1)What is a No Fire Zone?
5k around Zoner bases and planets, as well as Guard systems, where combat, pirating, cussing, and fleeing from pirates is prohibited. NFZ is a roleplaying concept and should not ever be mistaken for a server rule.
The first reported use of No-Fire Zones on the server started at Freeport 11 although a rumour from the original Freelancer game indicates that Zoners already enforced NFZ. Council of Zoners passed a motion declaring NFZ "official" for all Zoner bases and drafted a large list of laws dubbed "Official Zoner Policies." Despite the collapse of CoZ, 5K No-Fire Zones have become a permanent part of the Zoner Roleplay.
2) What is the Zoner Alliance?
The ZA is the largest grouping of Zoner factions and players on the server. It is not a governmental body although in roleplaying terms it is rather powerful as far as Zoner authority goes. It is also unofficially in charge of approving the use of Zoner technology to non-Zoners. Very important: ZA does not perform trade agreements. If you want a trade agreement you have to contact each Zoner faction seperately (depending on who you want to deal with).
3) Who's in the Zoner Alliance?
5 factions and a group of Indies.
TAZ (official) -- Temperary Autonomous Zoners. Oldest Zoner faction on the server. It is the owner of Baffin and is primarily characterized by religion. The only Zoner faction to have close-ish ties with SCRA (this is not publicly known). ZTC (official) -- Zoners Trading Consortium. Owner of Omicron-74. No longer a trading faction despite the name, ZTC is now heavily focused on development and research. Very close with the Order (this is not publicly known either). OSI (official) -- The most prominent Zoner trading corporation. Distinguishing trait: very focused on trading with the Houses. Currently changing main offices from FP10 to FP14. ZUI (not a faction) -- Zoners Union of Independents. A group of independent Zoners who are unaffiliated with any faction. ZUI functions very similarly to the old Council of Zoners -- with a single Chairman and a democratic voting process (1 person, 1 vote). ZoE (unofficial) -- Zoner Ore Extraction. A relatively new faction that is heavily focused on mining. PC (unofficial) -- Pioneer Corporation. A new version of an older faction that started around the same time as ZTC. It is currently integrated into the ZUI since it could not gather enough approval to receive its own voting seat.
4) How does ZA work?
--Each faction with up to or over 6 members gets a voting seat.
--Official factions and the Indies have the right to veto. Unofficial factions do not.
--Zoner Alliance is not responsible for and cannot exercise control over those Zoners who are not part of it.
5) What is CoZ?
The Council of Zoners is the first group on the server to include multiple Zoner factions and Indies. It was founded by TAZ and a few prominant Independent players in 2007 to provide Zoner characters with a unified forum.
CoZ functioned by having one Chairman and a number of delegates who voted. Intially, Zoner factions could only have one delegate in the Council. In 2009, it underwent a reform allowing every faction member to become a voting delegate.
The Council of Zoners experienced a split in 2009 wherein all of the factions left. Activity dwindled until the Council finally closed on March 2010.
6) What happened to it?
There are many reasons why the Council of Zoners died. Here are a few, in no particular order.
-- Out of Roleplay disputes between players. The usual finger pointing and "NO U."
-- Encounters with QCP, Bretonia, and Liberty caused many factions to want to abandon political roleplay. Some players felt that membership in CoZ forced them into diplomatic ties and trade agreements since a motion passed in CoZ applied to everyone in it.
-- Faction players perferred a voting system of One vote per group, instead of One vote per individual.
7) What is the Zoner Defense Force?
ZDF is the latest incarnation of a Zoner militia, this time in the form of an actual faction. In Roleplay, ZDF is very small and is only focused on defending Zoner stations and pilots, with a few task forces hunting Nomads in the Omicrons. Despite being a faction, ZDF has no interest in having a voting spot on the ZA. In roleplay, Zoner Defense Force gets its funding primarily from the Alliance.
During the time of CoZ, players utilized the Zoner Response Team. ZRT was not a faction but rather a group of volunteers who were either Indies or faction members. Those who designated themselves as part of the Zoner Response Team had access to a Skype channel that worked similarly to Emergency Police calls (think 911). Players stopped carrying the ZRT tag after the Council of Zoners split and the Emergency Skype channel was largely abandoned.
8) What are the dried up factions?
Here are some Zoner groups who are either dead or barely active.
Zoners Abolishing Slavery: At the time of their existance ZAS was considered a very radical Zoner faction since it actively hunted Slavers. It was the first faction to leave CoZ during the schism. Asgard Warriors: Original owners of Omicron-74 and were military in nature. Jupiter Guild: A mercenary group of Zoners with members from various backgrounds. Entered conflict if there were credits to be earned. Pipsqueak, JG leader, is reported to still be active on the server.
9) Who were the Asgard Warriors? What did they do? Where did they go?
I don't claim to know everything. Found mistakes or want to make additions? Send them my way, s'il vous plait.
