PrattCo Conglomerate

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Overview

Without a doubt, the PrattCo Conglomerate, also known as the PCC, was the single largest corporate entity in the history of Santa Barbara, at one time including the entire population of Santa Barbara.

Built on the cunning political maneuvers of the Pratt Dynasty, a seemingly endless series of wise investments gave unprecedented power to the original core-company of PrattCo. Combined with Bob's presidency of the then-time socialist nationstate, the rise of the Conglomerate seemed like an inevitable monopoly - and was hailed as such at the time. However, there was a darker side to the PCC, one that brought it to transformation and finally destruction.

The Rise

PrattCo had become so powerful as to blatantly dominate all independent corporations in the nation, spanning vast interconnected territories consisting of "multicorps within multicorps," leading the development, research, production of all major technological, commerical and industrial products by a huge margin. At the same time, the United Socialist States government itself had become just one more entity within a collection of entities, another consumer, another producer. Although the raw power and influence of the USSSB had not been diminished directly, it had become completely dependent on, and ultimately a part of, PrattCo as it was under the presidence of Bob Pratt. With the secession of the nation of Santa Barbara from the GDODAD, it soon became clear that all economic and social might was concentrated in the hands of PrattCo.

It was in this atmosphere of consolidation that PrattCo became the PrattCo Conglomerate, or PCC. In an exceedingly short time, drastic changes were made in the governmental structure of Santa Barbara.

Organizationally, it was conceived as a supranational governing authority under which both corporate and state bodies would exist. Bob Pratt himself became CEO of the PCC, and actually gave up the presidency of Santa Barbara to his brother, Toby (he later appeared to have taken back the position officially and quietly.)

The Plateau

Under the new order, states, including Santa Barbara's territories, were the somewhat-autonomous tools of the PCC, given rights at self-government but owing full allegiance to the PCC. Government leaders were given positions in the Command (also referred to as Central) District along with subconglomerate multicorps.

The key and distinctive feature of the PCC was, however, that states and corporations were now legally and politically viewed in the same light, neither better than the other. This viewpoint outlasted the PCC itself, as well as it's immediate successor-states, the Federal Government and the CoFedCo.

The Fall

While the PCC was totally and completely unchallenged in it's maximally isolationist foreign affairs, power struggles within doomed the mighty "The Conglomerate" before it had even begun. An ancient rivalry between Bob and his brother Toby Pratt is rumored to have been the initial cause for strife at the executive level.

Whatever the causes, Bob had his brother executed after a failed military coup. The youngest of the Pratt Dynasty was Suzy Jo, who was also the first of them to die, to a drive-by assassination attempt during Santa Barbara's GDODAD years. With both siblings now dead on the path to power, Bob is reported to have descended into madness in his final years, leaving more and more of the running of the Conglomerate in the hands of Chairman of the PCC Board (and President of the Federal Government), Heinrid Abadas.

After Bob's death by gunshot (although Montecitan Prime Minister Troy Pon was charged and executed for the crime, later evidence revealed the findings may have been inconclusive), Abadas finally dissolved the Conglomerate.

Epilogue

Despite this, the megacorporate entities of the TNE were too powerful to be ignored by the ruling authorities of the nation, and Abadas's attempt to re-instate government rule by fiat under the Federal Government was short-lived. He was more successful at merging the concepts of the PCC and a democratic national government in the CoFedCo, but even this new 'Conglomerate' contained within it every one of the major megacorps of the previous.

A key difference, though, was the democratization of the government process, which in the CoFedCo meant that the megacorps were not semi-autonomous subfranchises of a private conglomerate, but dispersed, sovereign states of a republic, with more - and increasing - levels of autonomy.