prices". In short, he needed to give the governments a reason to maintain their military strength, but without a conflict so widespread it would bankrupt anyone. Thus the AeroKnights Armistice came to be, and the Air Race Internacionale was born.

The one concern of AeroKnights Inc.'s executive board was that the prize for victory- basically anything the winner desired- could damage even a company of AK's remarkable wealth. After the first ARI in 1900, Falco took care of that problem in a stroke of luck mixed with quick-thinking genius. The Black Baroness of Sidon, the only solo racer in the competition, won the day and requested military protection for her country from their Kumasi rivals as her prize. It seemed precisely the kind of reward the executives feared- an ongoing commitment that would sap company resources and, if too many champions made similar requests, leave them spread too thin to thwart rivals bent on sabotage.

So Falco made a deal: He would ensure protection for Sidon for as long as the Baroness served as his champion. Having proven herself the world's best many times over before the Armistice, and again during the ARI, the Baroness had no qualms about agreeing to the pact. Falco then added another stipulation, that going forward anyone who would claim the grand prize would need to defeat the Black Baroness to do so. The outrage sounded worldwide, especially amongst the nations with teams close to, but not qute at, the Baroness' level. But when most of them took stock of their resources and their ability to settle military conflict with their neighbors, they saw the ARI remained their best option, and so the races continued.

For the next thirteen years the Baroness met every tournament winner and downed them all. ARI results still serve as a basis for influence in world affairs, and thus remains an increasingly critical part of Erethian civilization. But no grand prize has been awarded since that first year, and now, with the 15th ARI on the horizon, Roy Falco sits on a pile of wealth like the world has never seen. Some wonder if his eventual goal is to simply take over the entire planet with his ever-increasing military hardware. Others opine on whether the reclusive company boss even knows how to run his company any more, or if he simply counts his endless streams of income and calls it a day.

The one sure thing is that there is a new ARI to be run. Thirty-six teams vie for the chance to finally down the Black Baroness in combat and avail themselves of AeroKnights Inc.'s phenomenal wealth. And, as his company sells those teams anything and everything they need, Roy Falco would not have it any other way.