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Description
While technological development has been largely stunted in the postmodern era for the lenght of the corporations' rule, financial growth hasn't, resulting in the economies of the corporations being worth hundreds of trillions of dollars. This economy is, most of the time, based on several fiat currencies with no backing issued by the corporations or by blocks of corporations. Money issued by one company could be completely worthless when buying products made by another company, and consumers had to keep dozens of different currencies on their wallets to function effectively. Currency was tied to the entities that issued it: if a corporation suffered financial problems, all currency issued by it would undergo a massive loss of liquidity due to people switching to other less risky currencies.

Such a complicated, hermetic system cut heavily into consumption and gridlocked the global financial trade. It was thus decided that corporate money needed at least some partial backing to standarize currency..

The problem was that the sum of gold in the world accounted for little more than 1.8 trillion dollars. Even for the standards of corporate backing and fractional reserve lending, that sum was trivial to the point where it would not be an effective backer. Thus the corporations needed something more valuable to set prices, and turned on to the most valuable thing in existence: antimatter. At 25 billion per gram, a spoonful could back up the currency issued by entire corporations and manage to standarize prices. Now currency system at least had a stepping stone and corporations had a safe haven to invest in in times of trouble. Of course, given the potential explosive yield of antimatter, the reserves are taken care of zealously.

The biggest of such reserves, totaling almost 3 kilograms of antihydrogen, is located on the largest ship ever constructed, The Simeon, belonging to a corporation of the same name hailing from the lands of former Israel. It is a floating mobile city exceeding two and a half kilometers in lenght filled with condominium housing for 80,000 people alongside a similar number of passengers. Inside are some of the most luxurious malls and entertainment values available, alongside hotels, schools, hospitals and even a rapit transit system of monorails. Its residents are all of Israeli origin and have established a highly folklorical, mysterious microculture away from the corporations based on obscure pseudo-judeochristian traditions. The passegers, crew and tourists are of all races and creeds, however.

It acts as a diplomatically neutral self-contained city where people may negotiate free of corporate territorial conflict or tariffs, and as such it has gained a reputation as a safe haven of stability. The ship posesses a long slightly angled runway allowing passengers and supplies to arrive by air, though noise levels and the hard landing procedure mean that the airstrip is rarely used and the ship is instead supplied from its three well decks, as it is too large to be able to dock in any port of the world. For this same reason, maintenance isn't carried out in repair yards but in-situ by specialized ships and an unique engineering submarine. The Simeon is propelled by sixteen pumpjets powered by eight molten lead reactors, and it continuously circumnavigates the world.

While the ship is largely assumed to risk no attack by any corporate military (as doing so would benefit no corporation), the ship is nevertheless always escorted by two vessels, Khazar and Chaldea - a Forrestal-class aircraft carrier and a Ticonderoga-class cruiser, both modified with compact pressurized water nuclear powerplants; tasked with keeping lesser attackers such as pirates and mercenaries away. Both ships are also owned by the Simeon corporation, giving it the distinction of being one of the few companies that operates aircraft carriers. As part of its defensive complement, the Simeon has an AEGIS suite directing several discrete naval artillery mountings and VLS tubes. The ship also generally holds two or more fast attack craft on its well decks.

In addition to the antimatter, which despite passengers and crew being told over and over again is completely safe, adds up to more than 60 megatons of energy were it to detonate; the ship contains many valuables and relics in its gigantic vaults, considered to be the safest of the world. Anything that the corporations want either completely safe or completely hidden away is entrusted upon The Simeon, making the ship the centerpiece of sinister rumors telling of the secrets and horrors sealed away in the ship beneath its faccade of luxury and commerce.

Only one of those rumors has been confirmed: one of the vaults of the ship contains the dismantled Western Wall, an important site in Jewish religion previously thought to have been demolished and paved over to make way to several corporate arcologies.

Description
While technological development has been largely stunted in the postmodern era for the lenght of the corporations' rule, financial growth hasn't, resulting in the economies of the corporations being worth hundreds of trillions of dollars. This economy is, most of the time, based on several fiat currencies with no backing issued by the corporations or by blocks of corporations. Money issued by one company could be completely worthless when buying products made by another company, and consumers had to keep dozens of different currencies on their wallets to function effectively. Currency was tied to the entities that issued it: if a corporation suffered financial problems, all currency issued by it would undergo a massive loss of liquidity due to people switching to other less risky currencies.

Such a complicated, hermetic system cut heavily into consumption and gridlocked the global financial trade. It was thus decided that corporate money needed at least some partial backing to standarize currency..

The problem was that the sum of gold in the world accounted for little more than 1.8 trillion dollars. Even for the standards of corporate backing and fractional reserve lending, that sum was trivial to the point where it would not be an effective backer. Thus the corporations needed something more valuable to set prices, and turned on to the most valuable thing in existence: antimatter. At 25 billion per gram, a spoonful could back up the currency issued by entire corporations and manage to standarize prices. Now currency system at least had a stepping stone and corporations had a safe haven to invest in in times of trouble. Of course, given the potential explosive yield of antimatter, the reserves are taken care of zealously.

The biggest of such reserves, totaling almost 3 kilograms of antihydrogen, is located on the largest ship ever constructed, The Simeon, belonging to a corporation of the same name hailing from the lands of former Israel. It is a floating mobile city exceeding two and a half kilometers in lenght filled with condominium housing for 80,000 people alongside a similar number of passengers. Inside are some of the most luxurious malls and entertainment values available, alongside hotels, schools, hospitals and even a rapit transit system of monorails. Its residents are all of Israeli origin and have established a highly folklorical, mysterious microculture away from the corporations based on obscure pseudo-judeochristian traditions. The passegers, crew and tourists are of all races and creeds, however.

It acts as a diplomatically neutral self-contained city where people may negotiate free of corporate territorial conflict or tariffs, and as such it has gained a reputation as a safe haven of stability. The ship posesses a long slightly angled runway allowing passengers and supplies to arrive by air, though noise levels and the hard landing procedure mean that the airstrip is rarely used and the ship is instead supplied from its three well decks, as it is too large to be able to dock in any port of the world. For this same reason, maintenance isn't carried out in repair yards but in-situ by specialized ships and an unique engineering submarine. The Simeon is propelled by sixteen pumpjets powered by eight molten lead reactors, and it continuously circumnavigates the world.

While the ship is largely assumed to risk no attack by any corporate military (as doing so would benefit no corporation), the ship is nevertheless always escorted by two vessels, Khazar and Chaldea - a Forrestal-class aircraft carrier and a Ticonderoga-class cruiser, both modified with compact pressurized water nuclear powerplants; tasked with keeping lesser attackers such as pirates and mercenaries away. Both ships are also owned by the Simeon corporation, giving it the distinction of being one of the few companies that operates aircraft carriers. As part of its defensive complement, the Simeon has an AEGIS suite directing several discrete naval artillery mountings and VLS tubes. The ship also generally holds two or more fast attack craft on its well decks.

In addition to the antimatter, which despite passengers and crew being told over and over again is completely safe, adds up to more than 60 megatons of energy were it to detonate; the ship contains many valuables and relics in its gigantic vaults, considered to be the safest of the world. Anything that the corporations want either completely safe or completely hidden away is entrusted upon The Simeon, making the ship the centerpiece of sinister rumors telling of the secrets and horrors sealed away in the ship beneath its faccade of luxury and commerce.

Only one of those rumors has been confirmed: one of the vaults of the ship contains the dismantled Western Wall, an important site in Jewish religion previously thought to have been demolished and paved over to make way to several corporate arcologies.