Paxton-Rolls

While Blue Sun maintains a universal presence in everything from canned goods to software to starship parts, and is quite literally a household name, it's the technological firm of Paxton-Rolls that really stands out in the eyes of discerning engineers everywhere.

The brainchild of Henry Paxton and Charles Rolls, the company was founded in 2490, and has steadily grown ever since. Originally, they specialized in thrusters, starting with the revolutionary AD-343 series which completely overhauled the power recycling principle which had long stymied transport engineers, but from there, they expanded to cover almost every aspect of starship design, engineering, and building. Today, operating out of their corporate offices on Londinium (with subsidiaries on half a dozen other planets, including Boros and Beaumonde), they turn out a wide variety of products aimed at keeping people flying.

Paxton-Rolls' catalogue is published quarterly, and considered a hot item and a must-read for any ship's engineer; it's not uncommon for true afficiendos to be able to quote series name and number from memory, and argue the relevant specs until the drinks run out. On the flipside, it's doubtful the average person could stop and tell you exactly what Paxton-Rolls does, much less what a AQ-20 or XD-544 is and why it's a good thing. The relevant bit of knowledge is this: Paxton-Rolls makes some of the most reliable starship parts around, and they're far more desirable than the Blue Sun lines by far. Of course, sometimes out in the Black, you take what you can get.