Elevator Pitch:
Meet Arthur Corean, a reincarnated man born as the second eldest of the Corean family.
The Corean family has had a centuries-long relationship with the Federated Suns, not only holding the noble rank of Count with land holds on the planets of Augusta and New Avalon, but they are also an 'Industrialist' family that has maintained sole ownership of Corean Enterprises, a prominent Battlemech and war material manufacturer with branches in the Free Worlds League and Federated Suns.
Though he felt he had an excellent advantage over others his physical age, Arthur was also seemingly gifted with a 'cheat skill' of his own upon his reincarnation. Whether through an interesting mutation of generations of tinkered-with-genetics from the Star League-era, through direct interference from some form of higher power, or simple serendipity, Arthur Corean had a keen mind geared solely toward the maths and sciences. The newly reborn Arthur did not hesitate to put his vast intellect to good use as he devoured every scrap of knowledge made available to him by the best educational programs the Federated Suns had to offer. All of the years and years of hard work and studying done so that when he grew older he could join the family business as one of its premier scientific innovators.
However, when an 'unfortunate dropship accident' leads to the death of his father and mother, both Arthur and his elder sister, Yeathers, are forced to take up the mantles of their parents- Yeathers the title of Countess and the land holds, and Arthur the title of CEO of Corean Enterprises.
Join Arthur Corean as he struggles to maintain a good balance between his duties as a CEO, his love and joy of tinkering and innovating, and his responsibilities as an elder brother... all the while trying his best to prevent some of the largest mistakes that lead to the downfall of the Federated Suns.
As it turns out, even with one of the most brilliant minds the Inner Sphere has ever witnessed, preventing people from picking up the 'Idiot Ball' is rather difficult, especially when everyone and their mother wants him dead. Most of all, ComStar.
Especially ComStar.
[Arthur Corean - Age 28]
[Corean Enterprises Headquarters]
[New Avalon City, New Avalon; Federated Suns]
[January 9th, 3025]
"You want to what!?" A portly man in his late fifties with balding brown hair and bushy eyebrows smashed his fists on the table of the Corean Enterprises boardroom- his face growing red with rage as the 'thunk!' echoed throughout the mostly empty space, "You want to sell the company's holdings on Ramen II and Stewart!? Have you gone mad!? Insane!? Boy, you better be joking!"
Reginald Rouchambeaux was a long-standing member of the Corean Board, one who'd been at the table since my father first started almost twenty-five years ago- a staunch Margin-Chaser, the man was all about profits.
"I would have to agree with Reginald, even if I am loathed to do so," Arneliac Romeli was a tall, thin man with salt-and-pepper black hair with a thin pencil mustache in the New Avalon styling; his blue eyes looked like frozen chips as he stared me down, "Why would we sell the Free Worlds League branches?"
He too was someone who liked the sight, touch, and smell of C-Bills, and while I couldn't blame him- for I also liked money- he didn't seem to be getting the bigger picture. This was a touch surprising to me since in the past few months after I took up the position as CEO and Owner of Corean Enterprises he'd always been able to take a step back and assess the situation calmly before dissecting it with a rational mind.
I leaned back in my seat, steepling my fingers in front of me as I stared down the most recalcitrant of the two board members- pretty much everyone else agreed with why I was doing what I was doing, even if they didn't understand the true scope of what I was attempting to accomplish. "It's quite simple, truly- being a Multinational Corporation in both the eyes of the Free Worlds League and the Federated Suns is murdering us in our margins."
"What are you talking about, boy? The tax burdens on Corean Enterprises have only gone down over the past three decades, by three-and-a-half points no less!" Reginald Rouchambeaux sneered at me as he jabbed a grubby finger in my direction, "We have never been in a better position! Not since the 1st Succession War broke out; you're speaking nonsense."
Arneliac made to speak, but when he saw me lean forward over the table with my eyes narrowed he wisely held his tongue and let me speak, "The Free Worlds League murders us on our profit margins by 30% because of our International status, and you have the audacity to gloat about our position since the Federated Suns bends us over the table for a mere 21.5%?"
That made Arneliac blink before he began furiously typing away at his noteputer.
Ah, there we go- now you're thinking.
"We make billions of C-Bills in the Free Worlds League-"
"No, we make the Free Worlds Leaguebillions of C-Bills, you fucking nitwit!" I hissed in response as I slapped the table with an open palm, a 'crack!' of my own issuing through the air as I bulldozed his rebuttal, "And all of the C-Bills Janos Marik and his cronies don't strip from our hides? Well, newsflash genius, Corean Enterprises of New Avalon- the Head Office- doesn't get to see a single C-Bill!"
