Amber Star Consortium

The Amber Star Consortium is a group of interstellar shipping operations and associated manufacturing concerns in the Kingdom of the Amber Suns, granted special rights and privileges by the Amber King. The Consortium controls a substantial fraction of the Kingdom’s civilian spacecraft manufacturing, and has the exclusive right to transport certain controlled goods. Although in principle, any enterprising trader could seek a royal charter granting similar privileges, the Consortium’s powerful position at the imperial court means that those who do not agree to their carefully controlled pricing guidelines, and participate in their byzantine systems of patronage almost never see their application make it to the royal secretaries. The Amber King and many noble houses contract with Amber Star for much of their import/export activity.

Structure and Governance

The consortium is a governed by a group of politically influential merchant houses and shipping guilds based in Ytaj, who have acquired royal charters granting them monopolies on the shipment of certain goods, and the right to operate between any free cities in the Kingdom, and protection from interference by most planetary governors. These charters allow each holder to designate a certain number of ships to operate with this special status. In addition to operating substantial fleets themselves, these great merchants both grant special status to independent ships and allow trusted counterparts in the provincial regions to designate a subset of their allowance of ships.