The Lifeboat 5 project was underwritten and funded by some of the largest corporations of Earth, and their functional rule of the colonies are enshrined in the initial Colonial Compact agreed upon by these investors. In the centuries since Whistler‘s founding, The Council is still composed almost entirely of representatives of those corporations with the addition of an elected Minister and an elected representative from the various labor unions of The Reach.
In the centuries since the end of the “establishment phase” of colonization, several statutes have been passed that prevent the Council corps from maintaining monopolistic control of commerce, and in most cases the divisions of the major corporations that sit on the council are fairly far removed from the day-to-day operations and strategic vision of their respective companies. Still, The Reach remains unabashedly a Corporate Oligarchy.
The Council is composed of the following representatives:
- Minister Danielle Montgomery – elected by the citizens of The Reach in WY600
- Phoenix Propulsion Labs (formerly Hadean Drive Yards)
- HiGro-UTex
- BioGen
- Alphabet Information Systems
- Tesla Energy
- Komatsu Industrial
- Zijin Mining Group
- Amazon Consumer & Compute
- NewCryo-AutoDoc
- Vickers-Maxim Manufacturing & Defense
- University of Whistler – Sagan Applied Research Group
- Stephano Wren – representing The Miners, Whistler‘s unified labor union