One of the most powerful companies on Earth in 2472 is the Interplanetary Mining Corporation, which, unsurprisingly, employs miners to extract the mineral wealth from planets. Those in opposition to IMC see it as gutting planets and leaving them uninhabitable. But anyone who actually crosses IMC finds themself in a dangerous position - IMC can blacklist them on Earth so that they will never work again.
IMC travels from planet to planet looking for materials that would be valuable for Earth and, more importantly, for their own profits. They are an unscrupulous company, and will do whatever it takes - legal or not - to get rid of anything or anyone that stands in their way. Even murder is acceptable, if IMC gains from it.
When IMC carry out a mineral survey on the planet Uxarieus, they discover abundant supplies of duralinium, which they need to build living units on Earth - enough duralinium, in fact, to double the company's profits during the following year. They were aware that the planet was colonized, but landed secretly anyway, and lied about their knowledge when confronted by the colonists. In order to have full access to the planet and its mineral resources, IMC needed to get rid of the colonists, and it tried to do this by scaring them away. They used optical trickery - a projector which transmitted an image of a giant iguana-like reptile at least 20 feet high - and a Mark 3 servorobot with large fake claws attached to its arms, and simulated attacks by a giant lizard. This resulted in the deaths of two colonists.
When an Adjudicator - really the Master in disguise - was brought to the planet to mediate the dispute between IMC and the colonists, he ruled in favor of IMC, and the colonists were forced to evacuate the planet in a rickety spacecraft. The ship exploded shortly after takeoff, but the majority of the colonists had actually stayed behind on the planet, and they rescued the Doctor, Jo and the Master from being killed by IMC guards. With their forces depleted from fighting, the remaining IMC men on the planet were soon rounded up to be sent back to Earth, allowing the colony to thrive.
