The Kaiser Conglomerate

The Kaiser Conglomerate is pair of two larger companies - Kaiser Armaments and Kaiser Industries - and various smaller groups for the interest of diverse business rather than for investment or to manipulate stock prices.

Both Kaiser Armaments and Kaiser Industries, as well as the conglomerate as a whole, are currently run by Ethereal Kaiser.

Kaiser Armaments
Kaiser Armaments focuses on the design and distribution of weaponry. They sometimes purchase weapon designs from third party contractees and develop them. They have several military contracts, but also make under-the-table deals weapons with rebel, criminal, and terrorist groups such as the White Fang.

Moira Lynwood  is Head Engineer and in-company Weapons Designer.

Kaiser Armaments will be inherited by Adelinde Spectral Kaiser.

Kaiser Industries
Kaiser Industries manufactures all sorts of dust-powered technology, including but not limited to weapons, transportation devices, lighting, and other gadgets. Their products are used widely by the public. They are considered the brighter side of the Kaiser Conglomerate.

They also own the Blue Dragon shipping and postal services.

Kaiser Industries will be inherited by Anselm Valiant Kaiser.

History of Kaiser Armaments
Kaiser Weaponry was a small business formed by a young Erich Kaiser about a eighty years ago and didn't really get much further than making civilian weapons and getting the occasional custom order from a hunter or huntress on a small budget. Erich Kaiser didn't care much about the money, what he loved was the weapons and the personal side of business with the customer. He lived and died doing the thing he loved and hoped that his son would go on to do the same.

However, Severin Kaiser was a different man from his father. He started to make the business more corperate, taking larger orders and employing a workforce. Changing the name to Kaiser Armaments, the company did get some attention from local police forces and they had several police contracts, selling their weapons to the law enforcement. His ambitions ended there and Severin started using his money to go out partying and bumping elbows with high-society, even though he didn't really fit too well amongst them.

At one such party, Severin Kaiser met a young caterer by the name of Ester Allgood. He married her and showered her with luxuries and Ester grew accustomed to an extravagant lifestyle. Severin's excessive spending eventually nearly led them into bankruptcy. Before he could get into serious negotiations about selling the company, Severin died in a mysterious explosion alledgedly caused by poor dust handling. A team did look into the accident and suspected foul play, but higher-ups had the case closed and declared that Severin Kaiser's death was truly an accident.

It was after her husband's death that Ester changed her name to Ethereal and took control of the company. She took out a loan and hired a team of engineers and promised a head position to the one who could give her a revolutionary new weapon. That engineer was Beacon Academy drop-out Moira Lynwood, who presented a series of weapons that relied heavily on dust, some purely dust-powered and dust-utilizing. Several designs were vetoed due to risk factors (one of which was Lynwood's pet-project and the Engineer remains bitter about it being rejected).

Kaiser realized she needed someone to manufacture these weapons, as Kaiser Armaments lacked the necessary facilities for mass-production. Unable to get another business loan on that scale, Kaiser personally took the designs to military forces and alongside Lynwood, pitched the weapons and managed to coerce them into a contract. Using the money from the military, Ethereal established Kaiser Industries, a branch that originally would focus on manufacturing weapons. As Kaiser became recognized as a military-grade weapons manufacturer, Hunter and Huntress organizations started to become intrested. With orders and contracts coming out their ears and profit was rising, Kaiser had an idea.

She ordered Kaiser Industries to expand their focus from just weapons to anything dust-powered, specifically transport vehicles. Kaiser Industries began manufacturing transport shuttles commonly used throughout the city and used as transport by many schools -- Beacon included.

With public, police, private, and military contracts, the Kaiser Conglomerate slowly but surely became the wealthiest and most popular dust-powered technology manufacturer in the world. They've had several offers from Schnee to enter a partnership, but Ethereal Kaiser is weary that a partnership with Schnee would render her obsolete. They do, however, manufacture Schee's security mechs and that is the closest to a partnership Kaiser has gotten with Schee.

Kaiser Industries also manufactures lots of weapon parts that are often utilized by Hunters and Huntresses that prefer to custom-build their own weapons.

Trivia

 * Most weapons that heavily rely dust will often have a Kaiser-made Dust Blast Array Refiner (DBAR "Dee-bar").