Growing up I was a huge Graingy fan. The idea of this industrial giant in the nigh-empty far north of my country doing basically as it pleased, advancing technology regardless of where the world as a whole may have been, was utterly captivating.

The things that Graingy's aircraft could do were mind blowing. The sheer power of their engines and their solid structure blew away the competition at air shows time after time. Sure, an F-16 or MiG-29 are cool, but nothing beats seeing an Imp pull 22g like it was a morning stretch. The GLF-80 was my instant favourite, even as it was generally overshadowed by its bulkier sibling, the Archfiend (which I love for its own reasons, I must add). I bought an official model one day, built sturdy like the real thing, and took it virtually anywhere I could. That model probably saw more travels than some actual GLF-80s did.

I applied for a job at Graingy as soon as I was old enough. Unfortunately, this was in the last of the "normal" days at Graingy. Shortly before Mr. Rownir passed, the freak everyone tried to ignore swooped in and revealed that, apparently, he had co-founded Graingy as a voice inside Daren Sesame's head. Geminus, whatever his old name may be, wasn't exactly a new presence in the world by this time, he'd revealed himself and his marvelous gadgets back in... was it 2010? I can't remember so well. Anyways, I remember my stomach dropping when I found out Graingy was a creation of that dreadful entity, worse realizing that time and history had originally gone on without the company at all before Geminus changed it. The company now seemed unnatural, something that shouldn't exist.

I still liked Graingy, though. The history, the advancements. The acrobatics... I learned to accept it. So what if the company was an artificial event written in to the world by a selfish man on a quest to become God? It was real now and I appreciated it for that.

I started in a brief internship in marketing, still keeping my GLF-80 model at my desk, and soon got full employment. I figured I'd go above and beyond and start advertising some products on this little website. Getting stuff on here was difficult, clearly it remains so judging by how incredibly incomplete the catalogue is, but it felt worth it. I hoped to someday add the GLF-80, however wanted to make sure I'd perfected my presentation before then. It would wait, but it'd be worth it. Eventually.

The constant of Soia, apart from unyielding power, is problems for problems' sake. They'd gotten involved on a unique planet, Anstrake, for reasons I can't even remember at this point, and Graingy, or someone up the ladder, wanted a representative for the company when things got messy. Someone to be the company's face for the peeved Enstrarchs and to report back what happened directly to the company. It's not like it was without reason, the Enstrarchs definitely represented a promising market for production capacity rapidly outstripping the wallets of Earth. For reasons I cannot begin to ponder, they chose me. No relevant skills, no experience, just a young guy with a computer.

In my final weeks before being shipped out I was instructed to train somebody I never saw to keep up the SimplePlanes presence in my absence. I'd given the account fully to the company, so it was their call to make, but I trusted their judgement.

Years pass, the conflict on Anstrake ends, I come home. I set up an account of my own on this site to help me get myself oriented again, and... well, the rest is history. I find out my replacement was a literal rock, the company refuses to give me back my old position, said rock is not sympathetic in the slightest, and I quickly come to realize that I have no options at Graingy. I'm a media manager-turned-war correspondent for goodness sake, not an engineer.

At least, not quite an engineer.

As much as I hate to admit it, I did pick up a few good things on Anstrake. For starters, I find I'm much more articulate, despite encountering few English speakers. Anstrake was a beautiful planet, once you get over the fact it's built for a species far less squishy than a human like myself. Lastly, multiple times I was forced to render mechanical aid. Learning by doing. It was a start.

I left Graingy, and now I'm considering starting my own engineering group, independent of (but working alongside) the MWBS R&D department.

Despite all of this, I still can't bring myself to truly hate Graingy. I never found my model, yet I struggle to make myself believe they threw it out.

Graingy wouldn't do that, would they?

No, of course not. Graingy is a wonderful company.