Guild Board of Trustees
The Guild Board of Trustees oversees the operations of the Navigator's Guild and the regulations under which professional navigators operate.
Structure
Members of the Board are lifted up from the ranks of the Guild Hall members with around two decades of experience in good standing with the organization. Some flexibility in the experience requirement is allowed for those who show an appropriate level of talent, have carried out great feats in the name of the organization, or who show a secondary aptitude for administrative, financial, diplomatic, or scientific pursuits. The Board elects a chairman from amongst their own number to serve as a tie-breaker, but otherwise, the Board functions as a pure democracy. Certain members are held in higher esteem than others by dint of experience or notoriety, but these members have the same number of votes as the newest members of the board.
Culture
As seasoned professionals, members of the Board are heavily invested in the long-term viability of the Guild and the maintenance of their organization's traditional place in the world. Plans set in motion by the guild often extend far beyond the lifetime of any single members. Because navigation is a science, the Board values objective knowlege and endeavors likely to result in more of it, from expeditions to hostile cubes to experimental dieseltech computing devices to speculation about the potential of reaching beyond the tesseracts into the wider celestial system.
Importantly, however, the Board is concerned about the potential discovery of any device or development of any external organization that might harm the future viability of navigators as a profession, as this could result in the collapse of the organization and the failure of their long-term plans. To this end, while the Guild professes neutrality, the Board is not above attempts to co-opt, subvert, or supress these external factors in their desire for self-preservation. As such, while individial navigators are well-trusted by the community that makes use of their services, those in the know become circumspect whenever the Board and their agents become directly involved in public affairs.
Assets
The Guild Board of Trustees is situated in the Castle of Aurorae, an enormous skystation floating in the Northern F/Medial H inflection layer. This puts them at the northernmost point of the Human Arc, a position of significant symbolic importance. The Castle of Aurorae also produces one of the strongest signals on the entire RadNet spectrum, allowing navigators everywhere to use this location as a point of reference when other navigation systems are insufficient. The skystation's broadcasts also serve as a means of distributing important updates to the whole organization, such as modifications to the Navigator's Guild Hazard Index that have a direct effect on the negotiated prices on Guild contract cards.
The Guild Gazette is an important offshoot organization of the Guild and, by extention, serves as the public relations arm of the Guild Board of Trustees. Objective, universalist, and widely-translated, the Gazette is an important source of news, commentary, and entertainment for millions of people across the Manifold Sky.
The Guild halls located in various major settlements througout the Manifold serve both to provide the Board with new recruits and as hubs through which the Board's administration can extend. They also serve as important rendezvous points between the Guild and the various individuals and organizations that might have dealings with them and, therefore, are important business and diplomatic assets for the Guild as a whole. Guild halls also provide training opportunities for the fresh recruits who will serve the Board's interests and, perhaps, join the Board themselves one day.
Military
Religion
Though the Guild maintains a rigorous stance of neutrality towards geopolitical entities, it doesn't restrict the personal faiths of its members. The Board may occasionally recognize faith traditions that relate to their profession, as well as those which have some historical connection to the Guild or the craft of navigation as a whole. The followers of Cosmeon, Ixaumosana, of the Unexpector and Rostran Esotericist faiths resepectively, are well-represented among the Guild's ranks. Rostran navigators are also known to venerate Eqai Voiranoi and regard him as a sort of 'patron spirit' of Guild navigators everywhere.
The Board acknowledges these traditions by certifying the Order of Cosmeon, Seeker of Misfortune, and Courtier of Ironies, among other accolades selected from across the religious spectrum to balance out the representation. The organization is quick to stress that this level of recognition shall not constitute partiality towards the New Voxelian or High Rostran cultures from which many of these notions hail - navigators are to be professionals first, religious adherents second, and ideologues never.
Alternative Names
The Board
Demonym
Board Member
Parent Organization
Location
Official Languages
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