Musashi Industrial and Starflight Concern

History
The Musashi Industrial & Starflight Concern (MISC) was formed in 2805 in an arranged business merger between the failing Hato Electronics Corporation and the Musashi Lifestyle Design Unit spinoff of Acorn Limited. The merger made smart use of Hato’s extensive network of large-scale production facilities and Musashi’s reputation for design genius. MISC is based on Saisei in the Centauri System. Corporate offices are located there, as well as an impressive central dealership facility that is fully open to the public. MISC is also known for their especially ergonomic factories, with every spacecraft piece assembled robotically with expert precision. Fully modular, identical production lines have been established on dozens of worlds.

For most of the concern’s history, the majority of business has come from the production output of their heavy industrial division. MISC-HI is responsible for a range of configurable bulk transport spacecraft which are ubiquitous in UEE space. These sturdy, modular hulls are the basis for the majority of human corporate shipping. Their unexpected popularity among the Xi’An has spawned an unlikely business relationship (and a string of imitators on the other side of the border). Four standard hulls are mass produced, ranging in size from the efficient MISC-A to the gargantuan MISC-D.

MISC is the only Human spacecraft corporation to sign a lendlease agreement with the Xi’An, agreed to in a closed-door conference in 2910. Although the actual specifics of the deal have remained a tightly-held trade secret, insiders suggest that Xi’An technology has played heavily into Freelancer development, while seemingly Xi’An-produced MISC-D hulls are becoming an increasingly common site at border outposts. Wilder rumors claim that MISC’s next line of spacecraft will begin to incorporate Xi’An thruster technologies adapted for use in their Human craft.

In recent years, MISC has funneled profits from their corporate line into the development of two spacecraft that are nominally marked for personal use, the Freelancer and Starfarer. These spacecraft are aimed to compete in a crowded marketplace against heavyweights like Roberts Space Industries and Drake Interplanetary. Nevertheless, a carefully managed business plan and the one-two punch of a generalized private craft (the Freelancer) and a role-specific niche ship (the Starfarer) have found overwhelming success for the company in this arena.