BIGG lore (Patreon)

Officially, goblin space in the galaxy is governed by the Federated Goblin Hegemonies. However, in practice, power is so concentrated in the hands of the Benevolent Interstellar Goblin Guild (BIGG for short), that most people only know of the latter, sometimes also referred to as the omni-firm.

Despite BIGG's ubiquity in goblin worlds, its origins are so ancient few people know - or care to know - how it came to exist. As goblin technology levels advanced, reaching close to a Type-II civilization on the Kardashev scale, the private sector capitalized on the influx of resources and energy to consolidate companies further and intensify their corporate lobbying efforts. By the time goblins first encountered other space-faring species, this process was largely achieved, and and it was the newly formed board of BIGG that negotiated the first treaty with the Dryad Alliance.

It should be noted that while all branches of BIGG are part of the same holding, in practice it consists of numerous branches, some competing with each others, and some who aren't that successful. A few branches directly control entire solar systems, while others may consist of only a couple of teams in a lab.

BIGG isn't the sole actor in goblin space - strictly speaking, it isn't even the only economic actor. Indeed, many goblins choose to work as independent workers, and a select few companies from outside of goblin space are allowed to operate on goblin worlds. Of course, they do most of their business with BIGG... who else would you trade with? Nonetheless, independent contractors enjoy a slightly higher degree of professional liberty than their BIGG-affiliated counterparts.

The Federated Goblin Hegemonies serve merely as a front, allowing BIGG to enjoy all the perks of a government while avoiding any of the duties. The only true counterforce to the omnifirm in goblin space is the worker unions. While it's not that uncommon to run into a worker who is not in a union, most goblins, especially those at the bottom of their branch's hierarchy, are unionized. Strikes occur regularly, but only a few have ever required the board of BIGG to intervene - most of the time, the unions are too busy with their infighting to coordinate their actions.

Very few branches operate outside of goblin space. Among them are branches focused on Exploration and Acquisition Teams, which venture into uncharted territories, but also some specialized on exporting goods to other space powers, such as the aforementioned Dryad Alliance. There's also a third type of branch like that, but they're more akin to crime syndicates or spy networks, and nobody's been able to definitively link any of those to BIGG board yet. If there's one thing goblins excel at better than anyone else in the galaxy, it's covering up traces of fraud.