The Martial Unity

“All in favor of the proposed motion?” Guildmaster Bradt looked around the Guild Forum.

A few members of the Shionel Merchant Guild raised their hands, while most did not.

“All against the proposed motion?”

This time, most members of the Shionel Merchant Guild raised their arms tall and straight.

Guildmaster Bradt nodded. “The motion is firmly rejected by the forum with a majority of seventy-eight votes against twenty, with a voter turnout of ninety-eight votes out of a hundred. Are there any objections to this outcome?”

He was greeted by silence before he proceeded with the meeting.

“Then the motion to instate amendment C-16 into the constitution is hereby firmly rejected,” He paused for a second, before continuing. “With the power vested me in as the Guildmaster of the Shionel Merchant Guild, I hereby choose to exercise my veto authority and my decision vote for the instation of amendment C-16.”

This sent ripples of shock across the Guild Forum. The current ongoing meeting was the legislative process of the Shionel Merchant Guild, where the one-hundred cabinet merchants of the Shionel Merchant Guild gathered to decide policy and address agendas for the day.

Policy was addressed in the form of amendment or addition proposals backed by at least ten members of the forum, which would be presented and argued by the proponents of the amendment in an open moderated caucus, and an unmoderated caucus, both of which were forms of discourse that occurred in legislative bodies such as the Shionel Merchant Guild. Once extensive discussion and debate surrounding the policy proposal were conducted, the matter would come to a vote.

Any proposal needed more than sixty percent of the votes of the Guild Forum in order to be passed. Guildmaster Bradt’s policy proposal, which only had twenty, fell far below the necessary bar to be passed.

That was why it was quite surprising to everyone in the forum to see the good guildmaster fully exert the veto authority and the decision vote that undid the outcome of the votes and returned the proposal back to the discussion stage, and the deciding vote which of the Guildmaster which counted for sixty-one votes.

The latter was a privilege that could be used a limited number of times and excluded matters such as the electoral process. It was also limited to being used only once per Guild Forum atop all of that to ensure that it couldn’t be abused. Still, this particular policy proposal was one where it could be and was used.

The fact that it was a limited ability meant that it was quite precious to the Guildmaster and was generally reserved for their most important and significant policy matters. No one had expected that Guildmaster Bradt would use one of his decision votes randomly in favor of an absurd policy like drastically relaxing the identity verification and registration requirements.

Guildmaster Bradt had never expressed any support for this kind of policy change in the past, he had not engaged in even a shred of political lobbying or campaigning to gather support from the constituents of the Guild Forum, which was an extremely basic and standard norm that all of them necessarily engaged in.

What was especially surprising was that he was willing to go as far as to use his decision vote to overrule the votes of basically most of the Shionel merchant Guild for what was clearly his own self-interest.

This was generally frowned upon and most guildmasters tended to avoid doing this as it would lose the support of these same constituents and voters when the next election came around. These were the checks and balances that every guildmaster faced to ensure that they did not go too far with tyrannically using their veto privilege and their limited decision votes to blatantly overrule the entire Merchant Guild on matters.

Guildmaster Bradt Patrick himself was one who abstained from doing this too often and still won most political conflicts through excellent lobbying and campaigning. He was powerful, and extremely shrewd, and even without his authority, he was more than capable of coming out on top.

Yet, this time he had diverged from that pattern and straightforwardly used both his privileges at once. The many cabinet merchants of the Shionel Merchant Guild could not help but be extremely surprised about this turn of events, they could not help but wonder what exactly was going on. Clearly, something had happened that had made Guildmaster Bradt impatient and extremely adamant on this matter.

“Motion for an open-forum unmoderated caucus on the topic of Bill C-16 for a duration of ten minutes,” Chairman Deacon loudly declared with a stern expression, drawing the attention of the entire forum to him.

Guildmaster Bradt glanced at him, nodding, before turning back. “All in favor?”

Every single hand went up.

“Motion is granted in light of unanimous voter support,” Guildmaster Bradt declared

An unmoderated and open-forum caucus was an informal meeting where the constituents of the forum did not need to abide by any norms while engaging in discussion with each other barring a few basic rules.

“What is the meaning of this?” Chairman Deacon coldly demanded, speaking as soon as the motion was granted. He glared at Guildmaster Patrick with burning eyes. Of all the people in the Merchant Guild, he was the one who had been the most vehemently opposed to this policy.

The first reason was that he naturally opposed the policy itself. It would cause nothing but problems for the Shionel Confederation down the line, and even when judged purely on its merits, he could only evaluate it to be poor, at best.

The second reason he opposed it was that it was against his own personal interests. It meant that if a person somehow disrupted the Shionel supplier market, he would have a far harder time tracking that person down and identifying them. This was something he was especially sensitive to, given that someone recently had singlehandedly shown the ability to disrupt the market. He could not help but feel that the guildmaster was partly passing the policy to hinder his own growth.