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ARES

Advanced Research and Experimental Systems digital archives.
Corporation Advanced Research and Experimental Systems
Branches AI systems; Arms, Military Tech and Vehicle Manufacturing; Standing Military and Logistics
Years Founded Early 2440s
Founder Adam Caine
Headquarters Megas Areios Station (near The Belt)
Branch Offices Venus, The Belt
Key People Adam Caine
Value 1.4 Trillion Solcred

A.R.E.S. origins and rise to the level of megacorp seemed to bypass the normal pathway for a successful corporate enterprise of startup phase through gains and expansion, instead emerging with significant backing capital of unknown sourcing when it was founded by Adam Caine in the mid 2400s. Starting with their first offices in one of the skycities above Venus ARES would push immediately into a heavy focus of well researched cutting edge tech for battlefield application ships, air and ground vehicles, and personal armaments and armor. Taking advantage of founder Adam Caine's storied mercenary and military background ARES would also begin to staff and train an effective standing military force of key chosen recruits that would be deployed with their as-yet-unreleased to market tech in a variety of operations for corporations and other entities across the Sol System to great effect. ARES would eventually establish its own principle base of operations in the belt at Megas Areios Station, mining the belt for materials for use in ARES shipyards while maintaining a clear cordon of impassibility for any other vessels or craft attempting to traverse the belt.

While building ARES presence as a preeminent miltech innovator with a highly effective standing corporate army Adam Caine would prove an effective negotiator as well, taking advantage of his storied contacts and connections over his career to form alliances with other significant miltech and security entities, reforming Section One along with Armitech, Matsumoto, and NSI following their joint expedition to Earth and their discovery of pre-transcendence war installations of the original Section One. The tech learned from that discovery would only further propel the members of Section One further into the forefront of Corporate power. Over the years Adam Caine would continue to find and prop up other promising enterprises and individuals he believed would provide significant gains and discoveries.

Following the destruction of the Wayfar Colony on Mars ARES would be granted the contract for stewardship of the planet to deal with the chaos and unrest among the Native Martian population and return the planet to the hoped for location of opportunity for corporate exploitation that New Geneva had originally envisioned when the planet had been reconnected with by the rest of the Sol System.

In the late 2400s following widely reported acts of terrorism and rebellion on Mars that lead to the destruction of the Wayfar colony, ARES would be granted the contract to become stewards of Mars itself, to bring the rebellion and chaos to heel and bring Mars back into the hoped place of new opportunities and commerce that New Geneva had envisioned when they had initially discovered the planet inhabited by the descendants of the Home One colony ship. ARES would quickly undertake a pacification program targeting the Native Martians and other criminal elements that had been moving to Mars as a new lawless location from which to build and expand. The Native Martian population was quickly relegated to work camps and reservations, with resistance that would not comply being hunted down and wiped out in an effort to ensure they could not consolidate their numbers and effectiveness, the Native Martians themselves being entirely ill-equipped to handle conflicts with this level of tech and organization unknown to them at that time. Hades Hive was established atop the ruins of the Wayfar Colony (itself having been built on top of the most holy site in the Martian Faith), and all criminal elements on Mars and elsewhere in the Sol system being forcibly sent and interred in Hades Hive or other ARES blacksite prisons on Mars in an effort to consolidate all crime to one central location. The Donovan Cartel amongst others were gaining influence and power operating in Hades, as other groups began to be housed there trying to eek out what influence they could in their shadow. While this consolidation of criminal elements to Hades was seen as a pragmatic solution to larger crime problems across the rest of the Sol System in giving them a single playground away from others to play in, fighting and killing each other rather than regular citizens and corporate interests, it also had the side effect of allowing some syndicates to become more powerful while remaining largely unchecked in one area of lawlessness. ARES seemed to have been anticipating this outcome and had a contingency plan in place once forces in Hades had time to consolidate their influence, as ARES would later carry out a pogrom within Hades Hive and successfully wiped out the Donovan Cartel on Mars in a bloodbath.

