Fiction:Aldebaran Association

The Aldebaran Association is one of the most influential n megacorporations, with its primary competitor being the. Aldebaran has a near-monopoly in much of Deisna's aerospace, chemical and material manufacturing, electronics and energy sectors, the latter two being responsible for most of its civilian customer base, while it mainly competes with Antares in the areas of cargo shipping and naval vessels. Aldebaran has little presence in the fields of biotechnology and weaponry, with those being dominated by and  respectively.

While not engaged in explicitly illegal activity, some of Aldebaran's operations are considered morally questionable, such as their co-opting of several major universities to perform research in condensed matter physics, chemical engineering and materials science using public funding. Two semi-secret skunkworks divisions of Aldebaran are known to exist: Solitech, which is believed to deal with finding applications for the newest advances in high-energy physics, and the so-called "Mad Scientist Division", which according to whistleblowers is based around the development of creative, bizarre, and often impossible scientific and technological speculation.

History
The beginnings of the Aldebaran Association date back to the late ninth century, when several revolutions in theoretical and applied physics, particularly in the fields of quantum mechanics and electromagnetism, were taking place. A group of highly-esteemed physicists and chemists, including Luceo Aucellus, decided to use this newly-gained knowledge for the good of all of the people of Deisna, as well as to supplement their relatively low researchers' wages. In 896, five years after Luceo's annus mirablis, the Aldebaran Association was founded, focused on developing and marketing practical applications for the rapidly-growing world of electricity.

Over the next forty-five years until Luceo's death, Aldebaran's influence expanded to the extent that they were able to buy out or merge with several smaller companies in the chemical engineering sector, and combined this acquired capacity with their own expertise to break into, and soon dominate, the new field of aerospace engineering. While the first spacecraft were created and launched by governments, Aldebaran soon took over the commercialisation of space, and from 948 to 960, the Aldebaran Satellite Fleet was placed into orbit, where it has been maintained and upgraded constantly since.

By 970, Luceo Aucellus was the only one of the original scientists to have left surviving descendants with any interest in maintaining the company, and on the centenary of its foundation, official ownership of Aldebaran fell to his 26-year-old great-grandson Fil Aucellus, although in practice, the day-to-day running of the corporation remains managed by a team of more experienced businessmen.