I felt my stomach churn at the sheer stupidity of the fat little man down the table from me, "The billions of C-Bills we make are locked to the Free Worlds League. That means we pay rent to the Free Worlders, we pay the salaries of Free Worlders, we purchase raw materials from the Free Worlders, and of course, we supply military materialsand Battlemechs to the Free Worlders too."
My nose twitched as my sudden, forceful inhalation tickled it- I needed to trim my mustache soon.
I let the anger and tension go as I exhaled and fixed Reginald Rouchambeaux with a look, "Do you now see why I am so furious? Every single C-Bill we make is stuck in the Free Worlds League, and we have to reinvest that money back into those facilities and workers so it doesn't sit around collecting dust. Yes, I will grant that the profits made in the FWL do make our share price look rather fetching, but if we cannot touch that money without a convoluted money laundering scheme- which is illegal- then what good does that do us or the Federated Suns? Because as it sits right now we are only producing weapons, armor, and Battlemechs for our enemies. Does anyone see why I want to sell them now?"
Arneliac raised a finger as he looked up from his noteputer, the man adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses- his voice hesitant, "While I can see your points, Mister Corean, we- Corean Enterprises- employ hundreds of thousands of Free World League citizens. If we pack up our factories and ship everything back to New Avalon, Augusta, or Novaya Zemlya then... not only will it be expensive, but we'll be putting those people out of work. The economic consequences will be far-reaching for more than just ourselves."
"I know that not everyone on this board is a staunch loyalist of Hanse Davion such as myself, but ultimately who was it who allowed us to settle here on New Avalon with a favorable deal?" I nodded slowly while doing my best to open up my posture as much as possible, "It wasn't the Capellan Confederation who wanted sole control over my family's corporation. It wasn't the Lyran Commonwealth who kept us out because Defiance Industries didn't want local competition. It wasn't the Draconis Combine who also wanted to nationalize my family's company and headquarter it on Luthien to exist solely to be a footrest for the so-called 'Dragon'. And the Free Worlds League didn't even offer any form of tax breaks to us when we asked them."
"No," I shook my head as I swiped a hand through the air, "It was the Federated Suns that offered us a safe haven. Many of you on this board owe generations of family wealth and success to their acceptance of us- even as we kept open our facilities on Stewart and Ramen II in the Free Worlds' territory. That? That means something to me, and it should to you as well."
My eyes swept around the board room as I let my fingers beat a tattoo onto the table, "That sort of loyalty should be repaid in kind, and under my leadership that is exactly what Corean Enterprises will do. Starting with consolidating our mobile assets out of the Free Worlds League and back into Federated Suns space where it belongs. My father had wanted to do this himself if you can believe it, but he simply didn't have the stomach to actually pull the trigger. Not when there were people such as yourself, Reginald that put imaginary profits over the good of our people and the nation."
"Regardless, every year we hemorrhage money in International Corporation taxes to both the Federated Suns and the Free Worlds League," I tapped my noteputer and pulled up the financials on the projector in the center of the table, but there was a smirk on my lips as I looked up at how the numbers changed, "Just recently I sat down and had lunch a few days ago with our First Prince, Hanse Davion, and should we sell our holdings within Marik's territories then he's agreed to drop our corporate tax rate down to a flat 10%. That and with the expanding budgets for domestic corporate development 'inherently vital to the military interests of the Federated Suns'... we'll be able to offload almost 40% of the costs of building new facilities directly on the First Prince's budgets. Something we would completely miss out on by being International."
"This is the height of foolishness..." Reginald the Fat, Balding Guy muttered in disbelief, his eyes seeking out some support from someone... anyone else on the board who might back him up, "This would drop our share prices by almost half! It would harm Federated Suns shareholders in addition to the Free Worlds League citizens! You might very well drive us under you... you arrogant, short-sighted child!"
"Hardly," Seymour Harding was a wizened old man, one of the oldest on the board- a member since my grandfather was running Corean Enterprises- smiled genially as his reedy voice whistled with every breath, "You're being far too dramatic. We survived having our twenty-three branches cut down to two, so we can easily survive having four cut down to two once more. Except this time, when we expand and build ourselves back up we won't do so foolishly; we should have sold the Marik branches centuries ago but we had greedy idiots like yourself who just couldn't bear the thought of cutting away the dead weight."
"Dead weight? May I remind everyone here that our salaries are performance-based? The better the company does the better we get paid," The fat man hissed as he leaned over the table, his buggy eyes seeming to bulge out of his skull, "If the share prices tank then so too will your salaries."
