The United Viridian Stellar Defense Forces were among the most successful business ventures in Viridian history. Incorporated in 2736 as Peacefighter Technologies LLC, the UVSDF outpaced rival security firms Securifist Inc. and Homefronts Without Borders through a combination of savvy lobbying, industrial espionage and political assassination to become the Ctjn Empire’s primary military contractor, arms manufacturer and de facto military. By 3300, the UVSDF had established itself as a fundamental pillar of the Viridian policymaking apparatus, marketing new military campaigns to itself, awarding itself lucrative government contracts to fight those campaigns, and reporting to itself on the astonishing successes of its battle strategies.

The UVSDF’s influence would ultimately reach its peak under the guidance of Supreme Commander and CEO Jason Judas Ironheart, whose canny use of intimidation, blackmail and cross-platform marketing techniques managed to turn a minor dispute with Vermailia over deep-space mining rights into a decades-long cold war and record profits. In the process, Ironheart expanded the UVSDF’s holdings in construction, pharmaceuticals, energy production and entertainment, producing megahit reality programming such as Warzone!, Bikini Alien Mega-Massacre 12 and Who Wants to Kill a Foreigner? By 5280, 78% of the Viridian economy was classified as military-based; 63% of Ctjn citizens held either official or honorary military ranks, the latter typically awarded to notable donors and commencement speakers.

In militarizing the Viridian economy, however, Ironheart had also centralized it, making Viridian society increasingly dependent on the ceaseless maintenance of a highly complex network of interplanetary graft. The system would suffer the first of a series of lethal shocks with the destruction of the Third Nova Generator, which left the UVSDF unable to meet its massive energy needs, much less effectively repel Vermailian attacks. The military’s financial situation was further complicated when its comptroller discovered that Ironheart had not only been embezzling from the corporation for decades, but had systematically looted its organ banks to reinforce his own meat-components, as well as those of his “wives.”

In 5302 the board of directors remotely deactivated Ironheart’s brainplugs, allowing him to die a natural death, and evacuated the military’s surviving assets, fleeing the Viridia system’s numerous wars and heavily-armed creditors. The fleet survived for some time as a Hermes-based mall security service until its acquisition by the Tomorrow Hive in 6282.

—Recorder 3000-21