| The Guild | |
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| Formal Name: | The Guild of Free Commerce and Enterprise |
| Founded: | 3230 - Glasgow Nova Carta |
| Motto: | Donec Convallis, Rutrum Feugiat, Libero Magna Free Trade, Free Enterprise, Free People |
| Primary Traditions: | |
| Relationships | |
| Allies: | |
| Enemies: | |
The Guild was an all-powerful, global alliance of businesses. In its original founding Nova Carta, they pledged themselves to be an organization built to protect the interests of businessmen and women large and small. But as the Guild grew and evolved to become the dominant power on the planet, exerting a stranglehold over all the people of the world.
History[]
Founding[]
In the closing years of the Wars of Kinslaying, the world economy lay in ruins. Reasonable business people were having a hard time making a living. A small consortium of business leaders concluded that the horrible violence which had plagued the world for over 50 years was at the root of all of their economic troubles. Three of the most powerful and wealthiest businesses began discussions to protect their mutual interests. After several meetings, they met in Glasgow in 3230 to pen the Nova Carta, a document which would found the Guild.
The Nova Carta has three primary principles:
- Businesses have the right to profit from their ventures.
- Businesses have the right to purchase stock in the Guild and to vote in their interests at the Congress of the Guild.
- Businesses have the responsibility to promote international peace to help preserve free trade.
The Nova Carta was one of the first documents to permit rights not to individuals, but to businesses. Indeed, nowhere in the Carta are individual human beings mentioned at all.
Formally, the Nova Carta was a merger between three great corporations. The Min were a powerful Wuchong family that had backed numerous Pamoja manufacturing plants and Varisa electronics plants. Another Wuchong family, the Jia, were a wealthy family of energy moguls whose glory had since faded, other than their ownership of the Pacific Tsiolkovsky Tower. Together with a fantastically wealthy Iuratus landowner who owned the Indian Ocean Tsiolkovsky Tower, these three families controlled the world's only space elevators, which they would lease access to for a small fee.
The founding of the Guild opened with an initial public offering of stock. These shares were only available to businesses who wished to share in the profit of the Guild, not to individuals. The more shares of stock that a business bought, the more votes it would have during the Congress of the Guild. The Congress of the Guild would decide how profits would be spent and how the Guild would intervene in conflicts. The sale of stock would be used primarily to fund the expansion of the Guild's new peacekeeping forces, the Adjudicators.
In time, the Guild's control over the space elevators would become a huge profit for them. They also began to demand a sales tax on any and all items transported at any time using the Tsiolkovsky Towers (and as more and more manufacturing moved into orbit, this further ballooned the Guild's profit). But the Guild's close alliance with the Andorians allowed them to build a powerful peacekeeping force which preserved order and tranquility the world over, and for a time, all was good.
The Guild in the Pax Caeli[]
In 3469, the Guild would help usher in a golden age during the Pax Caeli, when the First Congress of the Guild established a pacifica decretum (a "peaceful decree", as part of their mission to preserve world-wide peace) which opened the Tsiolkovsky Towers to businesses seeking to build Earth-orbit manufacturing sites and living spaces, free of the usual charges. This, in effect, threw open the great frontier of space to all of mankind, and pioneering spirits ventured upwards to seek their fortunes in the heavens. Tensions were eased as malcontents could simply head to space to escape whatever troubles they were having back Earthside. Thus began the Race to the Stars.
Colonial Conflict[]
However, as millions flooded the Towers to reach Earth-orbit, the Guild's greed began to shine through. The First Congress of the Guild kept their pacifica decretum which opened up the Towers to businesses, but then levied a hefty fee for each passenger transported. This fee was naturally passed on from the transport companies to the passengers themselves, to the outrage of workers already in orbit who had hoped to bring their families up to the newly-finished orbital colonies. Tensions grew until the first open conflict between Colonial forces and Guild Adjudicators in 3477. The conflict would simmer, with open combat exploding with increasing frequency over the next 70 years. The brutal tactics employed by the Guild Adjudicators only served to embolden Colonists, and estrange some allies of the Guild. Andorians in particular were upset by the Guild's actions, and when the Guild proceeded to double-down on its brutal tactics by executing without trial captured Colonial rebels, the Andorians abandoned the Guild in droves. For a time, it appeared that the Guild would soon be trapped in a two-front war against Colonists in space and Andorians on the Earth, but to everyone's surprise, the Andorians instead chose to leave Earth behind altogether on several large space ships.
Still, in spite of their barbaric approach, the Guild was successful in maintaining a lasting peace, with the defeated Colonists agreeing to the Colonial Treaty. In exchange for acknowledging the Guild's control of the Tsiolkovsky Towers and the legitimacy of their Adjudicators' actions, the Colonies were granted benefits which included waiving the passenger fee for orbital colonists and their families once the colonists been employed by corporations in the Guild for more than six months, so long as they remained in Guild-Compliance ("GC" for short).
