Largely considered the “brains” of the Big Four members of The Contract, Ephemeris Engineering designed the outward expansion of humanity into the Solar System. Ephemeris, along with its subsidiaries and subcontractors, has built every ship, station, piece of equipment in the Solar System. It remains the largest customer of Qinlin Mining, with whom it started The Contract.
Company History and Culture:
Ephemeris Engineering was the brain child of three aerospace entrepreneurs, each extremely successful in other fields before creating the space design behemoth. Incorporated in 2025, Ephemeris has only limited operations on Earth. Nearly every office, spacedock, and repair yard exist off-planet. Its primary headquarters remains in outer Earth orbit, holding enough facilities to produce fifty-two medium-sized ships, and seven medium-sized portable space stations each year.
It maintains a significant facility near Ceres Station to provide support for mining operations through the Asteroid Belt. This facility primarily produces equipment and space station modules.
Ephemeris maintains a second headquarters at Ephemeris Station orbiting Io. That facility produces most of Ephemeris’s large vessels and custom facilities necessary in the outer system.
Each of the other Big Four rely heavily on Ephemeris. Qinlin Mining requires Ephemeris both as a supplier of equipment and as a major customer. All Sakdo Transportation vessels are made by Ephemeris. L2H maintains a strained relationship with Ephemeris, however, who will not subcontract with L2H personnel. However, L2H is a major customer for Ephemeris’s facility construction program, and L2H personnel routinely service Ephemeris equipment.
While a few companies have been able to carve niches constructing particular pieces of equipment or systems, these boutique firms are unable to challenge Ephemeris on any significant scale. Despite its monopoly, Ephemeris regularly demonstrates a willingness to place exploration and settlement above profit. As the primary proponent of the Gemini generation-ship program, it received virtually no income after constructing the largest and most complicated craft in human history.
Its structure divides into three operations: Ephemeris Fleet, Ephemeris Facility, and Ephemeris Support. At the time of the Hetarek Invasion, its executives included:
- Chief Executive Officer, Ephemeris Engineering: Chad Illony
- General Counsel, Ephemeris Engineering: Marius Shay
- President, Ephemeris Fleet: Madeline Poitier
- President, Ephemeris Facility: Eliza McGutchen
- President, Ephemeris Support: Mike Bombardi
Ephemeris remains the only of the Big Four to retain most of its structure and operations following the Hetarek Invasion
Products:
Guppy: A super-transport capable of hauling a large number of goods in long-distance transit between the inner system and the outer planets. These vessels, constructed at Ephemeris Station near Io, are the workhorses of long-range transportation throughout the System.
Skipjack: A medium transport that balances speed, crew comfort, and cargo capacity.
Flounder: A short-distance, light transport capable of entry into light atmospheres. One of the few ships made by Ephemeris capable of landing.
Mako: A light, fast ship designed exclusively to carry a very small number of people. Used primarily by the Article 32 Contract Enforcement Special Agents, they can also be used as light executive transports.
Marlin: An extremely fast courier vessel. These ships are capable of landing, but have no artificial gravity, virtually no crew comforts, and carry only a single pilot with either one passenger or a very small amount of cargo. Widely praise for their speed and design, they have gained almost romantic status. Designed by the legendary engineer Madeline Poitier.
Quinalt: A light utility transport, produced originally for transportation in Earth’s atmosphere to connect with the Hub in low Earth orbit, these small craft became used heavily by the military during the Corporate War and thereafter.
Petrel: The first craft produced by Ephemeris primarily for military application, it is a two-person heavy fighter capable of atmospheric entry. Originally conceived by legendary designer and then-executive Madeline Poitier as a medium, high-speed transport to fill the space for courier missions too large for a Marlin It carries several heavy warheads, lasers, and a projectile cannon. Ephemeris designed this in response to the development of the Corporate War.