Fulmin Propulsion

The Fulmin Propulsion Corporation, or more simply Fulmin, is a relatively young corporate entity by Umbrian standards. It was founded in 31121 by a number of disaffected engineers from Serlume Stellar Engineering, who were fed up with the bureaucratization and sclerotic decision making of their parent company.

Confident that they could out innovate and out compete their former employer, they were quickly able to start accruing market share in the civilian freight market. Their success was bolstered by their commitment to efficiency and a willingness to try new approaches and learn from their failures.

Bolstered by their success in the highly profitable long haul segment, Fulmin began to expand. Before long it began to steal away military contracts from Serlume. Its board would also issue a mission statement outlining the organization's ultimate goal: creating their own supra-luminal array.

Serlume had taken an imperious approach to the young company's growth, essentially ignoring the startup's existence entirely. However, the announcement of Fulmin's intention to build their own faster-than-light propulsion system would snap them out of their self-imposed stupor. More worrisome, rumors began to swirl that Fulmin was making quick progress on the initial theoretical work, and that it was only a matter of time before they'd achieve a breakthrough.

Serlume decided that they needed to take action, or risk losing out on their position as industry leader. Their onslaught was sudden and overwhelming, and it caught Fulmin completely by surprise.

Serlume filed suit in a number of jurisdictions across the Republic, alleging that Fulmin had violated patents on sub-components and other IP in order to jump start their business. Industry experts were shocked by the breadth of the claims, some of which seemed especially specious and even in a few cases blatantly hypocritical.

Knowing that their giant competitor would draw out proceedings as long as possible, and therefore cause the maximum amount of financial distress, Fulmin decided to take a different approach.

While it attempted to rebuff their competitor's legal challenges, the company went on the offensive in the court of public opinion. Fulmin quickly demonstrated the superiority of their products over Serlume's, and spared no expense in painting their competitor as an infirm relic of prior glories, who used their dominant position to sell inferior goods and muscle out any competition.

This campaign was very effective, and soon talk of an anti-trust investigation began to circulate in the Senate. Sensing that they'd over played their hand, Serlume pulled back on their attacks.

In a surprising move, the two companies agreed to arbitration. Fulmin foreswore any further development into supra-light propulsion for a period of fifty years, and Serlume withdrew their IP disputes without seeking financial compensation. While the official outcome resolved the legal disputes between the two, the parties also secretly agreed to carve out specific focus markets for each as well.

While this initially settled tensions between the two, Fulmin continued to expand in the sub-light industry, and it pressed the bounds of the informal agreements the firms had committed to. By the time the Ascomanni War began, the two had achieved parity in presence in the market.

Seeing opportunity, Fulmin would heavily leverage its assets to expand, developing new manufacturing facilities to feed the growing Republic Navy and merchant marine. Most of the ship classes designed after the start of hostilities featured Fulmin's engines, further cementing their place in the industry and providing a springboard for future growth.