This portfolio originally appeared in Jump Point 11.03.

When MISC CEO Irena Adjei first saw the Fury prototype she spent over an hour slowly circling the ship and assessing the compact fighter from every angle. “It feels both distinctly MISC and something all its own,” she told the MISC board. “I’m convinced we should make it, but I don’t think MISC should.” With those words Adjei proposed a solution to a debate that had bitterly divided the company’s board of directors between members who believed MISC should focus on industrial ships and those hoping to expand the brand. CEO Adjei had never taken a side until the day she proposed a solution that would satisfy both; the creation of the sub-brand Mirai.

Meaning ‘Future’ in Japanese, the name Mirai honors the settlers of Centauri, home to MISC’s headquarters, and embodies its goal of creating the next generation of ships. The creation of a subbrand also allows MISC to retain its cherished industrial identity, while providing the company an outlet for experimentation. Adjei argued that the Fury should launch the sub-brand, and convinced the board by showing them what the Fury team was working on next. The creation of the Mirai sub-brand shocked many within the industry and marked the most significant change to the company in decades.

BEYOND INDUSTRY

MISC may be known for its industrial ships but its desire to develop other variants goes back to 2833. Less than twenty years after the merger that created MISC, CEO Kori Desmon pushed the company to expand its portfolio. The success of the Hull series provided financial stability and budget surpluses that Desmon wanted to invest in ships that took the brand beyond the industrial sector. Yet a coalition of board members believed in staying laser-focused on industrial ships and forced Desmon to scale back their ambitions to a single design team working on a dedicated racing ship. The result would be Daedalus.

Daedalus was developed from the ground up to be an extremely fast, high-performance ship that could endure the rigors of racing. An impressive prototype inspired MISC to sponsor a racing team and share its tech with them as opposed to releasing the ship itself. The design team disagreed with this decision, but company executives convinced Desmon that a dedicated racing team would provide insight and experience their own designers lacked. While the ship impressed racing fans, Daedalus continually failed to qualify for the professional division of the Murray Cup, a goal that Desmon knew needed to be accomplished in order for the ship to get mass produced. Experimental materials and production techniques used on Daedalus meant MISC’s existing production lines couldn’t be used to manufacture the ship, so state-of-the-art production facilities would need to be constructed. Though Daedalus was floundering, the board still considered the racing team a great marketing tool and continued to sponsor it. Desmon officially designated the team that built Daedalus as MISC-M and assigned it to be the liaison between the racing team and the company.

While delivering upgrades for Daedalus became part of MISC-M’s working orders, the division was also directed to produce innovative and imaginative new ship designs with no mandate to keep them industrial. Most of these designs would remain theoretical, as the division’s miniscule build budget was almost exclusively reserved for testing Daedalus improvements. By now the division carried a reputation as being where inexperienced designers learned and old designers faded away. In reality, it became a training ground where youngsters honed their craft under the tutelage of veterans who enjoyed the freedom of exploring unique and unusual designs.

Decades of constant tinkering on Daedalus increased the ship’s performance, with it ultimately graduating to the Murray Cup professional division in 2898. The MISC racing team has been a regular qualifier ever since. MISC-M also developed and carefully cataloged thousands of designs for everything from full ships to components to ship furnishings, but it never ushered any new ships into the prototype phase. Instead, any interesting ship directions were reassigned to other teams where they were molded to acceptable MISC parameters or eventually scrapped. Every few years some members of the board would argue for shutting down MISC-M or folding it into another division, but the majority continued to support its mission. This deep well of innovative and unorthodox ideas would become more important than ever when MISC signed the landmark lend-lease agreement with the Xi’an in 2910.

ALIEN INFLUENCE

Following the agreement’s signing, MISC quickly put the newfound wealth of knowledge and resources to good use. The Freelancer, released in 2915, utilized Xi’an tech to transform it into the beloved industrial hauler known today. Despite this success, MISC discovered its traditional design teams struggled to integrate Xi’an tech or use its influence to push further innovations. Eventually, the out-of-the-box thinkers in MISC-M were tasked with evaluating the influx of Xi’an ideas and imagining uses for them. The division also combed through its massive design database to see what ideas could benefit from Xi’an tech. The first design pulled was for Daedalus.

Much had changed since the original Daedalus, but the team saw massive potential in using Xi’an tech to make it fly faster and be cheaper to manufacture. Further upgrades and innovations were developed, but they remained untested until 2940 when MISC decided to pour more money into its racing operations. The company ended its partnership with the outside racing team and tasked MISC-M with building the new ship. The result was the Razor, which would win the Murray Cup Classic Race in 2945 thanks in part to the piloting heroics of Trevor Yuman. Upon its release in 2947, the ship sold extremely well and received rave reviews. The Razor’s commercial and Murray Cup success, combined with the triumphant launch of the Reliant a year earlier, convinced MISC to continue developing bold new ships. The company dramatically increased the funding and staffing levels of MISC-M and directed the team to develop the ideas that excited it the most.

Over the following years, CEO Adjei took great interest in MISC-M and frequently visited the division to check on its progress. She encouraged it to embrace MISC values but refresh the aesthetic. Meanwhile, Adjei told the board that the division had the potential to significantly boost company revenues. Insiders believe she long wanted to make the division its own sub-brand, partially to enshrine its mission and ships as distinctly different from MISC, but didn’t want to reveal her plan until it produced a second signature ship. The Fury would be that ship and inspired CEO Adjei to unveil her master plan. Once approved by the board, the company also decided to make the Razor part of Mirai. It might have been released under MISC but the ship’s history within the division and its ties to the original Daedalus made it an ideal fit. What comes next from MISC’s performance sub-brand remains a mystery to anyone outside the company. Rumors claim that Mirai will push the integration of Xi’an tech to bold new levels, leaving ship enthusiasts and competitors in eager anticipation of what will come next.