Major Corporate Alliance

Great Commerce Alliance (大商会連合) was an alliance made up of legacy merchant companies from the Midgar Kingdom that was officially headed by Garter. Unbeknownst to the populace, the Great Commerce Alliance was secretly a puppet of the Cult of Diablos with their associate, Gettan, controlling this alliance from the shadows.

The Alliance was dissolved after Shadow and Yukime instigated a credit collapse, to which the Alliance was not able to refund their bills for gold coins, and thus had to sell all assets to repay all cash vouchers.

Overview
The Great Commerce Alliance was an coalition formed by all the presidents of the merchant companies in the Midgar Kingdom with their legacy years of experience and history. However, the alliance was nothing more but a non-aggression pact as they were organized after decide to quell the major corporations’ business fighting and joined forces by uniting them under one banner.

The reason for the formation of this Alliance was to bring down the Mitsugoshi Company due to their fear of the company's rapid expansion over the marketplace in the region, not knowing that this alliance has been made into a sacrificial pawn by the Cult of Diablos that is useful for their plot to destroy Mitsugoshi.

The Alliance's public efforts to crush Mitsugoshi was to sabotage their distribution by forcing all traveling salesmen to stop carrying Mitsugoshi goods until they switched over to MCA merchandise and using their currency bills, as well as using their private armies to attack the Mitsugoshi cargo carriages by disguising as bandits.

However, their efforts are fruitless as the Great Commerce Alliance are unaware that Mitsugoshi Company is a public cover for the Shadow Garden organization as not a single member of their raid force has come back alive, neither having been killed nor interrogated.

History
The merchants from the Midgar Kingdom began notice that the Mitsugoshi Company had grow in power and expanded their business with such rapid pace, unaware that the company is Shadow Garden's public front. As there was no shortage of merchants that regard the company as a threat and the demand for Mitsugoshi goods so tremendous that even a whole coalition of merchants wouldn’t stand a chance against them, with Mitsugoshi's position rock-solid for some time. However, all merchant companies formed a coalition in order to stand up against Mitsugoshi Company, when they began introducing their banking notes to the world, which had become very popular among the kingdom's citizens and ended up drawing the envy of many competitors.

The Cult of Diablos noticed Mitsugoshi's success and aimed to destroy the Company, but they couldn't do so personally due to their concern situation against Shadow Garden. So, the Cult contacted their associate, Gettan, who sought to occupy a Seat in the Knights of Rounds, and ordered him to destroy the Mitsugoshi Company by leading the Great Commerce Alliance through his Garter Corporation.

Following the introduction of Mitsugoshi bills, the Great Commerce Alliance tried to understand the concept and copied their idea. But in contrast to Mitsugoshi, the Alliance bills were much easier to counterfeit, so Gettan misled the Great Commerce Alliance for the Cult's plan to mass produce counterfeit bills to create a credit crisis in order to bring down Mitsugoshi, as he planning to start when the Cult's assets were safely withdrawn from the capital and finishing their dealing with the Great Commerce Alliance, leaving the Alliance to take the fall with Mitsugoshi.

Unbeknownst to both the Great Commerce Alliance and the Cult of Diablos, Shadow also planned on using their same plan ahead of time after he was accept the invitation with the White Tower monarch, Yukime the Spirit Fox, asking him to join forces with her to enter the secret war between the Alliance and Mitsugoshi, seeking the collapse of both parties. Shadow then implemented their exact credit collapse plan using Mitsugoshi and Alliance counterfeits, by working together with the Snow Fox Corporation of the Lawless City under the alias "John Smith".

Organization Strength and Influence
With the creation of this Alliance, their power of influence was able to match Mitsugoshi Company in trade thanks to their years of business experience. Another factor in the Alliance's rising influence was the fame of Gettan, known for his nickname as the "Sword Devil". Not only did he bring a tremendous amount of legitimacy to the organization due to his cunning and charisma, he also provided the Alliance with a strategic plan and manpower.

It was said that the Alliance's private army, particularly those from the Garter Corporation had their strength on par with a small nation. Especially the Alliance's best mercenaries, The Clovers were highly-skilled personal assassins from the personal team within Garter Corporation whose members were all handpicked by Gettan himself.

However, all of their best members in the Alliance's raid force, including The Clovers had been unable to stand up against some of the formidable members from Shadow Garden as they have successfully killed all the assassins they sent and gradually whittling down their combat assets, making their resources burning until become drained over the course of time goes on.

Membership
The Great Commerce Alliance was created from the union of all the trading companies in the Midgar Kingdom's region, who have all merged together into a singular organization force with mostly due to representatives from the president of Garter Corporation, Garter who became the founder of the alliance.

The reality, however, is that despite Garter's contributions to the Alliance, he is not its actual leader, as Gettan seemingly controlling the alliance behind the scenes and his orders are carried out by Garter.

Formation of the Alliance
The Great Commerce Alliance was founded at an unspecified time (possibly due to Mitsugoshi's popularity and the company's rapid expansion) created for the sole purpose of destroying Mitsugoshi Company with the president of the Garter Corporation, Garter as the Alliance's leader. Even though Garter had hired Gettan to help him, the Alliance was currently being headlined by Gettan as the de facto shadow leader with Garter becoming his subordinate and serves as the figurehead leader.

