Corporate Profile

IDX
Table of Contents
By the NumbersBusiness Summary
PCK Profile
Headquarters
History
Business Relationships
Promo Material
Top Contractors
Current Level Bonus: $329.00
HQ: West Canyon, CD
Sector: Energy
Industries: Power Plants; Mobile Energy Generation; Installed Generators
Contractor Benefit: Tau field segmentation technology extends SDER signal degradation. Second and third pings are more valuable.
IDX By The Numbers
Contractors In The Rain: | 284 |
---|---|
Operations In The Rain: | 1,630 |
Total Rain Pay: | $55,739,866.00 |
Average Ops/Contractor: | 5.7394 |
Average Career Pay/contractor: | $196,267.13 |
Average Pay/Op: | $34,196.24 |
Business Summary
IDX generates and transmits energy through a network of transmission lines, satellite uplinks, and field-distributing torus sites. The company also manufactures fuel cells, batteries, and portable generators. The majority of this energy is generated through t-field turbines, though a significant number of nuclear fusion and fission plants, hydroelectric facilities, and fossil fuel sites also contribute. The Power Plants segment builds and maintains a variety of power generation stations across Ptah: the company's patents on the massive tau generators (now known as Titan Generators) give them a virtual lock on market. The majority of the company's resources go toward these facilities. Due to the intensive material, labor, and engineering requirements of building new facilities, the company keeps a slow but steady pace of producing additional plants which cannot keep up with demand. The segment is also in the initial phases of designing Sublimity Station, a huge t-field generator which would be built and positioned in orbit. The engineering challenges of such a station are enormous, but the benefits could be astounding. The Mobile Energy Generation segment designs and produces fuel cells and batteries for a vast array of devices from communications to lighting to mobile computing to weapons and field generation; these include chemical, argon, saline, and hydrogen fuels, as well as the smallest t-field generators used to power large mechanisms and stand-alone facilities. Most of these are sold under the Upsurge, Chashmal, Radiance Ultra, and Sibitti brands; the segment also produces a range of electronics which make use of these batteries. The Installed Generators segment produces and integrates power generators in appliances and devices which require dedicated energy production. The ubiquitous Kemke generators are a byword for reliability (possibly due to the famous advertising campaign, "A Kemke never quits!"), and Spira emergency generators are the standard back-up devices for many major facilities.
PCK Profile
Illya Bhrigus is a direct descendant of the ancient clan of tundra barbarians that populate hundreds of the oldest stories on the planet. The Torgum were incredibly tough and hearty people who were able to keep empires ten times their strength on their heels by the force of their boundless tenacity, and that peculiar Torgum trait, among others, is especially apparent in Mrs. Bhrigus.
With a settled conviction that one must fight for what one wants, Bhrigus approaches every aspect of her life and business as a battle. This has occasionally led to unnecessary conflict (famously, Colier Wulfsheim, great-great-great-grandson of Xavier Wulfsheim-one of the founders of the corporation-resigned his seat and formed Cyclotor Technologies after a particularly bitter disagreement with the PCK; in his autobiography, Stone by Stone, he places full blame for his departure on Bhrigus' inflexibility), but it has meant she has never been surprised or betrayed. While many find her attitude personally offensive, there is no argument with her results. Under her leadership, IDX has doubled its market share and technologies deliberately designed to exclude competitors' systems has meant IDX power supplies and sub-systems are placed in 75% of every device currently made.
Bhrigus is often characterized as the least creative and most moribund of the major PCKs on Ptah; her stodgy personal appearance and flat affect do not help improve her image. Scuttlebutt has it that the image managers and advertising executives of her own company (and even so reticent a manager as Moshe Bergenfield of Rosetta North) have begged her to take some thought as to her appearance and demeanor, but Bhrigus stubbornly insists that only the bottom line matters. "We don't go in for pretty," she once said on Cymea Nationwide (during one of her vanishingly rare media appearances). "We go in for quality. You want pretty-paint the generators purple for all we care."
Headquarters
IDX headquarters is regarded as either a marvel of engineering or a technological monstrosity, depending on who you ask. The brainchild of Dymnos Toft (son of the founder), IDX Tower was envisioned as a showpiece for the company's innovative prowess. Years were spent on its design, and in the end everyone agrees that it was function that won out over form. The Tower itself is modular, with sections built to be adaptable to whatever technology was needed. It has been unfavorably compared to "a haphazard pile of packing crates" (Nabarun Hannah, Architechture and Design), "a child's building toy (in the hands of a particularly clumsy child)" (Sofi Dub, Modern Marvels), and "the poorly organized bookshelf of a mad scientist's laboratory" (Bo Zbruev, Megalopolis). Purus designers were brought in, but after the initial foundations were laid and the first courses established, they left the project (most historical sources say in quite a huff).
