[Batman]

I was thinking about the problem of getting one race only to control warp jumps. How about this:

Last night I was reading Dune, and this caught my attention:

Duke Leto: "..Yes, they're big. We'll be riding in a Heighliner because its a long trip. A Heighliner is truly big. Its hold will tuck all our frigates and transports into a little corner-we'll be just a a small part of the ships manifest"

Paul: "And we won't be able to leave our frigates?"

DL: "That's part of the price you pay for Guild Security. There could be Harkonnen ships right alongside us and we'd have nothing to fear from them. The Harkonnens know better than to endanger their shipping priviledges"

So clearly lots of stuff fits inside a Guild ship, enough for enemies to coexist under (forced) peace conditions. What do we know from SeIV that is big enough to do this? A star system!

Once I find good background graphics, I'll make a star system type that looks like the inside of a ship. The guild can open warppoints either from a regular system to a system-ship, or from a system-ship to a regular system, but not directly between two regular systems. This also allows the trips to take a few turns. Obviously this has to be controlled by the player, not the game (unless the map is very very cleverly spaced out with respect to warp ranges) but the Spacing Guild player would have good reason to funnel all traffic through his ships, namely to increase control over hyperspace.

And, any ships that attempt combat inside the cavernous holds of a Guild Liner could be fined (i.e. they have to pay more to get their ships out), or barred from future voyages (temporarily or permanently)

I think this should work, providing the players are willing to roleplay a litte more than usual