Circuitos combinadores y divisores en tecnolog´ıa CRLH
5.1. Circuitos en banda dual
5.1.1. Tramo de l´ınea λ/4 y stubs
Saeder-Krupp has various astronautic subsidiaries, start- ing with sub-orbital and semi-ballistic planes manufactur- ers, and ranging to launch-service providers, space-ves- sel manufacturers, and satellite-network operators. The
roots of S-K’s Space program go back to the old Europe- an Space Agency and associated industries, which was privatized in 2025, sold to BMW, and restructured when Lofwyr took over BMW. On the manufacturing side you have BAE Systems, Messerschmitt-Kawasaki, and S-K
Aerospace (formed from BMW Aerospace in the ’40s)
producing launch vehicles, satellites, habitats, and other space components. Then you have Arianespace, which operates S-K’s launch sites (Baikonur in Turkestan, Kourou in French Guiana, Overberg in Azania) and Orbital Dyna-
mix, which trains S-K’s astronauts, acts as mission control,
and operates S-K’s satellite network and space stations.
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Nobody knows where S-K’s mission control actually re-sides. There is an old ESA one in Darmstadt that S-K still uses, but from its Matrix output you could guess that it doesn’t handle all of S-K’s space operations.
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Orbital DKS-K maintains a huge satellite network, consisting of several spysats made for imagery intelligence or inter- cepting transmissions, but also civil comsats, GPS (they absorbed the old European Galileo global navigation satellite system), and geoscansats, making geological scans for navsofts, research, or other purposes (like ag- riculture). In low earth orbit you can find the Himmelss-
chmiede (Sky Forge) orbital factory, while on the dark
side of the moon you will find the Sigmund Jähn Lunar
Station (named after the first German in space, but of-
ten just nicknamed “Far Side,” wrongly translated by non-German-speakers as “Fernseit”) operated by Lunar
Mining and OD. Besides these two stations, S-K also has
some Mars exploration and asteroid mining operations. In 2069 S-K received the contract to build the Sky- hook space elevator. OD started looking for a fitting counterweight asteroid and finally brought one back in early 2073. Construction on the ground moved quickly, and the lift was partly operational in 2074, though the S-K crisis prevented further progress of the project. So the asteroid with the partly finished lift is kept in earth orbit, like OD would do with a normal mining asteroid.
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While S-K is behind schedule, Aztech has finished partsof their platform and will probably finish it in time. The delay pushed the project beyond its targeted date in 2085 for an additional three or four years. In the meantime, S-K started mining the asteroid, which they would do anyway.
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Orbital DKINSIDE
SAEDER-KRUPP
Working for the dragon is eventually not different from working for any other company except that the CEO is a huge frigging lizard that will outlive every one of his em-
ployees, even if they are elven. Not if they are immortal elves, of course, but I doubt there are any of those work- ing for S-K. Just a gut feeling. Anyhow, I digress.
While every S-K associate knows at least one story of an employee who got eaten by Lofwyr for his failure, in many cases it’s a corporate (urban) legend that is used as a running gag (you normally would get reassigned for a new job, like scrubbing toilets in Romania). And while both his draconic and human form (especially with that grey hair and the staring golden eyes) can scare the shit of people, most S-K-lites (i.e., your common corporate employee at the bottom of the food chain) view the boss as a somewhat benevolent leader. They even ap- preciate that the corporation is in the hands of a singular being who is not driven by shortsighted profits and risky endeavors that put the company (and their jobs) at risk, but rather looks toward the long-term success, growth, and stability of the megacorporation. This guard against loss and uncertainty is used by Corporate Central for recruiting advantages, as they paint Lofwyr as a father figure (or shepherd minus the religious aspects but with the same Unterwürfigkeit) in the spirit of Alfred Krupp (the original founder of Krupp) rather than the feared emperor his enemies describe him as.
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No wonder that S-K doctrine is so successful with Ger-mans and other North Europeans.