IDX Tower gleams on the edge of West Canyon, 214 stories of burnished electrum. Its windows are rather small for a structure of its size (Toft envisioned that the entire place would be lit cheaply by the torus generator deep in the sub-basement, the soft glow of the ambient lighting a pleasant change from the harsh glare of the desert sunlight outside), and the tower is not symmetric: various stories cant to one side or the other, and thirty of the stories are hollow, made to hold whatever energy transfers, mechanical systems, and other engineering marvels are required to keep the Tower up to date. The mass of systems which have been installed, removed, and re-installed over the decades keeps an army of engineers busy on the Tower at all times. Within, though, the business and conference rooms are the most advanced on the planet, with real-time holographic conferencing, motion-sensing workstations, and the other equipment that keeps the best and the brightest in the industry dreaming of working for the company.
History
IDX is the newest member of the major corporations on Ptah. Focused on energy production, the sector itself is dependent on a social and technological base that consumes energy in copious amounts, which only happened in the last 500 years.
- - -
IDX was born as a consortium of scientists working to investigate the mysteries of tau energy and obsessed with the prospect of harnessing it for use as a power source. For several years many of Ptah's greatest minds worked together, a collaboration not seen before or since: among them were such esteemed names as Audric Kemke, Xavier Wulfsheim, Karianna Cao, and Stanley Toft. The first torus generators, the eponymous "Buzz Engines" (so famous for the rattling vibrations of their operation and their propensity to explode violently when moved) were born of this cabal, and it was the necessity of controlling the dispersal of this new technology and protecting the patents which lead to the creation of IDX (which is an acronym for Innovation Design Exchange).
It was the choice to form a corporation which caused a falling out of the members, and which has been the subject of much scholarly debate. Many of the group wanted to remain a non-profit research group, but others averred that such powerful technology needed to be carefully controlled lest it be stolen and used by the unscrupulous. In the end, the cabal dissolved. Dr. Cao left the group to work for DDH Matsya, where she is credited as the mother of modern ACV technology; Audric Kemke (whose theories are still being untangled three centuries after they were first formulated, and whose unfortunate suicide at such a young age may have set back space travel by decades-at least according to Pax Thornley in her study The Differential Engine and the Changing of History) went on to an academic post; and Felix Ojacarcu was scooped up by Panis Global (and his later work lead to the creation of the torsion-thrower weapon design, which was the subject of such intense legal battles between Panis and IDX for more than four decades-many say that, though the matter was finally settled in Panis' favor, there is still conflict and espionage continuing to this day).
Of the core group, it was Stanley Toft who became the first PCK of IDX, and Xavier Wulfsheim became his COT. The success of the first generation torus generators funded the company's expansion; the eventual development of the Titan tau-installations provided the grounds for the creation of nationwide power networks, and IDX was the only patent holder. Many nations attempted to take control of the process, but IDX held firm: if a country wanted their power, it played by their rules. From this vantage point, it has been relatively easy for IDX to take over the mobile energy market as well, both the traditional chemical and electrical markets and newer tau fuel cells. IDX's great drive is to develop a miniature version of the technology. (At present, fuel cells can only be reduced to the size of a backpack-a working torus generator that could fit into an eyepiece or torsion thrower would clinch IDX's dominance of the market.)
IDX has publically stated that their interest in the Rain is one of business: the strange energies of the phenomenon may prove the basis for some new form of energy generation. Early tests have indicated that the particles and some of the unknown matter to be found in the Rain have unpredictable and possibly useful effects on tau generators. Most observers think that Illya Bhrigus is simply determined to gain whatever advantage the Rain has to offer and is going after it in her usual dogged way.
Business Relationships
So much of modern agriculture relies on powered machinery, environmental control, and transportation that IDX has a large number of important contracts with Alinas. IDX was instrumental in helping to develop Alinas' bio-field technologies, for which they hold a number of shared patents. The two companies have never shared a warm relationship, however, and corporate scuttlebutt has it that Alinas may be carrying out an elaborate web of corporate espionage in an effort to secure their own energy sources. Privately, it is known that Anne Selket, PCK of Alinas, finds Bhrigus unbelievably dull and unimaginative.
