Glossary

Interplanetary Corporation (IPC): A corporation with operations spanning multiple worlds. The legal designation used in UTCA filings, charters, and regulatory documents. IPCs are the dominant economic and political entities in human civilization, owning planets, ships, and the infrastructure that connects them.

Megacorporation: The colloquial and derogatory name for an IPC. Used by the general population, media, and street-level slang. Nobody outside a boardroom or a courtroom says “interplanetary corporation.”

Terran Occupied Space (TOS): The volume of space containing human settlements, roughly a 50-light-year sphere centered on Sol. The UTCA designation. Includes Core systems, Inner and Outer Colonies, and the Frontier. Does not imply effective control; most of TOS is unsurveyed, and effective corporate authority thins rapidly beyond the Inner Colonies.

The Five: Informal term for the five dominant IPCs: Tessaract Mining Corporation, Meridian Dynamics, Nakamura-Stellar, Sternberg Group, and Helix Technologies. Not an official designation; the corps would deny forming any kind of bloc, but it is universally understood in business, media, and intelligence contexts.