Guild
Guilds are Organizations backed by a Houses with Special Federacy Charters allowing them to perform certain tasks beyond the perview of normal Business Operations. The largest group of Guilds are Explorers. The second largest are the Merchants who have Charters to trade with non-Federacy governments (trade within the Federacy is governed by Federacy Interstellar Commerce and Logistics Guidance - FICLG).
Guilds are a compromise between the relatively inflexible FICLG Guidances and the reality of decision making authority necessary at the ground level when dealing with Extraordinary Circumstances. It is, as some state, a necessary loophole.
Public Agenda
Every Guild has a charter, and the charter specifies the activity that the guild was created for and the patron or patrons who are the supporting authorities or groups for the guild. In a post scarcity economy this is extraordinarily important because that determines where you getting the fuel for your next Journey. You can have all the great stuff when you Starship that you want but if you don't have fuel you ain't getting nowhere.
Charters are extraordinarily important because they form the agreed upon scope of sanctioned activities of the guild, even if it would normally require permission by various authorities. For example, when visiting a new race for the first time, the normal requirements are to report back to the appropriate federacy directorate, and wait for further orders, which would usually be an accompanying official if you don't have one on board. A guild, on the other hand, may have a charter that enables it to contact a new species therefore saving weeks if not months of communication lag. The balance of such things would be that the guild has to be completely trained and cleared for such activity ahead of time and trained in various contingencies, and perhaps they would be required to take a Mercantile Operations Monitors along.
Charters are extraordinarily important because they form the agreed upon scope of sanctioned activities of the guild, even if it would normally require permission by various authorities. For example, when visiting a new race for the first time, the normal requirements are to report back to the appropriate federacy directorate, and wait for further orders, which would usually be an accompanying official if you don't have one on board. A guild, on the other hand, may have a charter that enables it to contact a new species therefore saving weeks if not months of communication lag. The balance of such things would be that the guild has to be completely trained and cleared for such activity ahead of time and trained in various contingencies, and perhaps they would be required to take a Mercantile Operations Monitors along.
History
Over the past half century, Guilds have become a popular notion and some have acquired wealth and influence. Though sponosored by a parent organization and regulated by the Federacy, they represent an interesting ongoing economical experiment which relaxes some of the restrictions concerning inter-government commerce. They’re required to have Mercantile Operation Monitors who are a division of Federacy Regulation Enforcement Directorate. For example, discoveries made by the Guild, were reported back to the backing House and the Federacy.
The principle behind Guild House creation is that they were a lot easier to dissolve than the various Houses which made up the Federacy. Though this is technically the case, guilds have also become far more important to the social strategy of the Federacy government and its memeber states and, collectively, may have become "too large to fail."
Notable Guilds
ARM University which many point out has now become "too large to fail." It has the titular support of three major houses.AXE, the premiere Exploration Guild based on Beautiful, though looking to establish a base on Darling.
MIT, recently established in Dometown Delta on Minos Prime, this small guild operating under a Special Provision charter finds itself at the nexus of a lot of interstellar intrigue (as a guild run by PCs should!).
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