"This makes little difference because while we do get paid more if the Free Worlds League branch of Corean Enterprises does well... we get paid by the New Avalon branch of Corean Enterprises," The old man's fluffy white eyebrows danced as he chuckled lightly, "The better the Marik branch does the more we get paid... paid for off the backs of the hardworking men and women of the Federated Suns. Yet another reason to trim the Marik fat off our bodies."
"And speaking of trimming the fat off our bodies...I plan on taking a massive pay cut, and I expect everyone else here to as well," I leaned back in the chair and spread my gaze to the other eight members of the Advisory board- because that's all they were- and laid my palms flat on the table, "I will be leading the charge in this by taking a 95% pay cut as the CEO of Corean Enterprises while also taking an 80% pay cut as Corean Enterprises' Chief Science Officer."
That raised more than a few eyebrows as I had been very handsomely paid by my father as the Company's Chief Science Officer... and I was hoping that there I would have remained for a great many more years.
I was doing amazing things for Corean behind the scenes with a half-dozen projects running concurrently while I studied at the New Avalon Institute of Science and finished up my final Doctorate Program... but my mother and father passed away at the same time in a Dropship accident meant that me and my older sister would have to take up their mantles of responsibility.
I sat in the chair as the Owner and CEO of Corean Enterprises while my sister took over our holdings in the Augusta System as its Countess- I had a massive corporation to handle while she had to manage one-quarter of a planet, our eight local barons, and over 1 billion people.
Honestly?
I got the better part of the deal because at least as the CEO and owner I had total control over my company... Yeathers-onee-chan wasn't nearly so lucky. Though if she ever found out that I referred to her as such then she'd likely report me to MIIO for being a Kuritan sympathizer- its hard to have a love and appreciation for Japanese things when the Combine existed to taint everything it touched- it was one of the biggest reasons I was such a Federated Suns hardliner when before I wouldn't have cared less which faction I played in Battletech.
I had been there for the mechs and tanks and shit- who was running them didn't matter to me except that now? Now they kinda did because, for the last twenty years, I had been living the nightmare. No, it wasn't a dream, even if I had some pseudo-isekai-cheat-levels of intellect backing me up... I'd much rather be back on Earth hanging out with my family over Thanksgiving dinner and arguing about politics over having to live with Feudal Galactic politics and forever worry about being assassinated because I was too damn smart.
The things I did for people other than me and mine...
I tilted my head to the side as I held up a hand, "Yes, shocking I know, but I want to start expanding the number of Department Head positions without actually eating into our discretionary budgets for R&D. So I'm going to use the money saved here to create those new positions. The question is, who else is willing to belly up to the bar with me and take a hefty cut?"
"Knock mine down to 5%, same as yourself my boy," Seymour Harding gave me a grey-toothed grin, "If you're going to go all of the way with shutting down the Marik Support Branch then I'll follow along! Not like any of us here needs the money- this is more a hobby of mine than anything else, heh!"
"Alright, that's Mister Harding," I looked over to the rest of the board, "What say you, Sophia? Jerri? Allen?"
Allen Chen was a short man of Capellan descent heralding from the Chen family of the Capellan March, and he represented our company's interests in that theater of war- acting as the direct go-between for our corporation and the AFFS units and Duke Michael Hasek-Davion... even though I knew the man to be a traitor to the Federated Suns. The man was middle-aged, only sixty-one years old, and he gazed at me intently while stroking his fu-man-chu, "I will... take a 75% pay cut, Mister Corean. For many years I thought that your father was perhaps a touch too generous with my compensation for the amount of work I actually did."
The 'but who was I say otherwise?' was left unsaid.
Granted, if I was in his position I wouldn't say 'no' to being grossly overpaid either, but sometimes loyalty paid dearly for was important as it was still loyalty. However, Allen was a keen sort and he knew that I was going somewhere with this whole charade, and being able to 'read the winds' was a skill that he had acquired in his many years of life. He knew for a fact that my father and I were two totally different people- while my father was content to keep the current state of affairs... I was someone who wanted to shake up the whole scheme and make some significant changes.
"Jerri?" I slid my eyes off Mister Chen and toward Geraldine Moore, and the blonde-haired older woman closed her eyes for a few moments and let the question simmer in her mind before she answered.
"I am willing to take a 50% pay cut if that is required going forward, Mister Corean," Her soft brown eyes were calculating as she ran her index finger in a near-perfect circle on the lacquered top of the conference room table, "I would offer to take an even more substantial cut, however, my Barony here on New Avalon relies on my income to fund my discretionary budgets; it's one of the primary reasons why I accepted your father's offer to join the board of advisors in the first place. Any more than that and I will have to close down a number of programs, including my city's Scholarship programs for preparatory programs feeding students into the NAIS for their Science and Military programs."
