The Citizen Credit System (CCS) is a reputation system that scales the citizens aiming to encourage good and just behaviour through rewards and the accessibility of privileges. Developed and introduced by the Hook family, the largest corporate family in Pretoria, South Africa CCS is meant to track the Pretorian citizens over four dimensions: political, judicial, economic and social.
The Hook Family
One of the original investors and developers of the current CCS system. Through smart patent licensing and investments the Hook family grew out from a small family business into one of the wealthiest investor groups with a huge constituency in the political sphere. However, having long since removed themselves from the technical aspects of their original business the Hook are all too familiar with their own shortcomings and the looming danger of rivals rising up and leering for their spot. Hence, the decision is made to go back to an old but trusted tactic from a time way before any such surveillance system came to exist...
The Beanstalk began its life as the pet project of once-Weytani Industries CEO and founder Jack Waytani. Contracted first by the United States to build, deploy, and launch rockets and satellites into space, Weytani Industries quickly grew to service much of the world's space exploration demand. With a diminishing resource base on Earth and political instability racking once-stable western democracies, Jack Waytani sought to create humanity's first piece of interplanetary infrastructure both to cut his own enterprise's costs amidst rising fuel scarcity and to seize a monopoly on the increasingly pressing need to mine for resources off-world.
Construction of the Beanstalk began in Equatorial Guinea, firmly along the globe's equator to minimize material needs. The Guinea government accepted the construction deal at the time on the promise of a cut of the Beanstalk's revenues as tax, not realizing at the time that in time the city-state that emerged from the construction of the Beanstalk would come to overshadow not just this otherwise struggling African country but much of the developed world as well. Originally planned to be called the Atlas Pillar, the moniker "Beanstalk" was popularized by political satirists ("Look at Jack climbing his Beanstalk"), and construction of the Beanstalk was completed 15 years after breaking ground.
Stretching into the upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere, the Beanstalk is made of proprietary composite materials harder than diamond and as dense as aluminum. Nuclear fusion reactors power enormous cabled elevator cars ranging in scale from passenger-class jets to massive cargo haulers suitable to venture across the Earth's seas. These elevator cars ferry goods and people up to the Tether, an asteroid maneuvered into place to act as both a counterweight to hold the elevator cable tight and as a port for incoming and outgoing vessels ferrying materials from the lunar colony or deep space.
Weytani Industries took a large cut of the profits that flow through the Beanstalk. After Jack Weytani's death just four years after completion of the Beanstalk, the corporation choked New Guinea's government through rigging elections and backing business-friendly politicians has managed to ensure that not a single cent goes into anyone' else's pocket. With such unbridled capital at its disposal, Weytani's downfall was inevitable as politicians both virtuous and sinful sought to either control or profit from the conglomerate's success. In a legal battle stretching almost as long as its construction, the Beanstalk was made the first public utility of the United Nations and Weytani was left as it had been at its creation: a privatized space freighter business, with a now booming construction business as a complement.
Still, corporate rule had become too engrained for even this to do little more than break up one grossly obscene firm. The governments of the world had won one victory for humanity, but Weytani is still the first-sought contractor for government constructions big and small, the Hook Family still dominates the way citizens interact in the name of state security, and dozens more conglomerates dictate the forward trajectory of humanity...
A simple name for a not so simple woman. Belle is known as a rising star within the Hook family and presumed to be the next one in line for leadership. A natural leader, though some would say that she is rather just a bitch than anything, as is common for women in high positions, and an 'innovator', as her nickname 'the tinker' suggests. After a long line of business executives, Belle is the first in the family that returns to the very roots of the Hook imperium, who finds its history in engineering. Described as fearless and confident, Belle is ready to lead the Hook family into its next chapter; solidifying its power and cancelling out its rivals. That is, until the mention of her gender becomes an actual blockade in the matter within a world that strangely enough never quite got rid of its patrimony. It forces Belle into the unfortunate position in which she either takes control through her own means and with a strong backing, or allows the old men to make yet another decision on her life.
The Barstow family resides within a comfortable niche among the mega-rich. Not so wealthy as to be a household name, but influential enough to cater to their interests, the Barstows made their fortune on financial speculations in the early half of the 21st century. Their fortunes came to a head upon their purchase of a ruling share in SenseSmart, a data processing startup that has since grown to become one of the top data brokers and processors in the world. In the decades since, SenseSmart has become the man behind the curtain for dozens of subsidiary marketing and entertainment conglomerates that all funnel more and more detailed information to then be sold to other corporations the world over.
Gabriel Barstow has very little presence on the global Net, outside of a few details so generic as to be utterly useless to create a compelling profile. Unlike his parents, still heavily involved in SenseSmart as the proprietors of its success, Gabriel had what might be called a normal upbringing by early 21st century standards, perhaps by virtue of his position as youngest of his parent's three children. College educated and successful, but not to genius standards, and a military veteran, Gabriel made a name for himself serving the family interests as a representative in the largely gutted and defunct European State Council specializing in data privacy laws, though his accomplishments to date are not readily available for public consumption.
