PCBaller World/Montana/Organizations/Helion Corps.

Helion Corps., previously known as Helion Energy, is a large interplanetary private organization that specializes in space mining technology, propulsion, and nuclear fusion (it's original purpose). Helion is one of the biggest players in Montana's energy industry, generating over 70% of the nation's energy. Even then, Helion is moving fusion technologies into other countries, including Sorbia, Germany, and the LFA.

Pre-Collapse
Helion Energy was founded in the year 2013 by David Kirtley, John Slough, Chris Pihl, and George Votroubek with the goal to provide commercially viable fusion energy. The company's early generators were based on the Inductive Plasmoid Accelerator experiments that ran from 2005 to 2012, which used deuterium and tritium nuclei to achieve fusion. The headquarters of Helion were built in Everett, Washington.

In 2014, the company manufactured its fourth prototype of its own nuclear fusion reactors. Dubbed "Grande", the fusion reactor was able to outperform all other prototype fusion reactors of its day. It was able to create magnetic fields of 4 Tesla and produce plasma with an energy level of 5 keV. In 2015, the company managed 95% direct magnetic energy recovery over a million pulses. Over a billion FRCs were produced in the process.

In 2018, Helion made its fifth prototype fusion reactor. Dubbed "Verti", the reactor was able to produce a magnetic field 75% stronger than Grande's, clocking in at 7 Teslas. Ion temperatures as high as 2 keV. It was constructed to test the scalability of earlier reactors such as the IPA-C and the Grande.

In 2021, the company developed its sixth prototype reactor, dubbed the "Trenta". It managed a magnetic field strength of 10 teslas and internal plasma temperatures over 9 keV; this is their first reactor to go over the 100 million Kelvin mark. Later in the year, they created their seventh prototype, dubbed "Polaris". It was initially expected to finish development in 2024. This new reactor would be 25% larger than Trenta, significantly lowering the damage the superheated ions may inflict on the reactor's internal wall.

Starting in 2022, Helion developed its eighth fusion reactor prototype, "Arcturus". It will include a mechanism for direct magnetic energy capture. It managed a magnetic field strength of 17.5 teslas and internal plasma temperatures of over 11 keV. The reactor's direct magnetic energy capture was upgraded to a 96% efficiency rate. This was completed in 2026, and it was the first reactor to boast a net positive. It was able to run fusion pulses at 10Hz, or ten cycles per second.

In 2024, Helion built a new major office in Bozeman, MT. They would send Grande and Verti there, and they would make it an extra research outpost.

In 2026, the Arcturus reactor was able to make a net positive, but that wasn't enough. So in that year, they began to develop their ninth prototype reactor. It was dubbed "Scuti". "Up to this point, the reactors have used D/T/3He fuel as composed of simple hydrogen. This prototype was intended to maximize fusion energy output as well as increase the output/input energy ratio. The prototype, however, was not finished.

Early Post-Collapse
Okay, there's the American Collapse. The energy contract between Microsoft and Helion Energy was broken during this tumultuous event, so they lost their obligation to provide fusion energy to Microsoft by 2028. The governments of Washington, Oregon, and Northern California fell under the control of the Northwestern Imperium. Their original headquarters and offices in Everett, WA were evacuated. The materials they needed were flown to Bozeman in an attempt to evade destruction.

As Helion rebuilt, they were nearly unaffected by the Northwestern Imperium while they did so. Montana's government was still active in Helena. As the nation of Greater Illinois to the east was just forming, they poured millions of dollars of investment into Helion. Helion survived the fall of Cheyenne and Helena.

In 2029, the company would have been ready to build "Scuti" and finish it. As millions of individuals began immigrating to Montana en masse from the west due to the NWI's somewhat disagreeable politicians, some of them began getting jobs at Helion. The Bozeman outpost was built into the new headquarters of Helion, and by 2030, the Scuti was finished. It had the ability to fuse basic hydrogen, but not with the same efficiency as deuterium or helium-3. Bozeman's fossil plants were the first to fall to Helion's burgeoning fusion empire. The net worth of Helion reached $1 billion.

From then on, with the rapid industrialization of the Montanan region, there increased the demand for more fusion energy. Illinois began utilizing the new Helion technology, and Chicago was one of the first cities to ditch fossil fuels in favor of nuclear fusion. As progress kept going, Helion just kept getting bigger and...more advanced.

