' Wrote:Now to guard reps. I dont think you understand my point. My point is that your ships should NOT be neutral to the guards because the Zoners are NOT neutral to the guards. The Guards are not a different faction, they are defending the secure area's of a faction. No one except someone who is tagged and ID'ed that faction or someone who is tagged and ID'ed allied to that faction should be there. The Zoners are neutral by definition, which does not meet the level to be neutral with the guard faction. I can tell you now, any of your ships found in Tau42 or Omicron 91 will be destroyed on sight, because as I said, they should NOT be there. I mention those two systems because they are the ones I control, I am sure other faction leaders will have much the same response. It is in fact OORP for a Zoner to be neutral to guard factions other than the Zoner guard, GMG guard and I guess Order guard. Those are your allies, if they are not your allies you should NOT be neutral to their guard. I am sure you can find some other way to run your new folks through the wringer.
First thing: In accordance with role playing, Zoners should only enter a Guard system with the permission of a Guard Faction Leader. For example, the other day I entered O-91 by asking the Guards stationed outside the jumphole. If I had a Negative reputation with the Corsair Guard, even upon given clearance to enter that system, the NPCs would have ripped me to shreds. Being neutral with all Guard NPCs does not give us automatic access to Guard systems. But in the case that we are granted access, we know that the NPCs won't give us a hard time.
Secondly: ZTC's request to obtain ultimate nuetrality is probably one of the smartest decisions an elite Guard Faction could make. Above all, you learn a lot about discipline and patience. Ideally, every Guard Faction should make their cadets go through this training, simply because it's a fantastic way to filter the best of the best. Think about how much money and time a cadet will have to spend in order to join the ZTC.
Other points I'd like to address:
Some of you have mentioned that Zoners are too individualistic to have an organized trading company with a military army. To this I say, if Zoners are suppose to be so unorganized, why are they labled under one Faction? Moreover, why do they have Zoner Guards and a Guard System? And why are they given common allies (The Order, GMG)? A horde of individuals would not maintain consistant allies unless they are somehow unified. Furthermore, you cannot have mutually shared philosophies and ideals without a unified society. Which brings me into another point:
Some of you do not feel that Zoners should have a standing army. I'm not sure I see the problem there. Zoners are not hippy, free-loving, flower children. Sure, we are neutral to most everyone, and uphold diplomacy above all else. We are also one of the least aggressive people in Sirius, using violence as a last, last, last resort (if you roleplay properly). And yet, despite the fact that Zoners should be neutral with everyone, they are pirated and harrassed as much as anyone else.
The fact is: very few people give a damn about our neutrality. What do the Corsairs do when they are abused? They call on their brothers. What do the Zoners do when they are harrased? Use their neutrality? Bullcrud. It's useless against most players. So what then, we are to have no neutrality and no battle unit to defend ourselves with? A little easy for the picking aren't we?
I understand that players don't want Zoners to power trade -- hense the undiscriminate pirate taxes against us. But if you spend extra hours trying to gain neutral status with every faction and then get treated with "2 mil or dai biotch," that crosses the line. On a piece of paper the Zoners sound like a nice power trading faction. But in the actual server, it's nothing like that. If other people (primarily pirates) want to bend RP background set-ups, why should the Zoners stick to them. The Discovery Server is a constantly evolving storyline. It seems only natural that the Zoner players should react to the actions of others.