Gettan had done everything he could to put Mitsugoshi at a disadvantage by giving his orders to Garter to carry out his plan. However, the Alliance's only successful effort was making the losses from the traveling salesmen that used to carry Mitsugoshi's goods to the commoners out in the countryside had suffered because of their actions after raiding them, while Mitsugoshi Company isn’t flinching at all for whatever reason due to their urban trade was completely unaffected.

Moreover, the Alliance tried to make paper money just like Mitsugoshi per Gettan's direction without knowing that Gettan was acting as a collaborator for the Cult of Diablos by presenting a plan to the Alliance, which was actually the Cult's plan because Gettan had confidence in his abilities by voluntarily taking on their task to destroying Mitsugoshi, with the promise of occupying the 12th seat in the Knights of Rounds.

Great Trading Company Conflict
The Great Commerce Alliance subsequently attempted to sabotage Mitsugoshi by sending their private forces to attack Mitsugoshi's carriage supply lines and eliminate their employees, only for said assassins to encounter fierce resistance from Shadow Garden's well-trained forces, leading to many of their deaths and a few of them being captured for interrogation. Subsequently, Mitsugoshi's carriage supply lines kept running smoothly, while the Alliance were dumbfounded at failing to impede their financial adversary.

Gettan also ordered all members of his best mercenaries, The Clovers, to infiltrate at the headquarters of Mitsugoshi Ltd's with the objective of gathering all confidential documents, money, and manufacturing details. The Clovers were to then engage in sabotage, while also pillaging and kidnapping important personnel without failure. But their mission to raid was a failure, as the Clovers didn’t return having been killed one after another. Even Garter's private army and rear guard, responsible for reporting back in case of mission failure, never returned either. Thus, Gettan felt confident even his mercenaries had been eliminated, because Mitsugoshi had fallen into the cult's plan.

When the rumors about counterfeits had begun to spread and reached Gettan's ear through Garter, he decided to check with his superiors as Gettan was originally planned to scatter counterfeit bills and destroy the credibility of the Alliance and Mitsugoshi Company, which he would later began the motion after relocating and hiding the Cult's assets within the Alliance vaults. By the time when he heard the news from the Cult’s messenger, Gettan was furious because their counterfeits hadn’t been finished nor distributed. This confirmed to Gettan that some third party was mass-producing fake bills, and speculated the culprit was the Mitsugoshi Company who used the Cult's plan against him. So, Gettan ordered Garter to track down John Smith and recover their funds in order to salvage the crisis. With rumors of counterfeits already circulating around the capital, Gettan was running out of time because he couldn't find John Smith. With an influx of people exchanging their bills for gold, a massive liquidation request came and all company presidents in the Alliance refuted Gettan's promises, asking to shut down the exchanges as they knew their reserves wouldn’t hold out.

Gettan eventually confronted Yukime, sensing something amiss from the liquidation order and decided to investigate, which revealed that she was the one who caused the credit collapse. She revealed she did so by working together with John Smith, and Gettan sought to take back the money they stole in order to mend the crisis in the Alliance's favor. He fought with Yukime and exploited an opening, forcing her down with a mortal wound to her and decided to kill her. However, John Smith appeared and overpowered Gettan in brutal punching, demanding Gettan confess-- as John Smith meant Gettan confess to taking the money he thought Gettan stole from him, while Gettan thought he meant Yukime in a protective sense. Seeking to end John Smith and take back the money, he takes a Tears of Diablos and augments himself into a "Third Awakening", a futile effort as John Smith then beats him until he dies.

Legacy
After Gettan's death, the merchants in the Alliance closed their shops and tried to flee, only to be intercepted by the Knight Order, who forced them to open their vaults to appease the mob of patrons seeking their gold. Once the public discovered the duplicity of the smaller amount of money than the bills in circulation within their reserves, the populace lost their trust with the Great Commerce Alliance and the kingdom severely punished the merchants for fraud.

However, the public then raced to Mitsugoshi Company and found ample reserves, honoring their bills with enough surplus remaining. With the Great Commerce Alliance gone, the Mitsugoshi Company elevated their trust with the consumers and bought up all former Alliance assets, even eliminate all of their competitors. Afterward, Mitsugoshi's social standing has been improved and their company influence became so powerful that even the Midgar Kingdom's government could not risk defying them and was financially dependent on the commercial monopoly.

As for the Cult of Diablos that not only cost them the Great Commerce Alliance by inadvertently making the Mitsugoshi Company more powerful than ever after they taking control over the marketplace in the region, but they also lost a large portion of their funds and influence in the kingdom to which will be impacting on all the factions that were in Midgar.

Especially for the Fenrir's Sect Faction which had recently been in decline after his faction was under constant attack by Shadow Garden for the past 5 years, while Fenrir was carrying out a mission to revive Diablos' right arm from the Midgar Royal Spellsword Academy in order to resupply the Tears of Diablos by kidnapping many student at the Academy after the Sanctuary's destruction in Lindwurm had unleashed the left arm caused by Shadow.

Trivia

 * The Great Commerce Alliance was formed out of fear that the Mitsugoshi Company influences had grown to large within the Midgar Kingdom. However, by their actions and manipulation by the Cult of Diablos, that fear became a reality upon their being dissolved.
 * With the end of the Alliance, Mitsugoshi became the first monopoly corporation of this world.