IDX and Panis Global have extensive ties-Panis troops are powered by IDX cell packs and tau-generators; almost every Panis vehicle has an IDX engine at its heart. Famously, Panis' PCK Rachel Towns complains that IDX technology never quite delivers the power output that her troops need; they are always pressing the energy giant to deliver ever more powerful and long-lasting generators. Bhrigus has many times politely but firmly invited Panis Global to find another supplier if they care to do so.
Purus is the corporation with the closest ties to IDX. Not only does the construction corporation rely on IDX generators to power its enormous building machines, but since modern buildings rely so heavily on technology to operate, generators are built into almost every significant structure (and a large number of smaller edifices have small backup generators as well-and there is a growing trend of equipping buildings to generate their own power through cheap tau-cycle generators). Some have worried that this gives IDX unprecedented access to Purus designs, but so far there have been no public difficulties between the companies. On the other hand, Purus has had a hand in constructing almost all of IDX's major power plants (most notably the Lontra Generating Plant in Ndron, and the Garos Valley Titan plant in Cymea Deru itself), so they are not with leverage of their own when it comes to corporate secrets.
Bhrigus and Parsu Carnake, PCK of Mystery Alliance, have friendly relations; the two seem well suited to one another, and MA has never yet refused IDX a loan or credit improvement. (Given IDX's market performance, such a refusal would be foolish.)
IDX and DDH Matsya have a contentious relationship, though of necessity the two companies work closely on many projects. Serious competition exists between the two in the field of vehicle power generation: DDH has the upper hand in mechanics, but they still rely on IDX powerplants. Some of the fiercest corporate espionage in the business is conducted by DDH agents trying to crack IDX technologies, but so far to no avail. IDX does its share of espionage as well-with DDH engines, a whole new subsidiary market would be opened up to them.
Promo Material
In the modern world of computers, spacecraft, and mag-lev vehicles, energy is everywhere. And in the world of energy production and transmission, nobody has done more to bring Ptah into the future than IDX.
IDX invented the water wheel and the wind turbine as well as the T-Field Torus technology that probably powers your home. From the battery in your chronograph to the Titan plant on the horizon, IDX is involved of more than two-thirds of all energy related activities worldwide – and for good reason. No company has done more to tap the limitless potential of our environment.
IDX. Always Advancing
Top Contractors
Contractor | Rank | Ops | Employed | Pay To Date | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. | Dreamer ![]() | SO1 | 50 | Pharmuti 4.3019 | $26,623,957 |
2. | Agent Il | SO1 | 49 | Khoyak 11.3020 | $611,350 |
3. | Nugget320803123426 | SO1 | 49 | Pakhons 27.3019 | $493,499 |
4. | Nugget974910095816 | SO1 | 49 | Khoyak 23.3020 | $438,470 |
5. | chrisrushing | SO2 | 46 | Pakhons 15.3019 | $14,572,002 |
6. | mike | SOAM | 33 | Pakhons 24.3019 | $263,407 |
7. | Cool ting | SOAM | 32 | Pharmuti 9.3019 | $418,266 |
8. | Nugget1280308181530 | SOAM | 28 | Athyr 1.3020 | $531,191 |
9. | Gyious | SOAM | 28 | Epiphi 26.3019 | $456,156 |
10. | commader | SOAM | 28 | Pakhons 24.3019 | $376,894 |
11. | (null) | SO3 | 27 | Khoyak 12.3020 | $376,795 |
12. | Nugget | SOAM | 25 | Khoyak 13.3020 | $325,861 |
13. | Lapkonium | SOAM | 24 | Khoyak 12.3020 | $463,402 |
14. | Justin__W | SOAM | 24 | Khoyak 25.3020 | $242,662 |
15. | Nugget | SO3 | 22 | Thoth 19.3020 | $457,301 |
16. | Nhobdy | SOAM | 22 | Khoyak 12.3020 | $424,840 |
17. | Nugget1104503173913 | SOAM | 22 | Payni 3.3019 | $410,415 |
18. | Nugget | SO3 | 22 | Payni 28.3019 | $339,973 |
19. | Plebe2734 | SOAM | 22 | Pharmuti 24.3019 | $263,554 |
20. | Nugget | SO3 | 22 | Payni 22.3019 | $193,584 |