Nergal Heavy Industries is a fictional, privately owned corporation with ties to the United Earth government in the anime series Martian Successor Nadesico

Martian Successor Nadesico

, is a science fiction comedy anime TV series, and a later manga series created by Kia Asamiya. The manga, published in English by CPM Manga, is significantly different from the anime....

.

Role

Nergal assists the government with their war against the Jovians attacking from the planet Jupiter

Jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...

, which have annihilated the UE military

Military

A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...

 forces at Mars

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

 and captured the planet. Conventional weaponry proves useless against the invaders, and so a new type of battleship

Battleship

A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...

 must be created; the ND-001 Nadesico, armed with the same weaponry and defenses used by the Jovian forces. However, though the ship was commissioned by the UE, it remains the property of Nergal, who has its own plans for the vessel and its crew: Project Schiaparelli, named for the astronomer

Giovanni Schiaparelli

Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli was an Italian astronomer and science historian. He studied at the University of Turin and Berlin Observatory. In 1859-1860 he worked in Pulkovo Observatory and then worked for over forty years at Brera Observatory...

who named the seas and continents on the Red Planet.

Objectives

Nergal's first interest was to itself; to that end, the Nadesico was created to break through the massed Jovian forces and re-capture technology and research from Nergal laboratories, abandoned when Mars was occupied. One of the revelations made on the planet was that the Nadesico itself was not fully realized by Nergal. An ancient vessel which had crash-landed on the planet was discovered by the corporation. Realizing its technological value, Nergal built a facility around it, and the design of the Nadesico and all future ships in its class were based on this ship. However, the Nadesico was overwhelmed by a massive attack and heavily damaged, forcing its desperate retreat from the planet using a Jovian transporter device. Learning of this failure, the chairman of Nergal made the decision to formally ally the company with the UE and integrate the Nadesico with the military, for the time being.