It is problematic to associate a "trade" with "player activity".
When the cardamine/slave run was in full swing between Alpha and Penn there wasn't an appreciable spike in persons signing up to be Outcasts. Many of the vessels hauling goods weren't flying an Outcast flag.
The people participating in moving goods fell into the exact same category as the bulk majority of persons out there.
1) Unescorted by any representative of the "interested" nation.
2) Almost always alone.
3) In each system for as brief an amount of time as possible.
A cardamine trader who is in Omicron Alpha/Sigma 19/Tau 23 for the amount of time to get from one jumphole to the next does not an active Outcast population make. It's just another trader, which falls into the Xoria realm of ensuring that the great cycle continues (the great cycle being the flow of persons in a nice pattern around Sirius to ensure that persons are making a buck while also passing themselves from buffet table to buffet table for the local pirates to nom on and the local law to shoot at said pirates... Usually way too late for the trader but whatever, he's just a catalyst.). Most traders will -not- be Outcasts. Outcasts make for poor traders. Most will be Zoners, or Junkers. Or, hell, IC. Bowex maybe. Whoever can cut down the amount of time they need to spend bloody trading.
So, basically. When talking about nation building completely discount traders. Push them out of your head. They're non entities. The most you're going to expect are a couple of message dump posts and some ego at the top of the chain throwing his weight around.
The dudes who're making a presence are the military. They're the ones floating around in place. The ones getting a group large enough to go poke someone in the eye. The ones someone else is going to come to poke in the eye. The people you need to login to go out and have some lulz.
So don't worry about trade. Stop talking about it. If you really think that the OC need <3 get a Saber and hit the undock button. Get some friends to do the same. The LN don't exist because you can make pretty good money moving Cobalt from Pitts to NL. The Liberty Rogues do. The LN does good shooting the LR. There's a food chain and a pecking order, one in which the OC aren't shy on war targets. There's a billion sassy bastards out there that they can rip up and spit out.
Oh man did I ever write this while half asleep. But, man. Guys. Guys. Comon guys. Stop talking about buffing trade. Start talking about undocking and looking for a good time. If you wanna be someone people talk about that's how you're going to need to do it.