In the many months following the slaughter of the DCC in Hades, resistance on Mars amongst the Native Martians began to become more effective, with better weapons beginning to end up in the hands of hold-out militant collectives who began to work more effectively as a guerilla force in harrying ARES and other corp interests on Mars as ARES began to find themselves dealing with attacks across the planet from smaller scale groups in hit and run tactics from a more prepared and effective foe. The seeds of this resistance would bloom into a full true war for independence from the Native Martian population as conflict began to erupt across the planet. ARES itself would scale up their efforts to stamp out resistance, carrying out all manner of brutality against the Native Martian population,

Armitech

Armitech digital archives in Neu Berlin.
Corporation Armitech Defense
Branches Corporate Security; AI Systems; Arms and Vehicle Manufacturing
Years Founded Early 2430s
Founder Adelheid Stromm
Headquarters Neu Berlin
Branch Offices Neo London, Nya Stockholm, Nouveau Paris, French Populace of Utopia, Cocoon Station
Value 1.1 Trillion Solcred

Armitech, an active weapons manufacturer from Neu Berlin, has been active since the 2430's. Born in their industrial sector, Armitech was just one more out of many weapon manufacturers that were just a bleep on Neu Berlin's industrial complex, until one of their engineers, Adelheid Stromm, found blueprints belonging to the weaponry used during the Transcendence War era, including prototype weaponry that was never released on the field. That, in addition to salvaged weapons and samples obtained from Earth, combined with current power cells and hydrogen batteries, with that knowledge in hand, Armitech focused entirely on energy weapons, assuring a highly destructive output from plasma and laser-based weapons at half the energy cost from their power cells.

Over the next ten years, Armitech would expand aggressively on Neu Berlin, the Dusseldorf Industrial Platform, and even Utopia. Rivaling with Matsumoto Zaibatsu, they would get involved in an Industrial Espionage scandal, when Harada Matsumoto, who had worked for Armitech, got close enough to the corporation to embezzle and negotiate deals that would take assets and profits from Armitech and would catapult Matsumoto Zaibatsu into the Megacorporation Status.

Meanwhile, the humble engineer that was responsible for the change in Armitech's status, Adelheid Stromm, had climbed the corporate ladder and became the new CEO, after ten years of preparation.

Today, Armitech reigns as one of the most important Euro-based Megacorporations that produce, manufacture, and distribute weaponry and cyber tech to both Security Corporations and Military Corporations.

GTT

Genetectic headquarters on Luna Colony, and branch office in Cocoon Station.
Corporation Genetectic
Branches Biotech; Medical
Year Founded 2488
Founder Ophelia Faith
Headquarters Luna Colony
Branch Offices Cocoon Station, CP11: New Texas Sea
Value 650 Billion Solcred

GTT is a mega corporation primarily involved in the biotech and medical industries. It is one of the mega-corps on cocoon, owning and managing the GTT Medical Pavilion it is a company that offers medical and cloning services, develops and produces Replicants, As well as manages and deploys Trauma Team first responder services.

Matsumoto

Matsumoto branch office in Luna Colony.
Corporation Matsumoto Zaibatsu
Branches Corporate Security; Mercenary Contracting; Arms and Tech Manufacturing
Year Founded 2435
Founder Kei Matsumoto
Headquarters New Edo
Branch Offices Luna Colony, Shin Tokyo, Se Seoul, Xin Beijing, Mega-LA
Key People Harada Matsumoto
Value 1.5 Trillion Solcred

The prestigious Matsumoto Zaibatsu is a New-Edo based megacorporation dealing in corporate security, cyberwar, and weapon manufacturing. Started in 2435 by Kei Matsumoto as a small organization that dealt with cybertech repairs. By 2437, Matsuda would start producing its own line of cyber tech and cybernetics in general (Optics, Neural Implants Surveillance, and Security systems, et cetera), Kei Matsumoto's philosophy would drive himself to work harder than his competitors and hoped to inspire others by his devotion. Matsumoto would play to win. In mid-2440's, Matsumoto would give a leap of faith and attempt their hand in nanotech, however, the still humble organization lacked the proper personnel and means to maintain nanotech afloat and suffered their first blow, that, added to other companies rising up and even catching up with them, forced Kei Matsumoto to consider other methods, in his mind, he had to win at all costs and one more failure wasn't an option.

