The Capellan Free Merchants

Headquarters: Red Island, Faire, Capella
Chief Executives: The Council of Twelve, a revolving membership drawn from the Capellan elders who have been Free Merchants.
Subsidiaries: None
Note: The CFM does not follow the standard rules for mega-corps and avoids the Trans-Travel lobby because of a unique charter granted to them by the UPF, in gratitude for the aid given during the recovery from the First Sathar War.

This unusual conglomerate of retail outlets, distributors, manufacturers, and trading ships is much larger than most Frontiersman realize. The Capellan Free Merchants is a union of small companies that protects its members from mega-corps. It specializes in the sale of exotic items, which can usually be found nowhere else but in a CFM shop, and in rentals. This renting or leasing of equipment to its members (at a flat rate) and up to nonmembers (at the going rate plus 20% per month) is extremely lucrative and has been a thorn in other mega-corps' paws for years. Free Merchants also repair and maintain equipment, giving them added income on other mega-corps' products.

The most recognizable members of this conglomerate (although there are members of every known race in the CFM) are the ifshni from the Capella system. These tiny merchants organize hundreds of planet-hopping trading ships that ply the space ways with their wares. The Free Merchants have a clear understanding with Trans-Travel and will only transport their own materials and personnel on their ships. The Capellan Free Merchants usually do not open a shop under their name, but prefer the anonymity of a front organization. Because of their long domination of the Rim society they do not necessarily feel constrained by the niceties of law.

Any being can belong to the Free Merchants, but he must pass a five year apprenticeship program first. Entry into this program requires sponsorship by an already established Free Merchant. The Capellan Free Merchants have been known to venture beyond known space in search of new and exotic items.

History of the CFM

Organized by the first traders that reached for the stars, the Capella Free Merchants became the de facto system government for the Capella system. Its traditions and philosophies bear strong resemblance to the maritime trading tradition on Homeworld, Capella system.

In the beginning, the maritime trading houses dominated the economy of Homeworld but the CFM quickly monopolized the spaced trade and developed the other planets in the system. As the CFM grew in importance and power, the maritime based trade houses attempted to break the CFM's monopoly and banded together against it. This resuslted in a brief shooting war that lasted only two months. The end result was virtual economic and political control of the Capella system by the Capellan Free Merchants. The CFM is allowed to land goods on Homeworld but only at designated ports of entry and all surface trade is carried by the varrious surface based trade organizations.

After formallizing their control to the Capella system the CFM began a policy of exploration with a view to developing new colonies and markets as well as new resources. They immediately discovered the Osak, Fockrik and Kasak systems, openning communication between the three races of the Rim. The humma had only a rudimentary space presence while the osakar were a little further along into thier space age and into this situation the CFM became the interplanetary traders for all the inhabbited systems of the Rim. With the planet Stenmar they offered subsidies to encourage emmigration and colonization with provisions that only CFM vessels would supply the colony.

The humma began to push for increased technology transfers in an efforts to bootstrap themselves to the stars. Direct competition with the CFM and their own internal civil strife led to a brief shooting war between them and the CFM. The CFM warehouses and trading station on Larg was overrun and they responded with extreme punitive measures. If the CFM can be said to have one clear foreign policy it is an unambiguous and extreme response to the killing of any of its personnel.

The offending hummarin lineages and house lost all practical ability to wage war through well placed kinetic strikes by CFM vessels. Rival humma lineages and houses quickly took advantage of the situation and either wiped out or so crippled the offenders that they have never recovered. Thus this round of hummarin civil strife and the Ifshna-Hummarin War came to a quick and simultaneous end.

In the decade following the Ifshna-Hummarin War the CFM instituted a new policy of upgrading the military capabilities of its vessels with a view to handling any future unpleasentness with the humma. This process was 60% complete when the sathar first turned up in Rim space. While the CFM had made efforts toward militarizing the vessels of its trading captians it was by no means prepared to face down the sathar.

The sathar ravaged the Osak system before pursuing retreating CFM vessels to Capella. In Capella they land troops and attack monsters on Homeworld before the regrouped CFM could counter attack and wipe out the invading fleet. Even as the battle waged for Homeworld and the CFM turned its attention on the smaller sathar holding force in Osak the maritime trade houses clamoured for the heads of the Board of the CFM with charges of negligence over the sathar's attack of their planet. The CFM captains had bravely and self sacrificingly destroyed the sathar's fleet but attempts at breaking their monopoly on space trade persisted for years.

Realizing that they had an very dangerous enemy with an unkown home system, the CFM initiated efforts to unify the Rim systems in a defensive confederation. They also sent out explorers to find the origin of the sathar fleet. The osakar, having suffered equally from the sathar were in agreement concerning the need for a better organized defense but the humma refused to join viewing the other races as inferior and week.

The Capellan Free Merchants and the osakar signed an agreement called the Faire Contract, agreeing to a coordinated defense of their systems. Within another decade the sathar returned to the Osak system and sent a beseiging force onto Fockrik. The defense forces in Osak were forced to play hide and pounce with the invading sathar force seeking to defeat individual vessels or small patrol groups in issolation while the rest of the CFM vessels in Capella came to their aid. Once the unified fleets of Osak and Capella dealt with the main sathar fleet in Osak it was the sathar's turn to play hide an pounce forcing the CFM to devote significant resources to deal with them.

Eventually, the CFM and the osakar moved onto Fockrik in pursuit of the sathar and wiped out that force as well. In the aftermath of this sathar incursion the CFM used the osakar to negotiate the Osak Accords and forged a confederation of the three races known as the Rim Coalition or Confederation.

After the formation of the Flight, the CFM, not wanting to demilitarize its vessels, transformed its role into a reserve merchant force for the Flight. In time of war and emergency the CFM's vessels can be called on to support the Flight as armed fleet tenders or even as a last line of mobilization in defense of Rim star systems.

In the years since the formation of the Rim Coalition and the Flight the CFM has focused on exploration and developing the others colonies in the Rim as new markets for its ship captains and it has tracked the sathar to the Zebulon system. Due to the Flight's stealthed scout platforms in the Zebulon system the CFM was aware of the sathar dispatching a huge fleet to Truane's Star (as yet unknown to the CFM) while a similar fleet advanced on Osak. This conflict became known as the First Sathar War (the previous two incursions into the Rim have now been designated at Rim Wars 1 & 2). Because of the knowledge that sathar sent another force elsewhere the CFM deduced that another civilization must be struggling with the rapacious sathar. This led to the discovery of the Frontier and the emerging UPF.