CHOAM
The Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles, the conglomerate that runs the Imperium's economy.
CHOAM holds a piece of nearly every economic engine worth owning in the Imperium, from the machinery that harvests spice to the shipping contracts that move it. That reach makes it the financial spine tying the Great Houses, the Emperor, and the Spacing Guild into one dependent system. Landsraad politics decide who sits on the board, at least on paper. In practice a directorship ranks among the most viciously contested prizes in Imperial life. A controlling share buys political weight most Houses could never earn on their own. Melange sits underneath most of the Imperium's wealth, so a hand on CHOAM's spice shares is a hand on power itself. That makes Arrakis, the only confirmed source of the stuff, the most valuable piece of real estate anyone controls. Shake a House's standing with CHOAM's directors and you shake its standing everywhere. Shaddam IV and the Harkonnens proved exactly that. They used the company to hollow out House Atreides from the inside.
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