Commerce Guild

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The Commerce Guild was a trade conglomerate made up of major commercial entities, such as the SoroSuub Corporation. The Guild was known for pressuring smaller companies to join.

The guild was dissolved following the execution of Presidente Shu Mai and was imperialized by the Galactic Empire in 19 BBY.

History[]

The guild went as far back as 700 BBY, when it maintained a trading station in the Bpfassh system. Companies that resisted the Guild were placed under tremendous pressure by the Guild, including its security forces. Like the Trade Federation, Corporate Alliance and the InterGalactic Banking Clan, the Commerce Guild had its own security forces. The Guild was also politically powerful as it was economic and had several corrupt planetary officials, senators, and industrial spies in its fold.

Shu Sullust — Shu Mai and members of the Guild on Bassadro.

The Commerce Guild also had the power to buy entire planets. One such planet was Castell, the homeworld of the Gossam. The Commerce Guild enslaved the entire population of Castell. At the time, Shu Mai was the Commerce Guild's Chief of Property Resources. She initially used her position to liberate her people, but then followed this by raising the required tribute from her fellow Gossam. The Commerce Guild Chief of Staff was so pleased with Mai that they gave her the office of Presidente of the Commerce Guild.^[9] Afterward, Mai negotiated aggressively and managed to end the financial crisis that had ravaged Castell for a decade. The planet then gained importance for the Guild as a manufacturing center.^[10]

In 27 BBY, the Commerce Guild introduced a bill for Galactic Senate approval, one that would give the Guild a de facto monopoly over banking practices in the Outer Rim Territories. To improve the possibilities of its adoption, the Guild bribed several voting Senators to sponsor it. Many others, including Senator Bail Prestor Organa of Alderaan, openly opposed it, even swearing to stop the legislative motion. To get rid of the Senatorial opposition's interference, the Guild arranged to incriminate the Senators, tarnish their reputations, and possibly ruin their careers, by using their names in falsified betting on various events and by rigging an accident at an "illegal" podrace during the Galactic Games of 26 BBY on Euceron. The Guild's plot would have a podracer collide into the spectator-filled grandstands, taking many lives, and leaving the Senators to blame. Liviani Sarno, a member of the Guild and head of the Games Council, organized the conspiracy with the help of Maxo Vista, who desired Guild membership. The plot was discovered by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jocasta Nu, and stopped by Anakin Skywalker. As Organa and the rest of the opposition were left still standing, politically (the falsified betting having been uncovered), the law was vetoed.^[11]

Nevertheless, the guilty parties were not brought to justice,^[11] thanks, in large measure, to the perjury of the power-hungry Bog Divinian, a Games Council member who wanted the Guild to be indebted to him—something he achieved. With the help of the Guild and other sponsors, Divinian obtained political power by being elected to the Galactic Senate, and thus retained the sympathies of the Guild. However, Divinian's career was soon forfeit, with the debacle that became the 24 BBY anti-Jedi factional petition to sever all future Jedi affiliation with the Senate. The petition failed miserably, accompanied as it was by a vicious attack by two of the galaxy's greatest criminal minds upon that august body, assembled as it was in full-body session in the Senate Rotunda to debate the petition. With that unmitigated failure and near-catastrophe (the Jedi having ultimately foiled the attack), the Guild lost all interest in further helping Divinian.^[12]

In 25 BBY, the criminal Slam gang attempted to break into a security vault of the Commerce Guild. Before they could perform their heist, the Slams were captured and sent to prison.^[13]

In 24 BBY, the Commerce Guild opened an office on the tax-free world of Korriban. Guild members deserving a punishment were sent there, although the Guild motivated other corporations to open offices in the Korriban spaceport of Dreshdae. By 23 BBY, local Guild executives were being robbed in their hotels with alarming frequency. Using local crime against Guild workers as an excuse, the Guild sent a droid army (including dwarf spider droids and homing spider droids) to Korriban, violating Republic laws. This likely was the beginning of the corroborative relationship of Shu Mai and Count Dooku, for some of these droids, as well as new Republic regulation-violating super battle droids, were employed by Dooku's alter-ego Darth Tyranus in fending off Jedi intrusion into the long-abandoned Great Temple and Sith Academy, where he had set up a base for rendezvousing with galactic criminals Granta Omega and Jenna Zan Arbor, to establish an alliance with them.^[6]

In the years leading up to the Clone Wars, Shu Mai greatly increased the military and commercial clout of the Guild. She also instigated strife on Ansion, resulting in the Mission to Ansion, and aligned the Guild with Count Dooku's Separatist movement.

In 22 BBY, Mai was present in a meeting of Separatist leaders on Geonosis which saw the birth of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. She knew that support of the Separatists would be treason against the Galactic Republic, but she could not resist the lure of promised wealth. She allied the Commerce Guild with the Confederacy during the Clone Wars, and supplied armies of battle droids to their Droid Army and starships to their starfleet.

During the Clone Wars, Shu Mai attempted to use combined military might from both the Confederacy of Independent Systems and Commerce Guild to distribute deadly trihexalon on Coruscant and therefore eliminate the Republic Senate. The plot was prevented by a group of Jedi padawans led by Mavra Zane and Chewbacca.

Following the execution of Shu Mai at Mustafar by Darth Vader in 19 BBY, the Commerce Guild ceased to exist, and its remaining holdings were absorbed by the Galactic Empire. Despite the Guild's dissolution , a few of it's subsidiaries such as SoroSub and the Mining Guild were allowed to survive and continued to thrive into the Imperial Era due to the Empire becoming their largest customer. ^[1] At least one Commerce Guild employee, Iaco Stark, took refuge within the Corporate Sector Authority.