User:Pandorym/TerraTek Corporation

Early Years
TerraTek Corporation was officially created in 2487 by David Albright, the son of a billionaire who wished to live up to his father's legacy. Along with Albright's other two companies, Manaus Industrial Corporation and Betriebskrankenkasse, it formed the core of the young man's business and sealed his continued fortunes. It was the third of the three companies, designed to procure raw materials for the other two (Manaus Industrial in particular). By 2490, however, it was successful enough to outgrow this role, becoming a company that sold to the public rather than a hanger-on of other businesses. It grew rapidly over the next decade, and its survey ships were the first to discover new systems in more cases than one (examples include the planet Negev). During the first fifteen years of its operation it grew from granting less than 1/48th of Albright's income to granting a full 1/3rd. By 2524 the amount of income it received and the amount of personnel it employed had more than tripled, outstripping Betriebskrankenkasse in profits.

Human-Covenant War
While the other two companies profited immensely when the war began, TerraTek officials suddenly discovered a host of locations that had become too dangerous for their operations to continue. Men and women drafted into the UNSC fleet left the company, and replacements often proved inept. Profits hit a record low as more and more mining sites were closed down as classified military staging areas or fell to the Covenant. To combat these problems Albright drew on his financial clout and began a series of aggressive buyouts, purchasing smaller mining companies and taking over their sites. This proved effective, causing a return to almost the former level of income. When the war ended and old sites opened back up, company officials reasoned, profits would skyrocket.

These optimistic theories were made before the true length of the war was realized. After several years no end was in sight, but things began to look up for TerraTek regardless. UNSC shipyards began to purchase vast quantities of metal from them at a steady rate, resulting in extra income at the expense of less materials for the corporation's sister companies. As the years continued to pass the amounts going to the shipyards steadily increased, to the point where they were practically the company's sole client. Survey ships desperately sought unclaimed planets that might not be discovered by the aliens crashing through the galaxy in destructive waves, but a world that met those specifications often had poor resources. In 2536, however, a solution was uncovered: a vast asteroid belt in remote, sunless space between UNSC and Covenant territories.

By exploiting this new resource TerraTek managed to keep up with the demands of all those they supplied, and as the conflict continued to escalate profits rose. The location of these resources was kept secret in order to ensure a lack of pirates and corporate competition. In 2544, however, Covenant forces discovered the poorly-defended mining complex and launched an attack, forcing a hasty evacuation to adjacent uninhabited systems in order to avoid breaching the Cole Protocol. All of the ships assigned to the area eventually returned to Earth safely. The loss of the field, however, had far greater consequences. TerraTek was once again forced to return to supporting only the UNSC fleet, and with governmental cash reserves dwindling it seemed the company might sink once and for all.

By the time of the Battle of the Ark in 2553, which officially ended the Human-Covenant War and Covenant Civil War (as well as the Second Flood Infestation), TerraTek was all but belly-up. It lost a number of production facilities when portions of Africa were glassed by the Covenant Separtists, and suddenly the UNSC fleets no longer required quite so much metal. Once again the aging Albright was forced to dip into his coffers, pulling the company back up fast enough to restore the funds he had spent on it by the time he died in 2556. Following his death the company was managed by a board of directors Albright had appointed from among the more competent managers.

Post-Covenant War
TerraTek remained an important player in the mining scene for may years after the war ended, though concerns about its inability to efficiently support its sister company Manaus Industrial eventually caused it to be merged with that company (though it retained its independent board of directors). It operated as its own branch of the larger company, and continued to be something of a legend in the business scene as a group that had managed to survive some of the most difficult years the UNSC ever faced.