This was true.
"Jerri" Moore was the Baroness who oversaw Hamilton City on the continent of Brunswick here on the Federated Suns capital world of New Avalon. Her Barony was home to over forty million people, with numerous smaller factories providing the bulk of civilian employment- mainly Brooks Incorporated with their Star Slab armor manufacturing and Corean Enterprises with our electronics and communications packages manufacturing facilities. She was invited to the board almost thirty years ago in exchange for prime land to build our plants and warehouses, along with a more than generous compensation package.
I knew of the programs she spoke of personally because during my many years of schooling at the New Avalon Institute of Sciences, I had run into more than a few students who owed their enrollment to the new and prestigious university to the preparatory schools that she funded. For students without expansive generational wealth or a noble background, her patronage was damn near a requirement for the 'commoners' to get a coveted slot in one of the NAIS' extremely competitive programs. I would know because despite my 'genius level' intellect my father had to pay a rather hefty sum in donations each year to ensure that I could get all of the schooling I could ever dream of.
"Mark me down for a 40% pay decrease," Sophia Asakamori broke in, the elderly woman of Kuritan descent tapped her fingers on the table, "Any more and I would be putting my city's militia into dire straights. We have to rebuild after the last assault of the DCMS leveled against my people, and purchasing a new battalion of tanks cannot be done on my city's taxes alone."
Sophia Asakamori was the Countess of Cassias I, a planet that supplied Corean Enterprises with a great deal of the precious metals that were used in our products. Everything from nickel to cobalt, lithium, copper, gold, iron, and titanium was mined, refined, and then transported to our facilities on Augusta and New Avalon. Her inclusion on the board was a strategic move by my grandfather to tie our raw material providers to the company, and her paycheck included a lot of zeros.
Sophia was an interesting collage- a Kuritan-looking woman who spoke with a posh British accent wore a Hijab and prayed towards Mecca on Terra five times a day as per her Islamic traditions. It wasn't all that surprising given Cassias I's predominantly Muslim population. Her husband was the Count and true noble of Cassias I, and she spent a month out of every year here on New Avalon to see to their financial interests in Corean. Once the annual meeting was finished, she would catch the annual Command Line of jumpships from New Avalon to Cassius I with the command staff of the 17th Avalon Hussars RCT that guarded her domain.
However, she was correct in that the DCMS had just been repelled- they had attempted to destroy several refineries but the Cassias I militia had managed to put up enough of a fight. A Company of House Troop Mechs and a pair of tank Battalions managed to pin the Combine forces in place long enough for the 17th Hussars to kick them off the planet without any damage to the facilities. Almost a hundred and seventeen men and women perished in the fighting, mostly from the tank battalions, and while I mourned for their loss as much as any Good Son of the FedSuns did... I was thankful for their sacrifice.
Losing those refineries would have easily cost us billions of C-Bills to rebuild, on top of the losses we'd sustain with a significant portion of our supply chain a heaping, smoldering ruin.
"Completely understandable, Miss Asakamori. I wouldn't ask for you to sacrifice more than what you could, but the fact remains that our combined salaries are a... startling drain on our HR budgets," I rubbed my fingers along my jaw, a wince on my face as I remembered all of the damn money that was essentially being tossed out of company's coffers for only a handful of people.
I shook my head, "Regardless, that is all I needed to hear. My sister has already assented to me cutting her pay down 90% for much the same reasons, keeping 10% to fund various sundry budgets around her County on Augusta, so we're going to be saving almost half a billion C-Bills in personnel costs with this alone."
The other members of the advisory board looked rather relieved that all I was asking for was a 'volunteer' for pay cuts, but Arneliac Romeli brought my attention back to him, "I noticed... that you didn't ask for what I or Mister Rouchambeaux would accept..."
I took a deep breath as I situated myself in my chair before leveling a firm gaze at him, "I think that should be obvious as to why, Mister Romeli."
Arneliac Romeli and Reginald Rouchambeaux were the two board members from the Free Worlds League.
Given I was completely closing down operations in the Free Worlds League their positions on my Advisor Board were completely superfluous, and the combined $90 Million C-Bills their positions afforded to them would be henceforth reclaimed.
God, Dad, you were way overpaying the people here, holy shit.
"This-! This is an OUTRAGE!" The fat man shot up to his feet and slammed his fists on the table once more, "You cannot do this, boy! Your father is barely in the ground and you're already making him roll around in it!"