Kei Matsumoto was always trying to keep ahead of the game and had a small network of spies, through this network, he caught wind that Armitech was salvaging working technology from Earth, the mythical Transcendence War-era tech could be a game-changer if done right, his son, Harada Matsumoto, would eventually work for Armitech and climb the corporate ladder until reaching a middle management position, not high enough to get him noticed, but high enough to get access to the secrets his father and his company desperately needed, the information Harada Matsumoto would obtain resulted in one of the biggest Corporate Espionage scandals in history, as Armitech and Matsumoto would face each other in Corporate Law Courthouses for several months until the case was handled privately and settled. However, the constant pressure would prove too much for Kei Matsumoto, and he would pass away due to cardiac complications, allowing for Harada Matsumoto to assume control of the corporation, and renaming it Matsumoto Zaibatsu, to reflect its new status.

With what Harada Matsumoto considered a victory over Armitech, his new vision was to also control Security Corporations in New Edo, putting himself at odds against Rising Sun Technologies, a Corporate Security Corporation that was rumored to be financed by the Asakura Gumi, a powerful criminal syndicate led by Asakura Shinnosuke. Eventually, Matsumoto Zaibatsu and Rising Sun Technologies would agree on territory distribution, as well as weaponry distribution from Matsumoto Zaibatsu. Today, the corporation remains an important weapons manufacturer and is one of the main pillars that sustain New Edo, with shady practices and even shadier management.

Section One

Corporation Special Projects Division: Section One
Branches N/A
Years Founded Early 2100s
Founder Dr. Paul Wolfe
Headquarters Earth at founding, N/A in present time
Branch Offices N/A
Key People Dr. Paul Wolfe, Adam Caine
Value N/A

The entity known as Special Projects Division: Section One was started by Dr. Paul Wolfe who, living in the volatile time before the outbreak of the Transcendence War, had created predictive models of the rising global tensions on Earth between the UN and CPN and saw that a catastrophic event was on the horizon that would either massively change or destroy Earth when it finally arrived. Seeing that neither the UN or CPN were taking definitive actions to prevent this cataclysmic event, and believing both too incompetent to even notice the creeping doom in their race towards global conflict, Dr. Wolfe and other like minded individuals at high levels converged together to form a group to oppose both the UN and CPN in an effort to thwart the approaching armageddon.

Working entirely as a clandestine fifth column group they pooled resources and began to an organized series of espionage, infiltration, and recruitment actions across both the UN and CPN controlled areas. Developing their own tech and research, and constructing their own bases, they undertook clandestine actions across the globe as escalations between the CPN and UN continued in an effort to stave off the coming calamity. Dr. Wolfe eventually realized as both the UN and CPN began to turn over global defense to AI that they could only delay what was coming with their actions, not prevent it, and decided to launch a new plan with tech they had developed: if they could not stop the war, they would outlive it. All Section One operatives were recalled and cloistered within their network of black site facilities where they intended to take advantage of prototype engramatic tech Section One had developed to store the consciousnesses of Section One operatives, backed up and saved within the massive storage facilities needed to house these primitive proto-engrams. By the time the Transcendence War had erupted fully the upper echelons of Section One had been successfully stored. However, with the tremendous scale of devastation wrought upon Earth over the course of the Transcendence War, coupled with seven decades of orbital nuclear bombardment from the Satellite Defense Network across the surface of the planet, communication between these facilities were knocked out and many of the engram storage facilities were irreparably damaged, leading to countless Section One engrams being permanently lost. In the long aftermath following the end of the Transcendence War, the staff still alive within the facilities in the Section One black site network rapidly dwindled. While intended to be able to maintain sufficient staffing levels through reproduction and facility tech in order to recall the rest of Section One after the horrors of the Transcendence War had passed, their lack of communication between facilities and numerous mishaps and failures lead to the scant remaining staff within the facilities to eventually succumb and die out, leaving no one to bring back what Section One engrams were in storage and the Section One facilities became tombs.

Later in the 2400s one of these facilities would be discovered in a joint venture between ARES, Armitech, Matsumoto, and NSI. Exploring the base they would discover the engram tech storage was intact and find Dr. Wolfe himself stored there. Spinning his engram up in virtual they would learn his plans, strategies, and technologies and deciding that they would continue the next stage of Section One's original plan they elected to reform Section One between the four of them, promising that once the four corps were established and a new society had been effectively enacted for the Sol System they would bring back Dr. Wolfe and continue the next stage of Section One's plan for humanity.

