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The Mercantile Guild

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Helios.:
so we have talked about all of the factions, except for the MG.
what we know: the mercantile guild came about after a plague struck the lands to the south, decimating the population and driving the pilots across the land to desperately find a cure for their country-men and -women. In their travels to find a cure they developed a large network of contacts, when the cure was found, they used these contacts to create a huge trade empire. they have outposts all over the world, and trade routes connecting presumably most if not every city.
they control territory to the south in an area called "the vastness" and their capital city is Vyshtorg. Their bird is the swan, their colors are gold and white. the Mobula is based on a Mercantile guild design, having a lot of storage space for transporting goods, good visibility for spotting ambushes, and LOTS of guns for fending them off. the railings are sophisticated but not ostentatious, as the wealth brought by the trade empire has not caused them to forget that their forefathers created the trade empire to rescue their people from plague, a plague which claimed the lives of too many of their citizens.
nowadays their trade empire spans across the world, but because of the ubiquitous dangerous from raiders of various kinds, they have a vast naval fleet to perform escort duties and protect their interests. they have been in some kind of conflict with the Yeshans for a while, although i think i remember someone from muse saying that the conflict had died down some or even completely these days, likely due to either territorial disputes along their mutual border in the south-west of the map or the arashi's continued attacks on MG convoys of goods through the arashi desert and the wastes (the arashi desert it stands to reason is conrolled by the arashi, and we know the desert nomads, who I'm presuming are the arashi, captured Nalm because of lusse's travels entry on battle on the dunes, so it stands to reason they control  the desert between nalm and the arashi desert itself as well, if only because no one else could live there even if the wanted to, which they don't. I would love to hear from muse if this is incorrect)
SO: this is some of what we know, and some of what I have guessed. we are going to pass out of the canon into my feelings on the MG. some of it is shards of canon sourrounded by my own embellishment, so some things might make you think 'no duh, we already know that from the faction feature article." Yes you might very well have done, read on, there's more.
i imagine that the mercantile guild traders are like the elite of any large trade city.  they are dressed impeccably (although because of the history of the MG, not ostentatiously.)    we know they can speak many languages and can make a passable job in local customs of various kinds, especially in areas with which they trade often. the merchant companies themselves, although from a tradition of selfless service to the national benefit, have followed the arc of history away from altruism towards self interest. while some social conventions that are nods to the more idealistic age are maintained, the merchants and their companies serve money: that which allows them to survive as a merchant, and to thrive as such. they are 'ruthless operators,' as we heard from the prologue video, who survive most likely because they value so highly their own survival (and by that I, of course, mean the stacks of gold seen in the same.) the mercantile guild acts with all the compassion of a epidemic, when they need to, ironically. the design of the mobula suggests something about their psychology: they are not at all squeamish about using violence. you would expect a ship designed to defend trade caravans or trade goods to be able to defend itself against attack in some kind of reactive way: guns on the sides and back, where danger might be lurking from a hiding foe. what we see is a ship that is designed with excellent sight lines, and is intended to sight, turn to face and engage fully, overwhelmingly any threat to the interests of the guild.
That is how i imagine them, chime in, how do you see them?

Squidslinger Gilder:
These guys are money makers and movers, they'll be most influenced by that. Minimal government and a mafia family style organization. One family eventually gets on top and is the most influential. Government is little more than there to run local Guild halls and handle defense affairs. These are massive government buildings where each company has a voice and runs their affairs, also where customers can come and hire a company. This would make sure their work and private lives are kept more separate. You don't just show up at a family's doorstep looking to do business.

Corruption is very possible in this system and more likely than not happens. But to balance it there is sort of a code of ethics. If it is crossed, the offender is basically black listed by Mercantile society. So the trick is to get away with things and not get caught. I could see there being a time before ethics were instated where it was all out war between families. Kinda how I pegged the Aero3 story.

The military as I mentioned would be more for defense and border patrol activities. Funded by the Guild Halls and money donated. Perhaps even make it a pseudo militia where each town has a unit assigned to it. That would spread the leadership. Outside of the families, the highest form of power would likely be those running these units. Yet they could likely be bought and paid.

This would be a system where both the Arashi and Chaladon would find offense to. You could never really trust a merchant and each may have different goals or policies. One might be more charitable and another more cutthroat. Loyalty could be bought and sold.

Helios.:
         we don't really know how much solidarity there is between the various merchant houses, or even really how the merchants are organised, whether it is a large number of independent freelancers because the markets and or merchants themselves are too volatile or too xenophobic (or merchants too territorial) to share or be allowed to share,  small number of large organised (perhaps as suggested-hereditary) "ruthless operator" maybe  mafia-y companies, or if they all work for a centralized government.
       we DO know that they have people in almost EVERY major city, and they all owe allegiance somehow to Vyshtorg, but not how much that allegiance is worth, or how the network is protected, either by the individual companies or by the guild with the navy as a national asset.

Squidslinger Gilder:
Yeah they have operations everywhere so that would take a foreign policy that is very flexible and likely based on whatever family controls the route. Hence I'd assume they are very  minimal on government. But at the same time there has to be something that binds them enough where they'd be part of "The Guild."

Lot we can only guess based on how the other nations react to the Guild. We know Yesha likes them alright. Likely because Yesha has a lot of resources and industrial capacity. Hence they need a shipper. Chaladon doesn't directly hate them but doesn't like them much. We can assume based on Chaladonian dealings with the Arashi and their isolationist stance that they've been burned by the Guild in the past. Now if we look at Chaladon's enemies, we mainly have Anglea. Anglea is a bunch of tech nuts who raid people and are wild as you can get. If Chaladon is a more structured society and values order, they'd see Anglea as the bane of all things good.

So perhaps a Guild family did something reckless around those lines and it left a black mark in Chaladonian minds. I'd assume from that, that Chaladonians are the kind of people that don't quickly forget a wrong. Or at least are very wary. Now if we look at the Arashi who hate the Guild, there is a similar history. They are tribal and tribal governments don't forget offenses. Hence you'd have a common enemy between the Arashi and Chaladon.

That isn't to say there wouldn't be Guild branches in or close to those lands. Just maybe very limited as to which families do business. Hence foreign policy is dictated by the families.

If there wasn't something to bind Guild members. Some kind of code or ethics, then you'd have total mafia like war between them. Each fighting over routes and killing each other. So the question then comes down to, what binds the Guild together? If we consider that Yesha has "The Yeshan Way" which we can assume is some moral code or way of life, and it meshes well with the Guild, then we can assume there is a form of "Guild Way" that does something similar to keep the Guild bound.

Helios.:
        the mercantile guild is a government that is a conglomerate of merchant companies, they have a treaty which I've forgotten the name of, so it seems likely they pay some tithe to a centralized government, likely to pay for some kind of contract enforcement agency of some kind. also likely that these funds are also what fund the mercantile guilds naval ships that they use to escort and protect the trading convoys that are the life-blood of the nation from raiders (likely Arashi or Anglean attack, given their geography and philosophical predisposition.)
       I still don't know how the guild's actual merchants act, and who their allegiance is to. from the fluff their trade fleet begins because of an altruistic drive to find the cure for the disease ravaging their homeland. we have no way to know how much of that attitude still survives to the present day. depending on what the treaty says, and how much of that altruistic attitude survives to present day, the fleet could be the mafioso style you invision, or actual governmental agents of some kind, serving the interests of Vyshtorg. i guess we will have to wait till someone at muse gives us some hint as to what is in the treaty.

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