the Zoners

[Kuraine]

Um, the Zoners have the population, trust me on this. For further details, just get hold of me on skype or something. I don't want to get dragged into a protacted argument over it, though I will go into it hopefully somewhat briefly. In my personal view (which is shared by a number of people, including Igiss), Gran Canaria is a veritable power house and the bulk of the Zoner "nation's" fleet is stationed there, owned largely by the Zoner Council, but also individual ships owned by extremely wealthy freelancers and Zoners who have settled on Gran Canaria. The Zoners control the sole supplies of Deuterium, Iridium and the TAZ Zoners also have their own commodity (which will remain a surprise), as well as producing huge quantities of food and water. The Zoners also have the most extensive information network of any organisation in Sirius (even the Junkers don't have quite as good a network). They also have access to some of the most advanced technology in existence (Order/GMG/spy network).

Either way, the Zoners are powerful and probably have what amounts to at least an entire House military at their call, with the bulk of it stationed at Gran Canaria. The problem is that they have a lot of Freeports that need protecting, so in reality probably only Gran Canaria is untakeable by most conventional forces and organisations. If the Bretonians weren't in a war with Kusari, they would probably be able to send enough forces to take out Gran Canaria, but it would be very, very costly. All the other houses can't really reach it, and the Corsairs have nowhere near sufficient strength, especially not with the war against the Mollys, Bretonia, Outcasts, Hessians, Rheinland, Liberty, GMG etc. The Outcasts can't easily reach Gran Canaria and in any case probably don't much care about it.

And finally, the new bit I have inserted into the end of the Zoner/Zoner Guard ID: The Zoner ID does not make you immune to piracy; pirates may choose at their discretion whether to exempt you.

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Kuraine (Zoner tagged Trader)
Ravenholm (Zoner tagged Zoner Destroyer)
Bill Mason[Arms.Dealer] (Zoner tagged Arms Dealer)
LR-Drax (Liberty Rogue tagged Cruiser)
LR-Dravis (Liberty Rogue tagged VHF)
[RHA]Wilhelm.Wettin (Red Hessian tagged VHF)
[GC]-Ai.Takeda (Golden Chrysanthemum tagged VHF/Bomber)