The Rothwell Foundation

Overview

The Rothwell Foundation doesn't officially exist. There are no records, no filings, no public acknowledgment that the seven largest consumer corporations in the Sprawl share a common origin. But those who look closely notice patterns: the same architectural flourishes in buildings continents apart, executives who attended the same unregistered academy, and—if you know what to look for—a seven-pointed star hidden in every logo.

The Rothwell brothers are publicly known as corporate leaders. Everyone knows they're related. Some suspect coordination. But the full scope of their centuries-old dynasty, their immortality, their deliberate strategy to control human desire itself—this remains hidden in plain sight.

They are not the richest entities in the Sprawl. That distinction belongs to the Big Three. But the Rothwells control something more intimate: the daily choices of every person in the Sprawl. What you eat, how you look, who you love, what you fear, how you rest, what you want—all of it flows through Rothwell hands.

The Seven Corporations

Each brother controls one megacorporation, dominating every product and service in their category. They don't compete with each other. They don't need to.

The Seven Brothers

The Rothwell brothers are known by their surname, never their first names. In public, they maintain separate identities as the CEOs of their respective corporations. In private, they are simply "the brothers"—a title that has meant the same thing for centuries.

Origins

They emerged from war—not a specific war, but the general chaos of industrial-era imperial collapse. Refugees, soldiers, survivors—the exact circumstances are lost. What matters is that they came from nothing, lost everything, and swore it would never happen again.

The Deliberate Split

The Foundation was their original company. It was dissolved—deliberately, strategically—in the 1850s. The brothers understood something that other dynasties learned too late: concentrated power attracts concentrated opposition. A single family controlling too much becomes a target.

So they split. Not in conflict, but in strategy. Seven brothers, seven corporations, seven territories. Attack one, face all seven. The split wasn't a failure—it was a hydra becoming seven heads.

Immortality

The brothers are still alive. Not their descendants—the original seven.

Their immortality takes a form appropriate to the era: consciousness harvesting. They've refined the technology beyond anything publicly available, downloading the neural patterns of dying individuals—their memories, experiences, the accumulated weight of a lived life—and integrating these into their own consciousness.

It's not vampirism. It's worse. Vampires take blood. The Rothwells take everything else.

The Seven-Pointed Star

Every Rothwell corporation incorporates a seven-pointed star into its branding. Sometimes obvious, sometimes hidden. Those who know, recognize it instantly. Those who don't, never notice.

The star appears in architecture, product design, marketing materials, even the layout of corporate campuses. It's not worship—it's branding. A conspiracy in plain sight.

The Academy

Succession is the dynasty's greatest challenge. The brothers are immortal, but empires require more than seven people to run. They need executives, managers, influencers, operatives—people who will serve the family's interests without knowing the full picture.

The Rothwell Academy is how they build this network. It's not a physical location. It's a system—scholarships, mentorship programs, exclusive internships, talent pipelines. Young people are identified, recruited, shaped.

Academy graduates don't know they're Academy graduates. The conditioning is that deep. They believe they were simply recognized for talent, given opportunities, trained in leadership. They feel loyalty to the corporations that elevated them—without ever knowing why.

Relationship to the Big Three

The Rothwell corporations operate in parallel to the Big Three (Nexus Dynamics, Ironclad Industries, Helix Biotech), not in competition.

The Big Three have the "real money"—trillion-credit infrastructure contracts, planetary-scale projects. But the Rothwells have something more subtle: daily influence over every person in the Sprawl. They shape what people want, how they see themselves, what they fear and desire.

In a confrontation, the Big Three would win. The brothers know this. They've been careful never to provoke one.