| “ | -Well, I know EnTrOx doesn't have a particularly good reputation.... -Particularly good? I'm told that there are two or three people in all Aqua that like the Company, and one of them is the boss. |
” |
| ~ Bob Kramer and Emerald Flint |
||
EnTrOx is one of the major power players in Aqua, a megacorporation with no peer. After the conflict with Conductator Long in 2135, the former international monitoring and research station on the Straits of Florida became a government agency under the direction of the Atlantic Federation in 2142, and was christened EnTrOx (Energy-Transport-Oxygen). The tasks of the EnTrOx Company were to find a solution to the long-standing problems concerning the reaction of breathing gases when placed under high-pressure conditions as well as securing a worldwide supply of fusion energy.
The headquarters of the now international company is the Atlantic near Florida, in the Straits of Florida. The Gulf Stream (now unable to flow on the surface) has moved into the depths and creates an enormous current there, which seems to be made for the production of energy. It is similar to another EnTrOx branch in the Denmark Strait, where a deep-sea waterfall, 1000 m high, carries millions of cubic liters of water per second.
History[]
| “ | EnTrOx was not only the largest and most powerful concern in the world. It is also aware of the responsibility that this circumstance entails. Thus for us, moderate price-setting is just as important as breathing and trading are to human rights. Here at EnTrOx we take pains to ensure that people can exercise these rights. | ” |
n the year 2105, the three great power blocs of Aqua, i.e. the Indian-Arab Alliance, the North Pacific League and the North Atlantic League founded a supernational and largely independent commission. The commission concentrated on the development of new energy technologies, transportation possibilities and methods of producing breathing gas. A team of engineers and scientists worked intensively on the optimizing of the still-new nuclear fusion technology under the leadership of Alexander Chang, one of the close confederates of the future Conductator Long Guiwen.
Other workgroups were founded in the years following. The representatives of the Indian-Arab Aquatorium pressed for the development of new reliable rapid transportation systems that would make worldwide trade easier. At the same time, scientists of the Atlantic Federation concentrated on optimizing the techniques for producing breathing gas.
In the year 2135, the Conductate in the North Pacific broke with the International Convention For Monitoring The Production Of Energy By Nuclear Fusion that was agreed on in 2106, by developing fusion reactors on its own and erecting them in its Aquatorium.
This heavy handedness destroyed the project as an international affair. The Clans Union threatened to withdraw all the scientists and fruits of their research and although problems with the incompatibility of the customary breathing-gas mixture kept cropping up, the commission broke apart. The difficulties with rapid transportation underwater, sufficient production of food and energy as well as the many technical problems in mining were also unresolved. From 2142 on, the research station in the Florida Strait was nothing more than an arm of the Atlantic Federation.
Energy-Transportation-Oxygen, or EnTrOx for short, as this authority was named, worked initially with astonishing efficiency. Up to the year 2200, licenses were sold all over the world for the production of nuclear-fusion energy. In addition the manufacture of Helinox breathing gas was made possible by the development of an entirely new inert gas (Helium-17). The manufacturer of this breathing gas is a secret that has been guarded up to the present day. With it, all the negative side effects of the breathing gases could be avoided. The life expectancy of the inhabitants of Aqua increased by leaps and bounds. Eventually even the monarchical Shogunate could not get along without buying into EnTrOx, which was therefore soon under international control. The Atlantic Federation opposed this viewpoint and found itself prepared to agree, in the Breathing Gas Convention of 2213, to validate licensing contracts in which being supplied with Helinox was laid down as an international right.
As a result, EnTrOx buildings that were regarded as extraterritorial zones sprouted everywhere in Aqua and from them EnTrOx supplied the stations of the world with breathing gas. To guarantee these production locales and to protect the concern from plant espionage, the authority quickly established a hi-tech police unit called EnTrOx-Pol.
EnTrOx remained an arm of the Atlantic Federation and in order to maintain sole control over it, the Federation had to agree not to make any profit from Helinox.
This last condition led to EnTrOx being inflated into an enormous bureaucracy that had the sole purpose of using up the profits that accrued in spite of all the contracts and price controls. A mechanism was soon set in motion that made a cumbersome monster out of EnTrOx. Every research proposal was sifted through mountains of rules and regulations for so long that in the end nothing more remained of it, until Leo Van der Waal came along
This man can be regarded today as the greatest economic genius of all time. Not only for ending the 200-year-old stagnation of the Atlantic Federation but for saving EnTrOx for the good of humanity. Eventually EnTrOx went public through political means. The 'Van der Waal' trust located in Neopolis 20 acquired a monopoly of the shares between 2545 and 2557 and made itself and EnTrOx an internationally independent corporation in the Florida Strait, March 12, 2565.
The power blocs thought they were helpless in the face of this coup, inasmuch as Leo Van der Waal, with the breathing gas, had the existence of Aqua in his hand. People with negative views were of the opinion that he really would have made use of this power to protect his interests. Once in private hands, the image of EnTrOx changed rapidly. Van der Waal could afford to pay the best scientists in the world with the profits from the production of Helinox. The rewards were soon to arrive. Building on the results that had drowned in the bureaucratic morass, it was possible by the beginning of the 27th Century to develop the revolutionary technology of the jump ships; 500m-long ships that attain an underwater speed of up to 900 km/h.
Only with this technology, based on the dipolar properties of the water molecule, was Aqua able to carry on international trade. A compact network of so-called Entropoints, where jump ships could dock and cast off, soon spread over all of Aqua and a golden age of development ensued for the whole world. Unfortunately, people could not live with the envy of a neighbor possessing more. Thus following the introduction of world trade in the year 2625, the first trade war came to pass. Despite the fact that EnTrOx raised the prices for transporting weapons drastically, this war lasted more than twenty years and did not come to a final end until the Peace of New Bombay.
Biont War[]
At the time of the first great Biont war, EnTrOx was the private property of the greedy Leo van der Waal. After several scandals, El Topo removed van der Waal from power through his international connections. The once most powerful industry boss in Aqua has retreated into the modern habitat of Gotham, off the coast of what was once New York. His security service, EnTroPol, is still loyal to him. From time to time there is considerable trouble between the former EnTroPol warhorses surrounding van der Waal and the new unit around Sergej Chang.