Rather than acknowledging his fury, I pressed a button on the intercom, "Daisy, if you would please send Security up to the Board Room and have them escort Mister Rouchambeaux and Mister Romeli to their offices so that they may gather their personal effects."
"Of course, Mister Corean. They will be along shortly," Came an old, weathered voice from the other end of the line.
Daisy Rittenhaus was the Head Secretary who was a legacy carryover from my father, though given she was once an Acolyte of ComStar I would have to contact Hanse and have him give me a MIIO-approved replacement.
The moment the real Hanse Davion was retrieved, of course.
The meeting I had with 'Hanse Davion' to secure approval for this massive sale of Corean Enterprises was actually a fake- a false Hanse Davion created by Maximilian Liao to hopefully replace the true First Prince of the Federated Suns with a brainwashed doppelganger that would do his bidding. The Nisei-Hanse likely approved the sale because it was in line with Maximilian's plans to weaken the Federated Suns- a prominent Battlemech manufacturer willingly lopping off a limb?
It was something someone like "The Diablo" would approve of whole-heartedly... though he couldn't know the true scale of my own plans in the slightest, mainly because I'd never really told anyone what they were yet.
I returned my attention to the spluttering Fatty-Baldy and the now white-as-a-sheet Mister Romeli, "I missed the part where this was 'Democracy'... and the part where you were anything more than a member of an 'Advisory Board', Mister Rouchambeaux. Corean Enterprises is a company solely owned by my sister and I, and as the primary owner and CEO of the company the sheer steers where I say it does."
The moment I finished speaking the doors to the boardroom opened up to admit four armed security personnel and two attached MIIO agents, the five gentlemen and one gentlewoman gesturing for the now former Advisory Board members to follow them, "Now. You can both expect your generous severance packages, but I don't think I need to remind you both that you're under strict NDAs... so not a word is to be breathed, understood?"
Mary Stoachand, one of the two Ministry of Information, Intelligence, and Operations (MIIO) agents attached to our corporation as Senior-Level Attaches (read; Spook Minders), smiled brilliantly as she led Mister Rouchambeaux and Mister Romeli out of the board room- the Fatty-Baldy ranting and raving the entire way but not putting up any sort of physical fight. They would be escorted to their offices and allowed to gather their personal effects, all the while the Spooks would be inspecting everything they took with them to ensure that nothing important left with them; I'd already taken the liberty of revoking their credentials before the meeting started, so the chances of them being able to sneak something out with them was slim to none.
Say what you will about the Federated Suns, but they take the security of their war material providers very seriously, and MIIO was among the best at their jobs in preventing leaks.
Once the doors closed the board room became utterly silent, and I sighed in delight, "Now that the troublesome part of this meeting has been taken care of... let me tell you how we're going to make this happen without causing panic or massive losses."
My fingers danced over the keyboard next to my chair and a half-dozen different overlays popped up on the wall monitor, "The sale of our holdings in the Free Worlds League has already been approved, and we are currently in the process of negotiating with Earthwerks Incorporated to purchase the facilities on Stewart and Ramen II-"
Special thanks to Lmc9389, Artillery, AuraofCalm, Mioismoe, Southmonk, Darkarma, Acrimonius, T. Balewood, Randall Randall, Dominyx Black, CyberCrisis, Blue, Russ Stilter, Legion_13, Mike Fatal_Bullet, P. Nguyen, J. Ricardo Passos, K. Weierbach, R. Alderman, A P, Arrorn, Empty Shelf, PbookR, Mortaegus, Nevets309, Jake95044, Jackson R., G. Johnson, T. Dewitt, M. McGuire, DragonShark-Eater, Big-Tofu, Alexei A., Brandon B., David B., Grant L., Anti-Akuma, Cailk, Robert H., Jigawats, Joseph M. Teti, Konb, Stelliferous, A. McGregor, Jasticus, C. Wiggins, M. Compean, Dynrakmos, Lictor Magnus, Coolman59223, John the Gamer, J.Goncalves, Shurukkah, A. Daw, Gorth 123, Quinten M., Dirk Gent L., Penguin Quality Tester, Alexander P., SharpShadow, Magnus, and holy cow THANKS to InsanexSilence for being Patrons!
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A/N: So, this is my first crosspost since I stopped writing on SB. So far? It's been a monumental pain in the behind- I can't simply copy/paste from my QQ because it triple spaces every single line so I have to manually correct every single line, meaning backspace three times per line, then move onto the next line. I'm going to try a few things and hope that it works without me having to do this... I'm just glad I only have a few chapters to crosspost at this point because if I were trying to do one of my much larger stories? Yeah, I'd just say 'Nah' and leave it at that.