Sky Caravan

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Image Source: Here.
Canon Link: N/A.
Primary Source: N/A.

CORPORATION INFORMATION
Corporation Name: Sky Caravan
Headquarters: The Bazaar of the Wild Void, a Lucrehulk Cargo Freighter.
Locations: Tygara, Arkas, Kyrikal, Tabaqui, Dahomey, Mobile Operating Centres, Celestial Vahana.
Operations: Trade (medicine, agriculture, raw materials, civilian goods and technology etc.), contract shipping and transport, exploration, blockade running.
Parent Corporation: Firemane.
Subsidiaries: N/A.

DESCRIPTION
The Sky Caravan is essentially a trading guild founded, led by and composed of Qadiri. In terms of function, it can be compared to the Trade Federation of old - just on a smaller, with more competent leadership and better business ethics. The Caravan uses its flotilla to provide goods and services to its clients. It transports cargo and people, blazes new hyperlanes and can, for a price, run blockades. The Caravan is a place for hyperlane scouts, bulk freighter captains, merchants, explorers etc. It has founded its own training academy to teach Qadiri about piloting and space travel.

In terms of ethics, the Caravan refuses to have dealings with slavers and entities it considers hostile to Qadiri interests. It is backed by several Qadiri merchant houses as well as Shazora Jai Vahal, the leader of the Stardriven, and Bharria Jai Ahquala, a Qadiri Nawab and Firemane general officer. In terms of hierarchy, the group has a standard corporate structure, but with a twist, as every employee receives a share and can purchase or sell shares. Each share equals one vote and every shareholder votes for the board of directors. There are caps on how many shares an individual can own in order to prevent a single person or a small cabal from attaining an unhealthy monopoly. The directors appoint officers to run the guild on a day-to-day basis.

The group employs a number of Force-Sensitives, particularly those whose powers improve their piloting and astrogation skills. The Caravan aims to make a profit, discover new markets and worlds to settle on for Qadiri. The Caravan contracts outside parties for protection, but also maintains its own security forces. A good number of them are Qadiri soldiers who used to serve in Firemane's Auxiliary Corps as well as freed mamluks. The Caravan is close to Firemane, but runs its own affairs.

RATIONALE

The tradition and idea of the caravan is deeply rooted in Qadiri history and myth. Land caravans have been a permanent fixture of Tygara for millennia, but they'd have sea convoys too for trade and exploration. Not just for protection from pirates and Xioquo but also from storms and getting lost. Tygara is a world of many continents and islands, and the Qadiri were scattered across the planet. The largest concentrations could be found in Amikaron and several thousand kilometres away in Khajwar. These two separate cultural bases traditionally had little contact with each other except by trade, and this distance was yet further hindrance to any sort of unification. However, the Qadiri had the critical mass to form states, though they never created an overarching government. Instead they were a hodgepodge of monarchies, city-states and theocracies.

All the Qadiri realms were exceptionally skilled at producing ships and navigators to steer them. A Qadiri named Hasana Majelani successfully circumnavigated the world in a ship. These ships were commonly driven by wind, whilst those on rivers or sheltered inland seas used oars as well. The Qadiri were also ahead of their time designing navigation instruments. Some were even able to use the Force to instinctively find their way in the most treacherous of conditions.

All this led to the formation of great trading guilds whose members traversed the seas and the deserts, connecting disparate areas of Tygara. Pirates, desert raiders, Xioquo as well as hostile Qadiri states trying to extract 'protection' gave these merchant guilds ample motivation to band together. Caravans of the sea and the desert often carried luxurious goods and were thus a tempting target for raiders, though some Khaimari corsairs and desert nomads established mutually beneficial partnerships with them, providing protection in return for a cut of the profit. Stations were set up to provide safe areas where caravaners could rest, exchange information and network along the way. In some cases, small settlements and even cities formed around one.

Firemane’s arrival on Tygara came as a great shock to the native cultures there. However, once the shock had worn off and the Xioquo were defeated, both Firemane and the Qadiri especially began to see opportunities. Particularly enterprising Qadiri saw an opportunity to profit from the sky people, realising that they were people and not demons or messianic saviours. Their technology was more advanced than that of the Qadiri, but a blaster was simply a gun that fired a beam of light and a starship a boat one used to traverse the sky-ocean.

This is the mentality that created the Sky Caravan. Fittingly, the driving force behind it were trading guilds and minor Qadiri rulers who had allied themselves with the humans of Firemane to preserve their autonomy and expand their influence, with the aim of moving into the stars. It quickly became apparent to the founders of the Sky Caravan that the way business was conducted in the stars was pretty similar to how they had done it on their humble blue planet, just with different tools. There was little difference aside from the scale between Firemane and a merchant stall in Zeheb's streets. Moreover, a Qadiri's inherent navigational talents could be applied to space as easily as to the land and sea.

Marako Jal Volo, an enterprising Qadiri merchant, was one of the founders of the Sky Caravan. This merchant had acquired renown due to his caravan travels across all manners of terrain. When the humans of Firemane started expanding their influence on the planet, he was quick to jump on the bandwagon. He was quick to deduce what they wanted and how he could benefit from it. At first the profits were minor and he had to put up with racism from humans who looked down on 'sand babies', but in the long run his perseverance paid off.

Marako was able to align himself with other forward-looking Qadiri. Not content with simply selling their wares to human capitalists, they wanted to expand into space. At first the sky people were rather bemused by this. After all, just a few years ago the Qadiri had known nothing of spaceflight, blasters or faster-than-light travel. Nonetheless, the group hired a few foreign instructors to them. Moreover, the first Qadiri Sepoys who had fought for the humans in the stars were now returning home. More than a few were willing to earn some coin by passing on their skills. Crucially, the project received the backing of Shazora Jai Vahal, the leader of a slave revolt and now an important diplomat for Firemane, and Bharria Jai Ahquala, the de facto ruler of a petty queendom in Khajwar and a general officer in Firemane's army with a passion for inventing and building new things.

Shazora, mindful of Semiramis' vast ambitions, was quick to identify the flotilla as a way to check her claim that the Amikarese way was the only viable path to advance the Qadiri. The price of her support was a commitment to oppose the practice of slavery. For her part, Bharria was no great emancipator, but was unenthusiastic about the practice and believed doing away with it would help modernise her fiefdom. A famous explorer called Jahorna Jai Avana was one of the captains put under contract to spearhead their space exploration ventures. The fledgling Sky Caravan acquired a Lucrehulk cargo freighter to serve as its mobile headquarters.