As the four megacorps would consolidate their power there were some doubts about New Geneva's viability as the promised head of the society needed in the outline of Dr. Wolfe's post-war plans and he was not recalled as originally intended, or indeed ever, as Adam Caine (ARES) ended up doubting that Dr. Wolfe would be a reasonable and predictable individual in the post-Transcendence War age and consigned Dr. Wolfe's engram to oblivion. Caine later would meet a supposed untimely end at Olympus Mons during a raid at the apex of the Martian War and in the years following his death Section One would appear once again defunct.

Then in 2494 following the events and attrition of the Fourth Call Incident, Adam Caine would reappear on the public stage in bombastic fashion announcing his faked death and the reconsolidation of Section One's presence, with one of their first acts to be the dissolvement of New Geneva, citing their failure as humanity's needed steward in their short sighted pursuit of greed and power for power's own sake. Section One now sits as the de facto authority for the Sol System.

Vulca Group

A Vulca Group branch office that was once established in X-17, Earth.
Corporation Vulca Group
Branches Urban Development; Arms and Tech Manufacturing; Mercenary Contracting
Year Founded 2217
Founder Edward Volk
Headquarters Magna Rome
Branch Offices X-17 Earth, New London
Key People Reginald Volk; Cecil Hawkwood
Value 650 Billion Solcred

Vulca Group grew out of the expansion of Habitat-0419. When the many corporations of the era banded together to fund the expansion of the hub, Edward Volk formed an alliance with fellow CEO's James Hawkwood and Ludwig Sterz. Between the three of them, their companies had a mastery of energy production, manufacturing, and urban development that placed them at the forefront of the project, earning them massive financial gains, the ire of competitors across the board, and a healthy bit of scrutiny under the New Geneva organization.

Ultimately, their success granted them the resources for aggressive business practices, as they developed a reputation for only working with equally powerful companies and cannibalizing the rest whenever possible. Rumor has it that these practices are supported by a clandestine espionage wing, however, investigation after investigation has turned up little more than negative publicity. This leads to their rebranding under the name of Vulca Group, as they expanded from energy and urban development into weapons and biotechnology with targeted acquisitions.

In the present day, their products line the streets of most cities, from street lights and waste disposal systems to prefabricated megaplexes and custom skyscrapers. In the meanwhile, their weapons find their way into the hands of private militaries, gangsters and solos, often under the names of one of their subsidiaries. Currently, the company is at the forefront of reclaiming many of the more hellish ruins on Earth, profiting from their role as gatekeepers to its many remaining resources. Many speculate that they're combing the ruins for lost technologies, heedless to the disasters that displaced mankind in the first place.

Defunct

AICHI Intersolar

Corporation AICHI Intersolar
Branches PMC services, military augmentations, and combat synthetics
Years Founded Early 2480s, Ended 2488
Headquarters Shin-Tokyo
Key People Jeanne Y. Aichi

AICHI Intersolar was founded by Jeanne Y. Aichi in the 2480s with initial corporate offerings in PMC services paired with R&D and sales for military cybernetics and combat synthetics. AICHI was awarded the lucrative security contract for Cocoon Station which further bolstered their coffers and prominence, however this wouldn't last as it became evident that AICHI was unable to fulfill the demands of the contract. From rising crime on Cocoon station that lead to numerous run-ins with the Twin Dragons, a string of pirate raids on ships to and from Cocoon station that saw millions of creds of property and needed supplies being lost, to an attack on AICHI's own headquarters on Cocoon station by unknown forces, the public became increasingly frustrated with the lack of AICHI's progress in maintaining peace on the station and outcries for change began to become more vocal. This displeasure eventually lead to Cocoon Corp revoking AICHI's security contract, causing AICHI to sell off their holdings on the station and withdraw back to Shin-Tokyo where they would fail to regain their previous place of prominence and fade from the corporate landscape.

ATS (Arboria Tactical Systems)

Corporation Arboria Corporation
Branches Eugenics, Genetics, Biotech, Synthetic Manufacture, PMC services
Years Founded Early 2480s, Ended 2489
Headquarters Utopia
Key People Jean-Claude Hyde, A.T.S. AI system, Coraline Sirius

The Arboria Corporation started out in Utopia as a biotech manufacturer focusing on eugenics and genetics. Establishing a presence on Cocoon station in Sector 3 in the old AICHI building during the late 2480s, Arboria Corp continued to sink massive amounts of funding into their principle biotech projects even as they began to expand into security to supplement development of their biotech markets, and soon found themselves caught up in the brewing tensions that existed on the station between the disadvantaged of Sectors 1 and 2 and the dominant corporate powers of the time. This lead to a significant escalation when a terrorist bomb attack was carried out against Arboria Tower, the aftermath of which prompted Arboria Corporation to dispense ATS (Arboria Tactical Systems) to the station to enforce order with the permission of Cocoon Corp to grant them the security contract for Sectors 3 and 4 on the station.

