old corporations

ABOVE: fragment of a star map from the time of the Old Corporations, retrieved from the Nanax Mainframe.

No one is sure about the number of the Old Corporations - probably there were hundreds of them. The numbers were constantly fluctuating because of mergers, wars and other means of dissolving and destruction. But over one thousand years had passed and many records were lost.

It's a well-known fact that their level of technology far exceeded things we have access to. Almost everything we possess now is based on the Old Corp technology - but things are much more simplified than in the past. Also, entire branches of science had died off since the Last Corporate War.

And about the Last Corporate War - it was the largest conflict in mankind's history. Thousand of warships were destroyed, populations of entire planets were decimated, coordinates allowing access to entire sectors were lost forever. Some scholars even claim that the Earth was destroyed during the War.

Even about 200 years ago, during the Days of Ascension, when the Primary Vectors were established, explorers were still stumbling upon some Old Corporations relics - abandoned stations in obscure systems, derelict ships, planetary research outposts. Entire wars broke out over some of these discoveries (eg. the Fridge War, reportedly fought over a refrigerator technology retrieved from some Old Corp cache). Nowadays everything seems to be either already discovered or hidden so well that we may never find it. Or just destroyed because of cosmic events. Or ground to dust by time itself.

AKIMZERIS - unknown
AUPH - propulsion
BETIS - mining
HVEROD - cybernetics
KATHODOS - shipyards
LODELTJAN - stations
MARE - unknown
MUTZARH - unknown
NAWSLER - unknown
NOIM - military tech
NUANNIR - unknown
NYX - biotech
RAES - unknown
SOLARFLARE - weaponry
THARSIS - communications
VYLEX - shipyards
ZAXARN - masks (???)
ZOTIA - biotech

The Last Corporate War has left the enormous cluster of destroyed star systems - or even entire sectors that were depopulated. They are now known as Dead Worlds. 

there's something there