Gateway Consortium

## Overview

The Gateway Consortium is registered within the Corellan League as an operator of commercial starports and starships for the purposes of conducting foreign trade in The Beyond. Although its charter does not preclude the Consortium from conducting trade and operating starports within the League, more than 90% of Gateway’s business is related to interfaces between the League and its neighbours, mainly in the trailing border regions in the Nakris, Zydar and I’Sred\*Ni Heptad subsectors, although its only trade with the I’Sred Protectorate occurs with third party assistance out of the Consortium’s brokerage office on Shalukin.

In six systems the Gateway Consortium has established starport-class waystations and become – in effect – the system government. The Consortium Headquarters has been located at the Class B Gateway Highport in orbit since its executive offices transferred from Shekerleb in 63. The Consortium controls additional Class B starports at Nestor, Pit Stop, Stovall, Boduhr and Link.

Despite being a registered Corellan League entity and thus under its diplomatic jurisdiction, the Gateway Consortium maintains its own diplomatic staff and consular offices on various major League member worlds and on Jarnac, Zydar, Nakris, Stormhaven, Beriel and Lod.

## History

Formed in 435, the Gateway Consortium dominates large scale trade between the Corellan League, Stormhaven, Nakris and Zydar. Gateway is a major factor in commercial ties with Beriel and has a minor but growing presence in trade to the Jarnac Pashalic, Monarchy of Lod, Marrakesh, Sant Rabloes and the Florian League. A series of lawsuits has hampered trade activity with the Kajaani Triumvirate. Trade with various Aslan clans has risen and subsided over the centuries but is currently not a major source of income.

For centuries the Gateway Consortium maintained an effective monopoly on trade routes by limiting commercial access to its ports to its own vessels and by charging high rates to those military vessels from Corella, Nakris and Stormhaven wishing to use Gateway facilities for resupply or minor maintenance. While the League supported this position – mainly because of ownership and influence interrelationships with several League Great Houses and other League registered Consortia – outside states and independent operators were unhappy with this arrangement. In 833 the combined pressure of Stormhaven and Nakris forced the Consortium to surrender its commercial traffic monopoly. The terms and conditions of the Gateway Compact opened access to its waystations to independent commercial vessels and set limits for allowable fees.

## Refueling Schedule

At all six Gateway-operated Class B ports, the fee schedule, still determined by the Compact, is as follows:

## Accommodations

A Travellers Aid Society hostel is present at each starport via a special lease arrangement and the TAS facility is not bound by the Compact; it is free to charge whatever rates it desires. Since the closure of the TAS hostel on Adhaeoe in the Knoellighz sector, the hostel on Nestor is now the furthest operational Travellers Aid Society facility from the borders of the Third Imperium.