The crash of 1929 was a hurricane for the nation, but for the Hemsworth Conglomerate, it was merely a strong wind that cleared the field. As the country plunged into the Great Depression, a time of bread lines and Hoovervilles, the Hemsworth family office on Wall Street was an oasis of eerie calm. The ticker tape, which had been a violent, screaming red for the past four months, was now a source of chilling fascination. For every company that declared bankruptcy, for every fortune that was wiped out, Damon saw a new opportunity. He had prepared for this for over two decades.
Arthur Hemsworth, however, was a man in turmoil. He had watched the fortunes of his friends and rivals evaporate. He had seen men who were kings of industry reduced to ghosts, their empires turning to dust. He was now one of the richest men in the world, and the knowledge that his wealth was built on a nation's misery was a heavy burden.
"I feel like a scavenger, Damon," Arthur said one frigid morning, his voice a low, pained whisper. "We're feasting while everyone else starves. What kind of a man profits from this?"
Damon, now a poised and intimidating twenty-one, looked up from his balance sheet. "We are not scavengers, Father. We are the architects of a new order. The old order, fueled by reckless speculation and short-term debt, was unsustainable. It had to burn itself out. We were simply smart enough to stand in the rain. Now that the fire is out, we can begin to rebuild. Our job is to provide the capital that no one else has. And we will not do it for free."
Damon's plan for the Depression was simple and ruthless: acquire and consolidate. The sheer volume of wealth the Conglomerate had in cash and gold was incalculable. While the rest of the country was facing a desperate liquidity crisis, Damon was the single largest source of capital in the world. He was about to use it to buy an entire nation at a discount.
The first and most important target was the struggling agricultural sector. As Damon had foreseen, the chain of rural banks he had acquired just before the crash became his ultimate weapon. The farmers, burdened by debt and plummeting crop prices, were defaulting on their mortgages in droves. Instead of simply foreclosing and taking a loss, the Hemsworth Bank offered a different deal: a small amount of cash in exchange for the title to the land. The farmers were able to pay off their debts, and the Hemsworth Conglomerate gained millions of acres of prime farmland for pennies on the dollar. Damon then used the Conglomerate's vast logistics network, headed by the thriving Hemsworth Global Logistics, to transport and store the grain in his own network of silos. The Hemsworth Mercantile chain became the primary distributor, selling the food to the hungry population at a low, but consistent, profit. The Retail pillar had now become the country's most important provider of food and goods, and the Conglomerate had gained an immense, permanent hold on the nation's agricultural supply chain.
The other pillars, too, began their aggressive acquisition campaigns. Thorne Motors, with its immense European profits and its stable US balance sheet, bought up several smaller, failing auto companies. The acquisitions were not for their brands, but for their patents and their engineering talent, which were immediately absorbed into the Thorne machine. Apex Fuels similarly acquired dozens of small, insolvent refineries and gas stations, giving the Conglomerate an unparalleled distribution network across the country.
The public, of course, was unaware of the quiet, bloodless takeover. All they saw was that the Hemsworth family was providing jobs, building new factories, and selling goods at a price they could afford. The government, desperate for any sign of life in the economy, looked to Arthur Hemsworth as a hero. He was asked to testify before Congress and advise President Hoover, then later consulted with Franklin D. Roosevelt and his advisors. The political capital was immense.
While the rest of the country struggled, the two futuristic pillars of the empire continued their work, largely untouched by the Depression. Vance Air Transport shifted its focus from air mail to passenger travel, seeing a new opportunity in the long-distance traveler who valued time over money. Damon, knowing that the next global conflict would make air travel a necessity, invested heavily in the research and development of a new, pressurized cabin, allowing for higher altitude travel and a smoother, faster flight. The company was still not profitable, but it was building the foundation for a future monopoly.
At Hemsworth Labs, Dr. Elias and his team were insulated from the economic reality of the Depression by the Conglomerate's vast wealth. Damon's mandate remained the same: pure research. While other labs were being shut down, Hemsworth Labs was hiring. Damon was acquiring the best scientific talent in the world, men and women who were now desperate for work. He focused them on one task: miniaturizing the vacuum tube and exploring the theoretical properties of the solid-state transistor. Damon knew that this was the most valuable investment of all. The technology they were developing would not only power radios and televisions but would one day lead to computers and the very internet itself. The economic crash was merely a distraction. The real work was in the lab.
In late 1932, just before the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Arthur and Damon met in their private vault. Gold bricks gleamed, stacks of cash were piled high, and the documents detailing the Conglomerate's newly acquired assets were neatly organized on a table. The total value of their empire had doubled in the three years since the crash.
"Damon," Arthur said, his voice quiet. "I don't recognize the man I've become. We have profited from a national tragedy."
Damon looked at his father, his eyes clear and unblinking. "Father, the tragedy was not the crash; the tragedy was the system that allowed it to happen. We did not cause it. We simply provided the cure. The world needs a system that is immune to human folly, a system that can provide stability, and we have built it. We are not just a bank or an industrial company. We are a force of nature."
Damon gestured to the vast pile of documents on the table. "This is not just money, Father. This is an empire that will endure for a century. The Depression, like the war before it, was a necessary fire. And we, the Hemsworths, have emerged as the only ones with the foresight and the capital to command the world that will rise from the ashes."
He looked at his father, his expression softening for a moment. "This is not about being a good man, Father. This is about building a legacy that is so powerful it transcends the simple morality of one man. When the next storm comes, and it will, our empire will not just survive; it will be the rock on which the world stands. We are the new order. The Great Depression was simply our coronation."