Start of the Aeternus-ALM Rivalry
Aeternus began rising in value after the Human-Trigal Conflict thanks to its salvage operations allowing it to process both Human and Trigal shipwrecks, allowing it to maintain stability despite the post-war economic depression as its resources were poured into fairly affordable projects, such as repairing/expanding Hephaestus Station and many other new mining, ore processing, logistic, and food production stations. Many smaller transplanetary logistics companies such as SolTrans and Cooper Logistics were bought up and consolidated under 'Aeternus Transport', soon allowing Aeternus to establish itself as the largest spaceborn corporation within the Alpha Sol System as a whole, with it becoming virtually impossible to visit a station, repair/produce a spacecraft, or buy something on a space-station that they had no hand in the creation of.
In order to see more competition in the market, the CSIS signed a contract with 'Advanced Logistics and Manufacturing' (which was trying to have lower prices than Aeternus in order to compete) that had already involved itself with military sales, mining, and scrapping, that saw the ALM begin producing the brand new Behemoth II Class and Gorgon III class military spacecrafts based off of Trigal and Protoss technologies, soon integrating Zaryl Manufacturing in order to develop ships faster than ever-before. Aeternus attempted to main cordial with the ALM while it was busy with 'Project Landfall', a major expansion onto Yata and Theia that provided 'support packages' (infrastructure and service investments) in underdeveloped nations, which many gladly accepted, while the company's founder Lebbuto Stone was touring Yata to negotiate more trade deals. These trade-deals allowed Aeternus products to begin spreading throughout both Yata's and Theia's economies as already established firms were bought up, with Aeternus Transport especially investng in largescale rail projects. Aeternus was viewed positively by the public thanks to its low-prices and space-imported resources, though this angered pre-existing more exploitative corporations.
CSIS classified Aeternus as a possible monopoly (prompting them to increase corporate taxes) while the ALM was busy producing Behemoths and signing similar deals with other nations to make spacecrafts, sea crafts, and vehicles, prompting Aeternus to be confused on why the CSIS was favouring less experienced manufacturers, to which the CSIS explained that it handled its manufacturing the same way it had been for a century, so Aeternus gave up on the issue and began working to further streamline itself. ALM also tried selling its products on Yata and Theia while officially setting up a new HQ in the 'New Tijuana Station'.