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The Mars Consortium

The Mars Consortium is a young corporate coalition — approximately four to five years old — organized around the shared goal of Mars colonization and resource development. It exists because its members recognized that no single corporation could fund or politically justify a Mars operation alone, but a coalition might succeed where individuals would fail.

Leadership

Elias Vance is the driving force behind the Consortium. CEO of Vance Lift Systems, he is a corporate idealist who genuinely believes companies can be engines of good — that properly organized private enterprise can accomplish what governments are too gridlocked to achieve. He built the Consortium through personal relationships, persuading competitors to cooperate by framing Mars as too big for any one of them.

See Elias Vance for his full profile.

Nature

The Consortium is not a corporation itself — it's a coalition held together by agreements, shared investment, and Vance's personal relationships. This makes it both flexible and fragile. Members can withdraw. Competing interests can fracture cooperation. The Consortium's unity depends on the Mars opportunity remaining large enough to keep everyone at the table.

Observer Status

The Consortium holds observer status on Phobos Station through the Mars observer agreements — giving it a seat alongside Luna and the UEF's Department of Colonial Affairs. Vance represents the Consortium on-station, accompanied by armed escort (the Consortium brought a railgun-equipped vessel, the Spice Road).

Campaign Relevance

The crew decided to read Vance in on the Tiamat discovery during Session Seven. How the Consortium — and Vance personally — responds to learning the greatest archaeological find in history is real, ARC is involved, and the crew trusts him enough to share it, remains to be seen.