Newly entrenched, Arboria Tactical Systems began to take draconian measures on the station to enforce their law and made the Twin Dragons their principle focus, further igniting tensions that lead to many more violent clashes with Twin Dragon members and the residents of Sectors 1 and 2. This pattern of incited incidents would eventually reach a fever pitch with an all-out raid on ATS's tower in Sector 3 by the Twin Dragons. In the wake of this attack Cocoon Corp would announce in partnership with New Geneva that ATS's contract would expand to all levels of Sectors 3 and 4, expanding into all Sectors as new reinforcements of militarized forces reached the station along with a cadre of drones capable of facial-scanning foot traffic to identify known Twin Dragon members and those who appeared to be Twin Dragons by aesthetics for immediate targeting and elimination. Shortly after the new forces were deployed ATS was able to successfully flip a hacker into revealing the location of the Twin Dragon's headquarters where ATS staged a raid of their own and carried out a pogrom of the group, wiping them entirely out.

Following this victory Arboria Corporation elected to extract themselves from Cocoon station, leaving ATS to operate without their support as Cocoon's police force. However this state of affairs would only last a short time as Arboria suffered a significant economic collapse when investors pulled out en masse owing to the lack of any significant development in their Biotech programs and lack of promised dividends during their security actions on Cocoon station, and Arboria sold off their assets to pay off incoming debts, ATS itself being sold to Armitech who rebranded ATS into Armitech Private Defense and took over the security contract for Cocoon station.

Armitech Private Defense (APD)

Corporation Armitech
Branches Corporate Security and Policing for Cocoon Station
Years Founded 2489, Ended 2490
Headquarters Sector 3, Cocoon
Key People Miwa Hiraki

Armitech Private Defense (APD) was formed with the rebranding of ATS following their buyout by Armitech. While APD represented stability after the troubles of ATS's time, their tenure on Cocoon would prove a near repeat of ATS's era. Where ATS dealt with public outcry over synth rights and the crime wave of the Twin Dragons, APD would have to contend with public outcry over mutant rights and crime from the Hidden Demons.

Halfway into its first year APD would promote Miwa Hiraki to Director to helm the division, who would prove tenacious with her enforcement of corporate law on the station as she navigated emerging threats from the terrorist Megabyte and increased violence from mutants. When political commentator Blade Storm was attacked by mutants New Geneva would pass the Extremely Violent Instinct Lost Act (E.V.I.L Act) in response, requiring all mutants in the Sol System by law to submit to registration and monitoring for any sign of anticorporate sentiment or aggression. Demonstrations and more conflict would arise in conjunction with expansions by the Hidden Demons in Sector 2, who used the E.V.I.L. Act in their propaganda to message against corporate authority.

The flashpoint would soon come at a demonstration at APD headquarters when the crowd turned violent and APD responded with superior violence. The mob suffered multiple casualties including the destruction of their leader, a synth whose death triggered a bomb countdown. A lone APD agent would take the remains and jump a level down to spare the crowd from the explosion. Livestreaming of this event by someone in the mob over the ShadowNET would cause riots across the Sol System with even greater pacification from security forces.

While Director Hiraki's decisions and leadership would be viewed favorably during the riot, APD would fall under scrutiny four months later as a mass exodus of agents from the division occurred with rumors of whistleblower reports of problems with leadership and it wouldn't take long before Director Hiraki was put on administrative leave, four days later Armitech Head Adelheid Stromm would make a public address stating APD and all its holdings had been sold to a confidential buyer as well as announcing the termination of Miwa Hiraki as Director, calling her the wrong person for the job and stating the sale of APD would never have been allowed to go through with her as its lead.

