---
# System prepended metadata

title: 'Colonial Minutemen: The Galactic Optimum Labor Division'
tags: [Lore]

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# Colonial Minutemen: The Galactic Optimum Labor Division

###### tags: `Lore` `Finalized`

## Galactic Optimum Labor Division

While many from outside the Frontier know the Colonial Minutemen for its military action, the CMM also operates a widespread mercantile organization designed to regulate and facilitate commerce between the myriad colonies of the Frontier, often with a very laissez-faire attitude.

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**Galactic Optimum Labor Division**: Formed from representatives of all the colonies that form the Colonial Minutemen, the Galactic Optimum Labor Division (also known as GOLD) works to ensure that the colonies engage in profitable and regular exchange in order to avoid dependency on the core systems as well as to generate funding for their military efforts.

**General Details**: Formed later than the Corps and during the BARD's infancy as the Unknown Threats Division, GOLD has offices on every colony in the CMM. 
<!--From middling to massive, their demographics are generally unremarkable, although preference is given to those with formal education in economics, mathematics or government. For this reason, IPCs capable of advanced computation can often find ready employment at any GOLD office's accounting department, should they find themselves in need of a quick buck.-->

**Structure and Operations**: The Galactic Optimum Labor Division is structured primarily into three departments: Accounting, Evaluation and Enforcement. Accounting mostly goes over tax statements or records and ensures that colonies are paying properly into the system on both an individual and macro-level. Evaluation, well, evaluates ongoing cargo shipments and products being sold through legitimate avenues, changing tariffs or regulations depending on the needs of the market and according to the rapidly-flucuating nature of the Frontier. Lastly, Enforcement is essentially GOLD's big gun. When smuggling is detected or when unpaid debts, taxes or fees are left unpaid, Enforcement is responsible for resolving the situation, usually with forces on loan from the Corps. Additionally, Enforcement also operates large cargo ships for the transport of valuable cargo in need of greater protection than private security can provide. All three departments are on roughly even footing with one another, as Evaluation tells Enforcement where to go, Enforcement keeps the violent big-ticket items out of Accounting's hair, and Accounting makes sure that Evaluation can keep the lights on and their ducks in a row.

**Ideology**: "To ensure the independence of the colonies and its myriad peoples, military force alone will not do. Through care, financial freedom and a watchful eye, the colonies will be both free and prosperous, without foreign intervention." 

**Culture**: Compared to the unbridled machismo of the Corps and the assorted oddities that form the BARD, the GOLD is a relatively sedate organization. While some who work within the organization feel positively about the nature of their work - catching smugglers, protecting small businesses, and so on - most view it as simply a rather dull bureaucratic position. Pay is usually below-par compared to similar positions in the private sector, although work within the GOLD is often much less competitive. Officials have been known to take bribes every so often from businesses looking to sweep inconsistencies under the rug or even colonial governments seeking to reduce their pay into the system in order to fund projects at home (or simply line their own pockets). In fact, an individual would be relatively hard-pressed to find a long-time employee at the GOLD who hasn't at least been offered a bribe, with the minority being those who refused. In polite company (and as a form of in-joke), such dealings are colloquially referred to as 'pindrop bonuses', owing to their clients' desire to keep things quiet.

**Relations**: As this subfaction is affiliated with the Colonial Minutemen, they share most of their relations with major factions. However, within Colonial Minutemen space, the GOLD is considered an important office, if one that would rather not be encountered on the wrong end of a subpoena. A common slang term used for Enforcement teams is "GOLDies", which are jokingly given memetic levels of competency when tasked with their mission and similarly extreme levels of idiocy when attempting to perform any other task, up to and including tying their own shoelaces.


**Loredev-Only Notes**: GOLD is essentially a civilian component to the CMM, primarily focused around RP, cargo movement and mercantile work rather than the military focus derived from the rest of the Colonial Minutemen. GOLD ships are generally staffed with office workers, supply staffers and Corps soldiers acting as security. In-game fluctuations in prices or restriction of goods purchasable from outposts may be explained by changes in GOLD policy.

## Restricted Goods:
Items in each of these categories are generally affected by GOLD policies, ranging from increased prices to license requirements to straight prohibition from being sold in Colonial Minutemen space. Items in these categories are often trafficked or smuggled in order to avoid GOLDies or price shifts, with particular note given to xenofauna captured (either by independent contractors or the Saint-Roumain Militia) as exotic pets, nuclear arms for usage by Gorlex forces prior to the end of the ICW, and the movement of artifacts for use as exotic personal weapons for well-heeled mercenaries or as elaborate conversation pieces for private collectors.

### Tariffs

Imported items that compete with local industries, namely small arms, textiles, raw materials, fuel

### Lightly Regulated

Explosives (non-nuclear), narcotics

### Heavily Regulated

Artifacts for research purposes

### Forbidden From Sale

Xenofauna, artifacts for non-research purposes, nuclear weapons, sentients