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Goat Foot>
Not just Northern Europeans. A recent survey showedthat sixty-one percent of all Europeans, twenty-four per- cent of the UCASians, and twenty-nine percent of the CAS population would like to work for Saeder-Krupp. While in North America it still ranks behind Horizon, Ares, and NeoNET (at least for now), their results are climbing from survey to survey. S-K is so popular in Europe that analysts think German could replace English as the lingua franca in the next ten to twenty years.
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Sunshine>
In Germany, S-K now faces the enormously popularChancellor Anikka Beloit. People often have sympathy for her and for S-K, as many common people still differen- tiate between governments and corporations—or in this case don’t see their antagonism.
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AufhebenWorking for S-K is considered by many a privilege, not only because S-K pays above the average of other megacorporations. In addition (and depending on the level), S-K can be extremely generous with regards to the benefits in terms of health care (even covering augmen- tations), old-age pensions, benefits on S-K products (like cars, cheap fuel and services), holidays in S-K resorts, free flights with S-K airlines, living amenities (pay-per- view trideo channels), family benefits (school education,
protection service) and many more. When you are one of the few lucky beings living in a first-tier Saeder-Krupp corporate enclave, even as a normal wage slave you will live in luxury. You will have access to free public trans- port, upper-class supermarkets and restaurants, corpo- rate schools, sports clubs, and so on. S-K is extremely proud of its youth promotion. Every young first-tier citi- zen will be made a member of the Saeder-Krupp Globe- trotters, S-K’s worldwide youth organization. Here you will travel the world (like visiting the S-K Main Arcolo- gy), attend summer camps, music schools, or take part in any kind of sports (with S-K Gaming they even have a remarkable eSports team). S-K even tolerates smaller “insubordinate” youth groups, allowing them to express their youth culture as long as it doesn’t stop people from becoming a loyal working drone later on.
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Other corps doing it the same way, but I can’t recall Neo-NET putting that much effort into the youth.
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X-PrimeWhile some of these things can be acquired by reaching certain positions, S-K possesses a bonus pro- gram called “Accentives” (casually called “Cents”) that awards these advantages to other job levels for people who have earned them. While not corp scrip, Cents has evolved as a kind of internal S-K currency, since Cents can be used as payment or donated to other corp citi- zens. Since S-K has been on top of the megacorporate ladder for decades, it had the leeway to reinvest some gains into corporate amenities (like the construction and maintenance of the corporate resorts) to show that they “honor” their employee’s work by “giving back.”
The downside from all these benefits is that S-K cit- izens tend to develop a supremacist attitude. This atti- tude is called the “Saeder-Krupp swagger,” but it’s noth- ing more than pure classism.
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Classism is similar to racism—you won’t get discriminat-ed by your ethnic background or your metatype, but rath- er by your social status. A behavior you can observe with several corporate citizens, but it’s most common with S-K folks.
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Kay St. IrregularMost S-K-lites (and higher echelons) look down on every non-corporate citizen, and non-corporate citizens working for S-K or one of its subsidiaries are just slight- ly better. They partly accept other corporate citizens as equals, but only true S-K citizens are on par with them. That doesn’t mean all S-K employees are a bunch of in- tolerant bastards, like beat cops or Humanis idiots you meet on the streets. It’s often a mixture of elitism and hidden prejudices, though from time to time you will find a snobbish S-K manager who will not like you, espe- cially when you are SINless.
Besides this behavior you may encounter on first-tier S-K citizens around the globe, S-K might be one of the most tolerant employers in the world. At Saeder-Krupp you can find every metatype, even exotic ones and metasapients, speaking any language (though when communicating with headquarters, German or English is preferred) and coming from every nation or ethnicity. S-K was also one of the first corps to actively include technomancers. They only have a problem with AIs. Many think it’s because they can’t assure loyalty, but I think it’s more of a problem with Lofwyr’s distrust in them, which has trickled down the corp. He has a prob- lem with understanding synthetic intelligence, as he can’t control them. He may even fear them. That’s one reason S-K undertook such harsh measures against head cases, and why I was extremely astonished they accept- ed monads into their lines.
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Wonders happen all the time. Expediency and opportuni-ty overcome fear.