Dominion of the Guild[]
Guild-Compliance would become a shadow hanging over all the world during the Pax Caeli. The Colonial Treaty enabled the Guild to ban individuals from doing business with some or all Guild members if they did not maintain Guild-Compliance. The Guild Adjudicators had created a laundry-list of behaviors and actions which would be prohibited, and offenders would be found to be non-compliant. Being non-compliant did not simply mean being unable to purchase groceries conveniently: by the 3500s, almost all corporations were Guild members, and it was nearly impossible for someone out of GC to get by in society. Unable to find work or obtain food, clothing or shelter, non-GCs were routinely rounded up and "assigned employment" at work camps. Even Guild-member corporations could be punished with fines or be stripped of their shares if their employees were non-GC.
In 3708, the Fourth Congress of the Guild was formed and issued the Decree of Silence, effectively withdrawing rights from individuals to petition the Guild. All of the previous Congresses of the Guild had allowed individuals to petition Guild Representatives with requests, but the Fourth Congress felt that this was bad for business. The floor of the Congress of the Guild would only be open to Guild Representatives and Guildmasters. This would mark a major turning-point in Guild history.
The Guild Wars[]
3710 marked the beginning of a global conflict which would spin into The Guild Wars, as first Aliançian and later Iuratus and Natovi would begin attacking Guild holdings. The conflict escalated further when the Knights of the Phoenix issued the Iustus Mandatum in 3714, which obligated them to help "promote justice and defend the weak". They sided with the rebels against the Guild, helping to even the odds.
The Sturmblut would be unified in a Würdigschlacht under Kriegsherr Shockwave not out of any love for the Guild, but because they sought a reckoning with the Knights of the Phoenix. Several of the divided revolutionary groups united in the Liga de Defesa to combat the Guild. So a three-way war raged for years, with no side able to get the upper-hand. But then in 3722, a valiant Knight slew Kriegsherr Shockwave in battle, effectively ending her Würdigschlacht. This was seen by many historians as the tipping-point. Shortly after her defeat, Varisan scientists agreed to join the Liga de Defesa, and the Liga made its alliance with the Knights of the Phoenix official soon thereafter.
The Guild could not maintain its defenses against such a force, organized under an ancient and powerful Knight-Captain known as Oathbound. After a long series of crushing defeats, the Fifth Congress of the Guild agreed to surrender. The Tractatus Patefacio Viae would be the foundation of their surrender, forcing the Guild to forever hold the Tsiolkovsky Towers open and free for passage for all people, forever. The Guild was also forced to submit to a number of grievances, eliminating the notions of "Guild-Compliance" and making it illegal for the Guild to imprison free people in work camps. Further, the Guild would never again be allowed to maintain its army of Adjudicators. Instead, world peacekeeping efforts would be continued by the Liga de Defesa.
Organization of the Guild[]
The Guild is organized into a great Congress of shareholders. Each business which has purchased stock in the Guild is entitled to send representatives to vote for those shares. Originally, the Congress was held for one week annually, but as the Guild grew in power and expanded its dominion across the globe, Congresses were held more and more frequently. By the time of the Fifth Congress of the Guild, Congress was being held continuously. The Congress of the Guild functioned like a legislature, issuing rules that all represented businesses would have to abide.
While formally called a "congress", the Guild's legislative body was more akin to a parliament in its organization, with businesses of similar interest banding together to form loose coalitions. While this often meant that businesses in similar industries would wind up in the same coalition (such as electronics and technology manufacturers in one coalition, agriculture represented in another coalition, and mining in still another coalition), bitter rivals in the same industry could fracture a coalition and create two opposing technology coalitions, for example.
The Nova Carta allowed the Congress of the Guild to dissolve and reorganize itself in the face of new situations, and each subsequent Congress could pick and choose which laws passed by the previous Congress would be re-implemented. Each Congress also had the right to reorganize its membership, including how many shares of stock a business must hold before it is allowed additional representatives in the Congress. Each new Congress was also accompanied by a new public offering of stock. The only absolute was that all shares of stock issued by a previous Congress were to be honored in perpetuity.
The Congress of the Guild was fairly simple in structure in its first two itterations. The Third Congress of the Guild, however, was reorganized to expand the power and scope of the Adjudicators by including several representatives from the Adjudicators as part of a special advisory committee to the Congress. The Fourth Congress of the Guild expanded upon this, creating a special advisory committee which grew to reflect the growing role and power of the Adjudicators. This powerful committee became known as the Guildmasters, who controlled the entire peacekeeping aparatus of the Guild and had the power to control all Guild expenditures and tax collection "during times of conflict". Of course, by keeping the Adjudicators constantly mobilized, the Guildmasters became the de facto rulers of the Guild, and thus the world. As part of peace negotiations at the end of the Guild Wars, the Fifth Congress of the Guild would be formed with the power of Adjudicators vastly reduced. While the numbers of Guildmasters swelled, and their control over Congressional proceedings grew even vaster in the Fifth Congress, the weakening of the Adjudicators would mean that their power outside of the Guild was in tatters.
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