The Far Go Traders

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The Far Go Traders

Short overview and history:

The Far Go Traders were founded around 2140 in the Hub by Butch Harris. Around 2130 Harris was a young man, full of wanderlust, that began to travel rounds between the cities. After he had shown up a few times here and there, people suddenly began giving him wares and services, often even a few caps, if he would deliver this letter to Junktown or promised to bring this box to the Brotherhood of Steel.
After about ten years of doing so, he started losing the joy of it. At sometime he met a man called Rutger in a bar in the Hub. Rutger had never been full of wanderlust, but he was ambitioned and smart and he suggested Butch Harris a partnership: together they could open a real, honest to god, trading company.
The two of them organized all that they needed. They took over an abandoned building as an office and storehouse, put up a sign, that said in simple, black capital letters ‘Far Go Traders’ and opened the door. Young people with the same wanderlust that had motivated Butch Harris ten years before, came and let this legend among them convince them, not just to go out into the Wastes, but to start doing so directly for the Far Go Traders. He explained to them, that they would be able to satisfy their Wanderlust much safer that way, while Rutger explained to their customers what a treasure trove of experience Butch Harris was, and how much their businesses could profit from all that and so on.
When at the end of the 2150s more and caravans began disappering (later it became known, that this wasn’t due to the appearance of the first Deathclaws but due to the Army of the Master), Butch Harris and Rutger were overwhelmed with the situation. The customers wandered off to the competition and they lost people – many of them had been loyal employees and often enough friends for nearly ten years – the Far Go Traders were in the middle of a crisis. The only silver lining for the Far Go Traders was, that they had, unlike their competition in the transport business, invested much more into stores and the first producing enterprises, among others, weapon stores and farms. The situation changed abruptly as the Vault Dweller ended the danger posed by the Army of the Master – and the Master himself – in 2161.
The trade flourished again, but the Far Go Traders had learned their lessons from what had happened. They began to diversify, invested their money into various projects. Instead of primarily being traders, they helped (for a large part of the future profits) with the start-up of many shops, farms and workshops.

2196, sixteen years after Butch Harris had passed on his position to his daughter Virginia (and a little more than 21 years after Rutger had died in an accident), the New California Republic was founded in Shady Sands. Virginia Harris was not excited. The way she saw it, a government would mean taxes that would lessen profits, tyranny through laws, submission to a parliament or a government or something in this backwater farming town Shady Sands and furthermore: ‘Government’? ‘Peace and prosperity for all if we work together’?! They won’t last three years!
Unlike the Crimson Caravans, the Far Go Traders under the leadership of Virginia Harris tried to prevent the joining of the Hub to the NCR. While Junktown joined enthusiastically, the Hub remained independent, due to the resistance by the Far Go Traders, until the Angel's Boneyard had joined and the Hub was pretty much surrounded by this new nation.
Virginia Harris had lost her battle – and the Far Go Traders would pay for it in the following years. Instead of quailing however, they began to salvage what was possible. The Far Go Traders were still one of the largest trading companies in the South West, whether the new government reigned the Hub now or not. The problems were great, many customers shied away from the Far Go Traders, some fearing reprisals by the new government. Others saw the Far Go Traders responsible for not welcoming the new government sooner, when it soon became obvious that it did a lot of good. None the less the Far Go Traders began flourishing under her leadership again soon thereafter. While the Crimson Caravans by and large stayed a transport and trading business, the Far Go Traders became the first big corporation of the NCR. While they had always invested in producing businesses, they grew that part of their operation until their caravans were already showing a profit, by just moving the goods of the corporation from one place to another.
Virginia Harris died in 2228 and left the business to her three children, that now run the Far Go Traders in the third generation.

