The Eagles

[outlawman]

I think it looks great. Except for one thing.

Do not have hostile diplomacy with Zoners.

Pirate them all you want.

Tax them all you want.

But do not have hostile diplomacy towards them. It makes no sense.

Criminals will lie, cheat, and steal from their own mothers. That doesn't effect the mother/child bond. It is the same with diplomacy.

Having them set to hostile means you actively look for and fight them. That to me is not the same as taxing and pirating them when you come across them.

If you really want the diplomacy set to hostile then I would like a good rp story on why the Eagles are at war with the whole Zoner faction.

Well, to be honest this is a thing that bugged me at first, but it was a part of our "do it like the Romans do" effort when we made up our minds about really coming to Discovery.

From our last encounter yesterday I've noticed that some (not sure if this is a common thing) here consider the NPC factions' diplomacies to be a thing cast in stone. Something that has an absolute precedence over live role play. Let me try and explain:

I was in O-5 yesterday and tried to pirate this Zoner transport. He plays the "I'm a Zoner" card and I don't fall for it, then he plays the "I'm coming after you" card and I still don't fall for it. As far as my character is concerned, you can be bringing fine chocolates to his mother, if you don't pay him, mama will have to make do without them. Anyway, I hesitated for a moment because I didn't want to look like an ass on my first day, so I just followed the guy and eventually gave up on him.

Five minutes later the same guy (I noticed he logging and switching ships) comes to Crete in an Order fighter (? - same clan tag, though) followed by another two of the same ship (one AW and a Civilian) demanding an explanation from me, saying that I couldn't do what I had attempted doing. Actually he said it was against the rules. I had to laugh at the statement, considering my character's name.

Well, his claims were based on the IDs' infocards. Now, I believe this is something we'll need clarify before we can move on here. Last time I checked, if you're an outsider to a dangerous criminals' zone (Crete - flipping Corsair homeworld) and you enter it "loudmouthing" the locals, you better have your stick ready to cash the checks your mouth is writing, because you're not going out without a fight. As far as I'm concerned, the diplomacy as it is displayed in the infocards is a good guideline of what would be the overall behavior of a common representative of the said NPC faction, not something that will inexorably override whatever situation presents itself in game. If a fellow Corsair disses my mother (I can do it, nobody else can), I'm going to attack him. He claiming I can't do it because of the ID mounted on his ship is the single most lame thing one can say to get away from a role play situation. I mean, I'm all in favor of people not jumping others out of the blue, but if there's a reasonable and meaningful hostile situation going on between two parties, that's all that counts.

Well, to get to the point, RickJames. I'd be all in favor of having our profile as you've proposed (with Zoners as neutral) since we won't be actively hunting them out, but I don't think a lot of the people we'll be dealing with are prepared to accept (as players) us deviating from it even the slightest. So it's better for us to just have the Zoners as hostiles, since we plan to ignore their alleged incontestable neutrality, because that makes no sense to our characters. Considering what I've seen, I'm sure some see factions that control numerous systems as perfect unities whose members won't deviate from "the plan".

---

"When you got no life to lose... Then theres nothin left to gain..."

Outlaw.Man (Titan) - The Eagles