Scott:
No first name here. Just "Metlay." But thanx for the thought....
As for Sternmetal, they have a rather poor reputation in the GDW universe,
perhaps unfairly. Since the very first adventures, where the whole concept
of the megacorporations was still in its infancy and the GDW folx needed to
create a "big faceless corporate bad guy" entity, Sternmetal has been the
butt of more than its share of villain roles, and incompetent ones at that.
This is sad, because there's no way they could have grown to the level of power
that they currently enjoy if they were always as incompetent as they've been
made out to be. If you'd like, I can delve into my back issues of JTAS and my
old books and dig up some details about them; they're not really a merchan-
dising firm, but specialize instead in raw materials recovery and processing.
(This contributes to their bad reputation, as they have a tendency to leave
planets in unpleasantly befouled states.) If you want a K-mart for Average
Stellar Tech items (but one which is by NO means incompetent), I'd suggest
Ling-Standard Products.
Any other questions?
metlay