Crimson Permanent Assurance / CPAO

In the bleak days of nineteen-eighty-three, as Earth languished in the doldrums of a ruinous monetarist policy, the good and loyal men of the Crimson Permanent Assurance Company— a once-proud family firm, recently fallen in hard times— strained under the yoke of their oppressive new corporate management.

Pushed beyond the bounds of decent and reasonable victimization, the aged retainers took their destiny in their own hands and— Mutiny!

And so, the Crimson Permanent Assurance was launched upon the high seas of interstellar finance.

There it lay, the prize they sought, the many rich jewels in the crown of the universe: The financial districts swollen with multi-nationals, conglomerates, and fat, bloated merchant banks.

Hidden behind the faceless, towering canyons of glass, the world of high finance sat smug and self-satisfied as their future,in the shape of their past. The Crimson Permanent Assurance slipped silently through the stars, returning to wreak a terrible revenge.

Adopting, adapting, and improving traditional business practices, the Permanent Assurance puts into motion an audacious and totally unsuspected takeover bid.

And so, heartened by their initial success, the desperate and reasonably violent men of the Crimson Permanent Assurance battled on…

And so, they sailed off into the ledgers of history, one by one, the financial capitals of the world crumbling under the might of their business acumen,… or so it would have been… if certain modern theories concerning the size of the universe had been… disastrously wrong.