The movie Sky Cowboy as well as some leaked info about VE investigating land deals came out just before the IPO. As soon as Gideon had the IPO money he spent just about all of it buying up land. When news of this got out it started a land rush and property valued at virtually nothing suddenly became worth something, since Gideon spent a lot of money on land worth virtually nothing, when that land became worth something VE made a huge amount of money.
Gideon knows that in the long term the investment in cattle ranching itself probably won't pan out. Because beef is such a luxury item it is a profitable business but the Sky Bosses may never be willing to come back to VE and in the end the AAA corps could start selling there best cattle at a loss to depress the market.
Even if VE looses all it's ranching assets the land could still be worth a lot of money as long as people are still interested in it. Since the land is inherently dangerous for one or more reasons (otherwise it wouldn't have been cheap) to get people to buy it the land will have to be seen as exciting, romantic and cool. To make this happen Gideon needs to build up a mythos around the sky cowboy culture. The news buz about the shoot out between the original investors and the Renraku/Aztechnology security teams has already got things off on the right foot. The continuing buz and mystery about who the investors actually are and where they are will only help. Gideon hopes that cutting the sky bosses loose will get even more attention and with luck the adventures and exploits of the sky bosses and sky cowboys will start a life of their own.
If things go as planned rich kids and retiring corporate executives will both want to show the world that they're the type of people who would have rebelled against the corporations had they been among the first group of sky cowboys and they'll do it by buying expensive ranches, dressing like sky cowboys and hiring people to take care of their hobby herds.
In anticipation of all this working out, Gideon would have looked for land that was A) inherently dangerous for one or more reasons, B) has enough spots that are safe but inaccessible via normal means (i.e. via ground craft) to sell off to rich people later on and C) are located in regions with beautiful terrain and nice weather. Of course it also goes without saying that the land needs to support cattle but in truth almost anyplace with solid ground can do this.
I'm thinking that Gideon would have purchased three separate "mega-ranches" at three different locations all around the world. The only thing is I can't figure out where they should be. Does anyone have the Sixth World Atlas? Or does anyone have suggestions?
