Corsair - Zoner

[Trogdor]

Some observations...

O-74 sucks. It oozes with suck, on so many levels.

Physically, its just awful. You go in there and the place screams 'This system was hand-tailored by Zoner god-hands'. What's in this system? A sun, one gas giant planet. Stations? A freeport. Why is there a freeport in a system protected by guard faction weapons platforms? The point of those is to keep people out and away from our secret facilities. Then there's a shipyard, built behind the very convenient, and very fake-feeling, only planet in the system. And finally, this abominable minefield that requires one to go beacon-to-beacon in order to navigate it safely, while not being able to see your hand in front of your face because you're in a pea-soup green gas cloud. This research base used to be where you'd have to go for a Zoner Guard ID, which no longer exists. Now, its only unique purpose is selling regular Zoner IDs to Guard-IFF'd Zoner ships.

In roleplay, its also awful.
Where are guard systems located, traditionally? In the heart of the territory of the faction that owns it. In O-Theta we have a freeport and... a little supply base. Our guard system is shoved right up next to the heart of Corsair space. Wouldn't it make much more sense for it to be adjacent to O-49? Since, you know, we have a colonized planet over there?

I think this may solve some of our current diplomacy problems. Some of the people involved in this argument claim that the Zoners have too many expensive fancy toys. They argue that the Zoners are largely independent of one another, and because of their separation, shouldn't be able to field the quantity of capital ships that are seen in actual gameplay.

Part of this is, I think, because the devs have put the system that produces them on the Corsairs' doorstep. But the other problem is the aforementioned perception that Zoners hailing from separate regions of Sirius are independent of one another. This is not the case. This mentality has been brought on by a snowball that started when we as a faction let the Zoner Council fall apart. Without it, now we have the splintered, regional Zoner factions making up their own rules and diplomacy rubbish that's caused the current conflicts. When we had a Council, we had a governing body that took into account what was good for the entire faction, and what's more, it carried the concept that Zoners across Sirius were united and working together, giving legitimacy to our ability to not only field capital ships, but fleets of capital ships.

The Council is what used to manage our disputes with potential threats that could be reasoned with; the 'sairs, outcasts, bhg, and so on. This kept the focus of our capital fleets on exploring the yet-unsettled regions of space, and brought us into conflict with the alien races of Sirius, which according to the lore, was the primary purpose of their existence: Exploration, settling new colonies, and defending the new ground we've taken.

This whole situation sucks. We should not even be considering war with a major human faction, and they should not be considering war with us. We should not have to worry about having our stations bombarded by corsairs. Infocards and rumors hinting at scattered villainy aside, the corsair elders always held the traditional belief that due to their trade relationship with us, combined with the desire to not make yet another enemy, and knowing that they also get to use our freeports on their long-range endeavors, it was in their best interests to get along with us.

Bottom line: We need the council back, we need O-74 to be moved and probably overhauled so it doesn't feel so artificial, and we need to remember to stick to our lore when possible.

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