Your world is dust, and when all is dust, they who have water are kings.

Though you but recently learned of the existence of water merchants outside of the free trader caravans that occasionally visited your hometown, society beyond the horizon treats hydraulic dictatorship as the way of things. This hydrocracy is ruled by the great corporate guilds that create, maintain, transport, and distribute water, and so the hydrocrats, in turn, decide the way that everything else is done.

Ages ago, there were no water guilds—only people who had water, or a way to make water. The people wanted what they had, so they became merchants of life, trading the only currency that matters in the desert. They hired others to protect them, paying them in precious water: "Watch over my wares," they said, "and you and yours will always have enough to drink, no matter what happens to others." Because they had it all, the rest came to them, offering to exchange their skills and services—to work for water, like the guards. Thus were born the guilds, as folk gathered together in clans around the waterbringers.

At first, every guild decided for itself what their water was worth. They paid it out as they liked in return for labor, and honored the pledges and payments of others only at their whim. Of course, this was not sustainable, and eventually tensions arose among the people who claimed allegiance to the different guilds. Tensions became hostilities, and hostilities spilled over into war. The conflict was long and bloody with no clear winners, until finally the largest and most powerful of the surviving guilds were forced to call a truce. Following long and difficult negotiations, they drafted an official peace treaty they called the Aqua Carta, which established—among other things—a global water standard fixed to a common currency: One liter of water would be worth the same amount of credit no matter where it came from or where it was taken, nor how many times it was traded. The smaller guilds had no choice but to adhere to the new rules, but demanded the foundation of a government to monitor them, as well as a voice in that body.

And so the Presidium came into being, whose job it would be to track and arbitrate these "credits," to keep the guilds honest, and to ensure that policies affecting all guilds would be fairly enforced. The council in charge of this new world government would be called the Caucus, composed of representatives from every water guild on the planet, no matter how large or small, so long as they were properly registered under the Presidium's fledgling laws. Delegates to the Caucus would have a single vote for their guild, granting equal power to all guilds—in theory, at least. In practice, contemporary decision-making comes down to the "big six:" Aster, Balmoral, Lacuna, Polaris, Silence, and Trifecta, who intimidate and bully the smaller guilds into voting this way or that as benefits their own ends.


See also:
Aster Hydraulic Distribution Syndicate
Balmoral Hydrostructural Corporation
Lacuna Confederated Hydraulic Transit Union
Polaris Hydraulic Extraction Consortium
Silence Hydrotechnologies Trust
Trifecta Hydroservices Combine