Minor Faction
Throne World: Tython
Major Rivals: Spaarti Technologies, Helix Research Alliance
Organic, Humane Health
While other corporations hold similar interests in cloning technology, Xenon are the undisputed market leaders in their pursuit of biodiverse patents, having claimed ownership of a number of genetic sequences they have designed. This despite a variety of legal challenges regarding what has been since termed “helix-theft”.
Xenon Bioengineering are the first and last word in galactic bioengineering. Pillaging the research division of their primary rival Spaarti Technologies, they cornered the market in a massive takeover during the early years of the Clone Wars. Driven by the massive military need for bacta and other organic health supplies, the company grew from strength to strength.
Despite coming under fire for their aggressive pursuit of patents—including expensive cures for a variety of afflictions from common maladies to deadly diseases—Xenon has maintained direct control over a number of critical pharmaceutical products. It is well-known that their failure to adapt a working model of the clone drug genyryl, as Czerka Mercantile did, is seen internally as the company’s greatest single failure of the past century.
However, more importantly, the company’s reputation has since become perhaps irreparably tarnished by their association with a series of events at the tail of the Clone Wars. Xenon is presumed to have developed the clone technology which was eventually utilised by the Jedi Order to bolster their numbers when the tide against them seemed to have turned.
Xenon failed to strategically cease production of that technology—which their competitors, such as Spaarti, claimed to have done—which, given what occurred, would certainly have swayed the conflict in the favour of the Republic. Thus, the company has come under heavy scrutiny in some quarters for having played an active role in delaying the outcome of the war.
It appears in a multitude of records during the war that at some point during its final years, the Jedi approached Xenon for the technology they had themselves not long before disavowed as some kind of heresy. Whether or not this situation was actively manipulated or exploited by Xenon remains unknown even if a proactive approach from the Jedi Order was indeed the source of their initial contact.
Yet the fact of their laborious obfuscation of their work and determination to maintain its invisibility to the Jedi stands in stark contrast with the swift adoption and embrace of it the very moment the Order needed it most. Xenon’s later claims that the technology they had kept so carefully hidden was was suddenly wrested from their control on Tython is a matter of endless speculation. This is the contradiction which leads many to suspect that the desperation of the Jedi—and the offer of a portion of their vast resources—was an opportunity Xenon found to be too good to ignore.
Official corporate reports have since offered a great deal of legal evidence that Xenon yielded the clone technology under duress, and even attempted to destroy its facilities and any trace of the outlawed technology, at the behest of the Galactic Senate. Yet simple economic interest suggests that no company would voluntarily eradicate decades of hard work—particularly if the alternative was a risk that might yield an immense reward if the war had turned in their favour.
The extensive Senate inquiry into Xenon’s behaviour during the war was predictably arduous, blighted by endless delays and bickering over technical details, and resulted in an ultimately toothless reprimand of the corporation’s behaviour. Xenon Bioengineering released its statement of disagreement with the Senate findings, and went on to lodge a record profit in their end of year results, buoyed by the publicity generated by the inquiry.
Xenon now co-sponsors a program in association with Cybot Galactica called BioLabour. Xenon has engineered various basic carbon life forms which can be neural-activated by Cybot's cybernetic systems, allowing them to function as fully-purposed organic labour. More efficient but also more expensive than droids, such labour is in increasing demand, especially by the Galactic Empire. Despite the complaints of a number of ethics forums, this new breed of biological labour remains without formal recognition of its sapience and, hence, does not enjoy the rights of Imperial citizenry. Few harbour any doubts that this simple fact is the reason why the technology has become so prevalent and popular on large-scale, often incredibly dangerous, military-industrial projects.