Citrus Combustibles Incorporated / LEMONBOMB

Aperture Science, once the parent company of CCI, effectively shut down in 1998 with the initialization of GLaDOS and the subsequent inadvertent poisoning and death of all those present at the Aperture Science headquarters.

The engineering team responsible for creating Cave Johnson’s famous lemon grenades was not present at the time of this unfortunate event. They were overseas researching the various properties of a wide variety of citrus fruits.

With their parent company effectively destroyed, the group of engineers decided to remain together and form Citrus Combustibles Incorporated.

Throughout the intervening centuries, the company was passed down through the families of that original group. Strangely the company always remained small, and even stranger… it remained operational.

The actual purpose of the company changed many times over its history.

During the early to mid 2100s, CCI provided engineering support to the early Mars terraforming efforts, assisting Roberts Space Industries with design of atmospheric generators.

In the late 2100s, a new generation of company members took the organization in a different direction. Citrus Combustibles Incorporated created the first cluster of lemon groves on Mars, while maintaining a small side business in manufacturing cheap, poorly constructed, and annoyingly lemon-shaped cargo containers.

In 2232, one of the members of CCI, named Citreae Granate, was on-board the Artemis – an ill-fated generation ship – when it began its journey towards Gliese 667Cc. There has long been concern among CCI that the eventual demise of the Artemis could have been caused by a malfunction in one of the company’s citrus-shaped mining explosives which Citreae had brought on board and contributed to the Artemis project. Yes, by 2232 CCI was once again manufacturing combustibles.

The next few hundred years of history for the organization were somewhat unimpressive. Through many generations the company remained on Mars and continued what it was good at… it produced explosives. These were, of course, always in citrus-based shapes and colours and were sold to various companies for terraforming and weaponry.

In 2525, CCI relocated to the colony of Terra.

From 2541 through 2610, CCI produced a modernized version of their original (now over 550-year-old) product. Advanced fragmentation grenades bearing a striking resemblance to a lemon were sold to the UEE military for use during the 1st and 2nd Tevarin wars. Other products, also supplied the UEE military, were a stun grenade with the likeness of an orange (blinding orange light and overwhelming scent of citrus) and an EMP grenade with the likeness of a lime (bright green glow when active).

After the Tevarin wars, Citrus Combustibles Incorporated fell on hard times. The company refused to aid the totalitarian Messer regime that held complete control of the UEE until 2792. During the intervening period, CCI became a loose association of traders and merchants which continued to exist under the banner of the lemon bomb.

Roughly 150 years later, present day. CCI is currently a small organization and somewhat loose in focus. The pilots continue to fly the banner but are free to participate in any profession.

The current goal of Citrus Combustibles Incorporated is to combine resources to purchase an organization-owned large multicrew ship to allow the company to occasionally group together and participate in larger operations.