The Callisto Agreement
The transformation of The Pleiades Corporation from a mere economic entity to a ruling entity began with the Hostile Takeover in 2066, and continued through the next three decades, ending in 2102 with the Callisto Agreement. After the Hostile Takeover ended in 2071, the corporation took a more subtle, and far more economical, approach to replacing political governments. This policy, sometimes called the Merger Policy, involved manipulating economic interactions with a particular entity until that entity was no longer able to easily pay debts, then agreeing to absorb or cancel those debts in return for certain laws which were then used to replace the pre-existing government with corporate control. The proved immensely successful, and by the late 2090's only three major governments remained in existence. The Planetary Republic of Independent Mars, or PRIM, was an unusual case in that it began as a corporate facility, but was granted independence in 2073 as part of a settlement agreement with a coalition of the largest nations of earth. On Earth the Honorable Republic of China, named for the most ancient of its constituent peoples, remained one of the most populous nations with almost a billion residents. On the other side of the planet the United States of the Americas, born of the former USA and most of both North and South America, remained a military and economic powerhouse. The wildcard was Luna, officially an independent nation, Luna was so dominated by Corporate Executives that few even knew Luna had a government.
In the last decade of the twenty first century, The Pleiades Corporation began movement to finally remove the last vestiges of political governments, correctly reasoning that the persistence of these puppet governments was nothing more than an opportunity for unrest. All of the remaining governments, Mars, USA, and China, were mere window dressing over a foundation of Corporate Policy by this time, and had no real independence or power. In 2102 the leaders of these governments were summoned to the corporate facility on Callisto, where a treaty was negotiated to end their nominal sovereignty and turn their nations over entirely to Corporate control. The leaders of these nations were surprised to see Luna representatives as well, and the treaty had provisions for Luna, which few even realized had remained nominally independent. The leaders negotiated for months, not to prevent this "merger", but to improve their personal outcomes; recognizing there was no point denying the reality that their nations had actually ceased to exist some years before. The agreement held several surprises, however, and these changed the course of human events in significant ways. The first was a provision that any national citizens of these regions were immediately unemployed and required to apply, or reapply, for employment with The Pleiades Corporation within one month, or be subject to social and economic sanction as Unemployed. The second was a provision that reiterated Luna's independence as a protectorate of the corporation, leaving Luna as the only political government in existence; something that seemed contrary to the goals of the agreement. Finally, the wealthiest and most powerful among these nations, rather than becoming Corporate Executives as most expected, were fired, joining the ranks of the unemployed. The most egregious provision, however, and the one that led to the most anger and strife in the years that followed, was the provision that granted immense benefits and wealth to the signatories and their lieutenants, and enabled them to fade into retirement. This, in every practical sense, sale of their nations to a corporate tyrant overlord with the citizens treated merely as assets to sweeten the deal, made it obvious why these individuals sought retirement and anonymity. In the end the full agreement laid the groundwork for not only the strife of the first three decades of the new century, but also prepared humanity for the recovery and hegemony that followed.
Major Effects
In the Callisto Agreement, the practical effect was that the last free nations were sold as property and the citizens were merely part of the deal, which left all three nations with more unemployed than ever and severely crippled economically and socially for over a generation. Few could make sense of the purpose of these harsh measures, and they had far reaching consequences. The provision regarding application for employment created massive unemployment, which was a major factor in the Unemployment Riots that began four years later. The exclusion of Luna as a protectorate, which retained an elected political puppet government, left this as the only functioning form of governance in the solar system after the Great Grieving in 2128-2135. The ending of the Martian independence, hard won and fiercely defended, led to astounding levels of underground activity in the Martian hives, and this provided the seeds of industrial recovery three decades later. Perhaps the largest effect was simply that there was no major differentiation left throughout the Solar System; so little, in fact, that after the Great Grieving and Reconstruction there was no real thought of creating new nations in 2040 and all of humanity was ruled through the highly bureaucratic, but functional, government of Luna, with the "elections" limited entirely to Luna residents.
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