Defectors

[Xoria]

You should ask yourself "Who do I need to convince that this situation is good roleplay?" If I were doing it, I would want to convince the leadership of the factions involved (in this case, the Outcasts and a couple of the lawful factions).

In the end, it comes down to the believability of the story, and the credibility of the player creating it.

If you spend a month or few roleplaying as an Outcast who is increasingly cast out by the Outcasts, followed by his eventual defection, all of this chronicled well on the forum and known by the "powers that be" within the Outcast factions, then the story is much more believable than something that someone writes in an hour or two and posts followed by a Cryer tagged/ID'd Sabre the next day with only an hour with the character on the server.

Even then, you are going to get harassed all the time from people who know nothing about the story and just think you don't know what you're doing. So if you can't handle lots of hostile criticism when you interact with other players, then this is not a good idea to try.

From a practical standpoint, think about how hard it is to get replacement parts for cars/machinery/equipment when the thing is no longer in production, or is only produced somewhere far away. If you are driving a BMW in the middle of Africa, and it breaks down, how likely are you to find the right parts easily? Flying a ship is not so much different. The lawful corporations/governments do not produce Sabres, so how would your character get it repaired when it gets damaged? Where would the hull panels come from? Where would the electronics come from? etc. Would you really want to take a Ford to a General Motors dealership for repairs?

Then there is the "battlefield" to consider. If American soldiers in World War 2 captured a German tank and started driving it around, how long would their life expectancy be if they encountered American tanks? Even in the futuristic world of Freelancer, a Sabre on scanners is going to scream "hostile contact" to lawfuls no matter what the IFF is when the other pilot's life is at stake (which in roleplay, it is) so why should they believe the IFF isn't stolen/hacked somehow, and why should they believe a "defection" story over comms instead of shooting first and asking questions later? That lawful pilot knows that at some point, the pilot of that Sabre had a very good reputation/relationship with wicked pirates in order to buy that ship, and why would an underpaid military pilot risk his life just because some Sabre pilot is claiming over comms "I defected, I'm a good guy now!" At best, the Sabre would find itself "arrested", interrogated, and held for investigation over and over again. On the server, that will mean: lawfuls blowing you up or turning you away much of the time, no matter how good the story is.

In the real world, defectors don't keep wearing their former uniform, or using the tank/plane/ship that they defected in. The hardware gets confiscated by the government, and the defector gets pensioned off after extensive debriefing. Defectors aren't allowed to join the other side. How can you trust someone who has already proven themselves capable of betrayal?

So you should ask yourself : is all this really worth it?

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