Fast forward to 2033. Helion made its tenth prototype of reactor, the "Rigel". This reactor would be able to burn basic hydrogen with more efficiency than the Scuti, but deuterium and helium-3 are still its preferred fuels. Even though deuterium and helium-3 are still the major fuels used in fusion reactors, which are now present in about a dozen cities at this point, some progress is being made. A group of Illinoisan scientists managed basic hydrogen fusion at the same efficiency to deuterium and helium-3.

Now at this point, the Americans' journey to space has begun. With a worth of over $4.5 billion at this point, Helion Energy develops its first reactor to be used purely with lunar helium-3. Helion would also enter the lunar ice extraction industry. In 2035, they officially renamed to just "Helion Corps." from "Helion Energy" as they entered the race to the moon as a major lunar ice and regolith processor.

Recent
From 2035 and onward, Helion Energy became a major player in the space mining industry. they are also a major player in the development of Alcubierre drives and asteroid mining technologies. Even though most asteroid mining is performed by Astrum SOE, Helion began performing mass fusion operations with both the Europa and Titan bases. They developed most of the cracking technologies used to crack methane on Titan. They've managed to crack fossil fuels, ammonia, water, and even sulfuric acid in order to produce valuable fusible hydrogen gas.

But what about back on Earth? They've wiped out nearly 85% of Montana's fossil fuel industry with highly efficient fusion generation technologies. On the other hand, the Illinoisan folks have displaced Helion in some areas using experimental strangelet and quark fusion. Helion, with its growing asteroid mining and mass fusion empire, had reached a worth of $1 trillion in the year 2038. They pretty much facilitate energy production anywhere quark fusion is not implemented. In the upcoming years, Helion is expected to make a slow shift to quark- and strangelet-based fusion technologies.

Overtime, they are planning to bring nuclear fusion technology to semi-developed countries that still use fossil fuel most of the time. Even though it is not profitable yet, Helion has obtained a net-positive from fourth-stage carbon-helium fusion, the process of merging a carbon nucleus and a helium nucleus into an oxygen nucleus. This discovery, once made, would quickly displace nearly all uses of conventional fossil fuel burning wherever it is applied, converting fossil fuels to energy by cracking and fusing rather than combustion.

They have a presence in pretty much every sector of Montanan space industry. They are even purported to have a presence on Proxima Centauri b and (soon) the TRAPPIST-1 system. Helion plants can even be found in low numbers in many other countries, even though they are not plentiful (like in Montana). The comet-mining business has gotten much attention from Helion, as they can turn comet ice directly into fusible hydrogen gas. Even though Helion is a relatively small part of the sixteen-figure asteroid mining industry, most of what they mine will usually go to Montana.

Flat Earth & Project Spherewash
"Also see Mainstream Idea Jingoism and  Project Spherewash." In the days after the Montanan Collapse and their relocation to Bozeman, flat-earthers have posed a challenge to Helion. As Helion initially specialized in nuclear fusion energy, the sun's energy supply as of conventional cosmology, many flat earth extremists attempted to break into Helion plants to "see what is really going on". Nearly 500 recorded libelous claims have been filed against Helion by these groups, and they have been accused of MK-Ultra-style operations on their employees as well as [REDACTED] ([META] sorry but that's a wiki rule offence). All of these have been proven false time and time again, but the allegations still haven't yet been beaten as these flat-earth groups are still a major presence. Other companies, such as BlackRock, Amazon, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, and Astrum SOE have faced similar claims (out of all of these, Helion and Astrum SOE have faced the worst). As of 2039, nearly 30 successful break-ins (and over 1,000 attempted ones) have been made against Helion plants in general.

Due to the pain and suffering caused by these groups, Helion helped develop the mass suppression plan known as "Project Spherewash".

In the mid-2030s, Helion added compulsory belief in conventional cosmology as one of their hiring requirements. This is years before Project Spherewash even began, but even then, flat-earth was a problem for Helion as they were "dabbling ever so deeper into the mechanism that makes mainstream cosmology come to life".

Some of the flat-earthers' less harmful claims against Helion include the use of black magic and voodoo to generate electricity as opposed to the fusion of deuterium nuclei. This specific claim comes from cults such as "Blood over Intent" and major spiritualistic flat-earth movements like it. Some even claim that Satanic rituals and seances are performed inside of the large metal tubes Helion constructs for the purpose of harnessing energy from them and converting that to power.