To: Karst (2)

[Karst]

Very good lore source for Zoners here. I actually agree with pretty much every claim made here, this more or less perfectly describes the way I see (and play) Zoners as well.

But I will comment a little more on the relations with the Core specifically.
Now the Core is, of course, a nonvanilla faction. And as such, they don't really have any fixed place in the lore - it's just whatever the players can get the devs to write in, and how the faction is played.
At the time of all the 11 drama, the Core had a substantial player base and was being represented as an authoritarian pseudo-state, and that's where the problem arises and why I made the claim that Zoners and Core are incompatible on a fundamental level.
The Core considered residents of the Omicrons their subjects, under their complete authority. Obviously this is an issue for people who chose to live in the Edge specifically to get away from such systems: Zoners accepting the rule of the Core might as well move back into the houses, because that is what they are getting....only worse, the houses at least in theory grant rights and have democratic checks & balances, however badly they may function in practice.
Now you may be thinking that Outcasts, Corsairs, or the Order also have laws and restrictions. And Zoners have certainly had their share of drama with all of those factions, too.
However, none have gone anywhere near as far as the Core in terms of proclaiming direct rule - they all essentially accepted the basic principle of letting Zoners be Zoners.

The Core| player faction has disbanded, and the newly-formed Polaris group is too fresh to really judge their impact.
So it's a little hard to say what the Core, in lore, actually is. Are they like....Edge worlds Renzu? Are they a PMC specialized in alien hunting? A wannabe martial empire?
Whatever they "really" are, the Core of those days was basically the antithesis of what Zoners are, and dominance of that Core was an existential threat to Zoners. To react with violent opposition to the imposition of their will was not merely reasonable for a Zoner, but arguably a matter of survival, and I maintain that claim 100%.

I'm going to mention another thing about Zoner lore that you kind of mentioned but didn't go too deep into, which I think is important and greatly shapes the perception players have of Zoners: Players do not generally understand the functions Zoners and Freeports play in remote regions.
The general idea is "well yeah they trade and sell food or whatever", but there's more to it than that.

Now, Freeport 11 is (despite the Core's claims to the contrary) in highly contested space, and there's no dominant power that could effortlessly take it.
Some Freeports, however, are not like that. Freeport 5 for example. So why do the Corsairs keep it around as a Freeport, a Freeport where Bounty Hunters and Hessians might dock occasionally? They could still use it as a trading port if they controlled it directly, right?
Well, the fact that it's a Freeport allows the Corsairs to trade indirectly with parties they otherwise wouldn't. Like Hessians, or adventurous Rheinland corporates. If the Corsairs controlled the Freeport, these people would not come to it, and certain goods that they might have brought would not be available - nor would they be available as potential buyers of Corsair exports.
Remote Freeports aren't just valuable because they're friendly ports of call for ships on long travels that need food or fuel, but specifically because they're free.

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