Structure, size and organization:

The Far Go Traders are – unlike many other large companies of their time – a family business. Since the founding of the company, the Harris family runs it.
Today, the Far Go Traders employ 700 people in their own plants. Since they own shares in numerous farms, ranches, smithies, furrier’s workshops, cart construction workshops, repair shops and so on, in which about 1400 other people work, they are probably the largest employer in the Republic save the Republic itself.
After the death of Rutger, Butch Harris took care of everything himself. He was the Far Go Traders – and was careful to train his daughter early. Virginia Harris did the same as her father, but she had three children. Butch Harris Junior, her oldest son, had little in the way of business sense, at least compared to his siblings. But he understood machine construction. And deconstruction. And invention. He was a tinkerer and therefore suited, to evaluate the ideas for new workshops and to take care of everything that had something to do with engineering. Virginia Harris formed the department of ‘technical development’ for him and let him work his thing there.
Sandy, the second born, did not only inherit the good looks of her mother, but also her sense of business. She understood best how to interact with her fellows and to negotiate shrewd contracts and she now carries the title of executive director.
Sundance, the second son of Virginia, became an adrenaline junkie, similar to his grandfather. He loved accompanying the caravans, but unlike his grandfather, he did not go as a trader, but as a guard. He led caravans time and again successfully out of dangerous situations and he developed a keen sense for dangers and tactics. According to the old, military wisdom, that an unfair fight is the fight you loose, and that one has to do everything that can be done to win, Sundance quickly understood the commercial implications of this wisdom. While the “security department” that his mother had founded mostly hired caravan guards, body guards and night watchmen, Sundance takes care of the illegal machinations of the Far Go Traders with a few trusted confidants: industrial espionage mostly, but also the trade with raw materials for the drug production in New Reno.

Business practices:

The Far Go Traders were really never only a transport business. In 2247 they are mostly money lenders and makers of connections, for whom the transport of wares is a minor matter (measured in profits). They invest in workshops, stores, farms, ranches and factories. That usually works by someone with a business idea approaching the Far Go Traders and laying out a business idea. Sometimes those are just people with special skills, sometimes people that found machines in an abandoned small town, that could produce something amazing if they only stood somewhere were there would be electrical power, streets and maybe someone who knows how to properly use them.
In any case, the accountants and experts rate this idea and work out how much money would be needed. If the whole thing seems to be sensible and long term profitable, a contract between the Far Go Traders and the person with the idea is set up. The Far Go Traders commit themselves, to help with the start-up of the new company. To stay with the second example: they bring those big machines from the forgotten and abandoned small town to the next bigger town that fits the requirements, pay for the construction of a fitting building and help the person that discovered the machines, to find a few good employees and some first buyers.
All this is of course not done out of altruism by the Far Go Traders. They receive, until double of their initial investment is paid, 50% of the profits of the start-up. During this time, the Far Go Traders have full access on the books – and if for some reason more money is needed than was stipulated in the original contract, they come up with really high interests for the next credit. Until the initial loan is worked of, which might often take up to 30 years, the company belongs to the Far Go Traders. Completely. The contracts partner is during this time only the manager working for the Far Go Traders. Only when he has repaid the Far Go Traders everything, he can, if he wants to, take possession. Or he can sell the whole operation to the Far Go Traders, for which they will offer him a ridiculous price – and permanent employment with the Far Go Traders.

The Far Go Traders are also not squeamish and plagued by conscience, when they have to help their business interests in nearly or fully illegal ways. Sundance Harris and the handful of his associates in the security department take care mostly of industrial espionage – but also work on ways to smartly send “medical supply goods” to New Reno – some even claim that he’s responsible for the disappearance of several small caravans, but no one has yet been able to proof that and all of those caravans disappeared far beyond the borders of the NCR. Apart from that, the security department of course also takes care of their legal duties: the protection of the facilities of the Far Go Traders and their caravans.
None the less, it’s assumed in the New California Investigative Agency, that the Far Go Traders do a lot of illegal deeds and they keep quietly investigating them – so far with no success however.

Current situation and plans for the future:

The Far Go Traders as a whole are doing amazingly well. Some of the businesses that belong to the corporation are doing – for various reasons – less than good or even bad, but since the preponderant part keeps in the black, that is more than balanced.
One of the most important investment areas for the Far Go Traders is, due to the unceasing urging of Butch Harris Junior, energy production. Electrical power is the future and Butch is making sure, that the Far Go Traders have a rather large part in that future, tinkering with everything from wind generators, to nuclear power and maybe even the sometime realizable underwater turbines in front of the Angel's Boneyard. While that is going on, his sister makes sure that there is enough money for Butch’s costly developments, by not asking her brother Sundance how he came to the information that enabled them, to outmaneuver the Gunrunners and the Crimson Caravans – what she does not know can never be perjury, if she ever has to deny his practices in front of a court.