New Geneva

New Geneva headquarters.
Corporation New Geneva
Branches Governing; Law; Banking; Arms Manufacturing
Year Founded Early 2200s, Ended 2494
Headquarters New Geneva
Key People Michael Nikolaidis

As the flames of the Transcendence War died out, the fledgling remnants of humanity started to rebuild. As they began strategizing for the future it was obvious that a forum for governing the scattered habitats was necessary. Habitat-0419 was a small, but a centralized hub for traffic during this rebuilding and colonization phase. It became a neutral meeting place for several corporate leaders. They all pitched in to expand this platform and build a permanent meeting space, changing the name to New Geneva. The name became synonymous with the new governing corp.

Thanks to mutual support by its member organizations, NG boasted a large standing military. This was used to step in if corporate conflicts got out of hand. The New Geneva council voted to impose and enforce economic sanctions against a wayward corp, enforced with the aid of SolBank. SolBank backs a common currency, and NG made and enforced regulations that governed interactions between the corps. The ban on Omega AIs, limits on the number of troops and types of weapons corps that could be had/used, and other prescriptions all came from the NG.

But as history would retell itself, much like the fate of the CPN, and the UN before it, corruption and complacency took over New Geneva, and instead of being the beacon to guide humanity, it became an iron fist, a ruthless form of governance that created two polar opposites: Those who had everything, and those who had nothing.

Michael Nikolaidis, who served most of his life under New Geneva and had been serving as Elder Councilor tried to preserve the principles that once made New Geneva a shining light, but he had failed.

Mr. Nikolaidis stepped down from New Geneva, leading to it being officially disbanded on April 4th, 2494. Megacorporations who owned planets, space stations, colonies, or sky cities now acted as their respective governing bodies, with Section One set to oversee them.

The new Section One was now comprised of ARES, Armitech, Matsumoto, and NSI to relinquish the hold New Geneva once had over corporations. Equal rights would be promoted for everyone, regardless of their status as Synths, Mutants, or Replicants. Workers no longer had to sign away their lives to loyalty clauses ensuring they remained in a corporation for decades. Improvements for fairer work shifts, healthcare plans, bonuses, and vacation days for employees.

For the most part, any denizen or citizen could now live towards prosperity with New Geneva gone, Section One overseeing and ensuring governing Megacorporations would uphold their promised freedoms and fairness.

Sugiura Tactech (STT)

Sugiura TacTech logo by Kat0Daze.
Sugiura TacTech logo by Kat0Daze.
Corporation Sugiura Taclinear Technologies LTD.
Branches Metal Alloy Production; Conventional Weaponry; Aftermarket Tech; Vehicle Tuning; Cyberware
Year Founded 2480
Headquarters Shin Tokyo
Key People Matsu Sugiura

Sugiura TacTech is the small company in Shin Tokyo that specializes in metal alloy research as well as weapon and cyberware aftermarket tech as a close second. With partnerships made in bigger corporate entities, such as Genetectic and presumably Matsumoto, this allowed the company to not only remain afloat, but flourish from its quality and backing despite being an obscure name.

Some of this company's tech can be recognized in certain upgrades, mostly now only found in the black markets.

This company's first partnership at around 2485 with Genetectic fostered its stability as well as its ability to manufacture at a much higher degree of quality. The terms of this partnership were to aid in the production of high-quality components and metal alloy that would aid in their project for Replicant creation. With this contract being successfully fulfilled soon after, this would ensure Sugiura's business and individual projects.

By then, Sugiura TacTech had continued what they have been better noted for. One focus included tech for ground-vehicle and AV tuning on certain models. Its co-focus was toward aftermarket weapon mods and cyberware tech, including upgrades in mechanisms, software, and non-mass-produced metals. This business would continue from 2486 to 2493.

This would soon also catch the attention of Matsumoto Corporation in early 2494, following a corpo-gathering event which showcased prototype cyberware that had been created independently, which stood out from their reputation of aftermarket technology. An agreement would be made by both companies, in which its details were not disclosed, but would ensure Sugiura TacTech's soon-to-be rapid rise. Sugiura TacTech would continue developing aftermarket weapon and cyberware tech as a primary at this time.

However, during late 2494, the lights in the Sugiura TacTech's sign and building were seen shut off during one night, which was the last time its lights would be on again. Few weeks later would see the company building foreclosed, and no trace of its owners. Former customers have speculated the reason for its collapse, but the true reason was never brought to light.