(]c[) Zoners Trading Consortium

[werner]

<div align="right]Gran Canaria, Omega 49

LETTER OF INTENT

Dear Sirs/Madams,

On behalf of our shareholders I have the honour to submit the faction proposal for the Zoners Trading Consortium Ltd. Since we made some additional efforts to design the document in accordance to our corporate profile, it is also to download in the PDF format for the review.

Thank you in advance for any remarks which may help us to establish and to run an efficient organization. We do and will do our best to fit well in political and economical system of Sirius. It will be me who will try to answer most of the questions, some of them may be answered by my co-leader Colleagues: John Chrichton and William Topper.

I wish you a nice lecture.

Best regards,
dr Werner Mazursky
CEO, board member
Zoners Trading Consortium Ltd.

[font=Verdana]

_______________________________________________________



Zoners Trading Consortium

faction proposal

[size=medium]1 Document description

This is a document describing a proposal for a new faction in the Discovery Sirius system. It has been written in a structure according to the requirements presented in the Official faction list thread.


2 Faction name and tag

Name: Zoners Trading Consortium (Ltd.)
Tag: (]c[)


3 Faction description

3.1 Historical introduction

Since the beginnings of the human settlement in Sirius, Zoners were perceived as a faction of people, who decided to resign from the state guaranteed safety and to live their lives in a more dangerous environment, but as free and independent people. With time, the Zoners community evolved it's basic values: independence, tolerance and neutrality. These values, in connection with the political skills of the Zoners Council and with their liberal approach to economy and trade, made Zoners not only survive, but flourish.

Zoners never concentrated on building serious military power - they didn't have to. It would require vast financial resources to cover all the spread space of their activity with a regular fleet, but more importantly: Zoners never acquired any serious enemies throughout Sirius. For the potential attackers it simply didn't make sense to lose the safety of the Freeports for sake of a short-time profit from piracy. And since Zoners never refused to help people who were in need (even though labeled as unlawful by the house authorities), the Zoner ID was enough to open most of the doors in Sirius and to enable it's members to lead their trading activities in peace.


3.2 The problem

This is no longer the case.

The number of pirated Zoner trading ships increase every year. It is hard to point to a particular faction as the guilty one. The attackers often do not belong to any particular faction or may represent some small-time barely organized groups of ruffians. It's also a difficult question as to why it happens. Maybe it is the fading authority of the Zoners who never used the military force as an argument, or maybe it's the increasing gap between the life level of the poor and the rich, and the advancing desperation of the hungry people.

Irrespective of the answers, Zoner trading as a whole has decreased in profitability by an average of 2.1% each year for the last four fiscal years. This represents almost 8.5% decline in ROI (Return On Investment) And nothing motivates shareholders to authorize change more than decreasing value.


3.3 The solution

The Zoner trading companies have quickly and efficiently formed a company, registered in the Sirius Court Register under the name "Zoners Trading Consortium Ltd.", to the public known also as the Zoners Trading Consortium or in short, the Zoners Consortium.

Formally the consortium acts as a trading company. The difference lies in a legal technicality, which has been thoroughly researched by the Legal Department of the consortium. It's the Act on Commercial Activity, which allows the trading companies to defend their ships with help of a dedicated fleet. And since the terms defend and dedicated fleet were imprecisely defined, it allowed the management to invest large sums in the creation of real, material security for their investments.


3.4 The methods

3.4.1 Secure Trading Tunnels technology

Since the main purpose of the company is to earn profit, it will engage the most recent state-of-the-art knowledge of production and transport management, as well as the most recent statistical and financial analysis methodology, to establish temporary and very intensively exploited trade routes, named Secure Trading Tunnels (STT). The optimization algorithms, aimed at maximization of the Unit Profit Per Minute Indicator (UPPMI) will be applied.

Securing the tunnels shall be achieved with help of both diplomatic/commercial agreements, as well as with help of the military resources, both ways are described in the following sections.


3.4.2 Diplomacy and agreements

Use of military power is an ultimate and final way of securing profit. In accordance with the very long traditions of the Zoners community, the consortium plans first to use all avenues to provide the security to the STTs with use of
diplomacy activities leading to support of friendly relations with all the Sirius factions, including humanitarian trading missions or providing different societies with strategical resources
agreements signed on the central level with the main Sirius factions
individual agreements negotiated per every instance of the trading tunnel with the pilots present along the route of the tunnel


3.4.3 Security and vindication

In order to provide safety to the fleet along the trading tunnels, dedicated forces consisting of the ships of all scales (capital / bomber / fighters) will be put into service. The purpose of the Security Fleet shall be to secure the areas of the key communication nodes along the trade tunnels and to eliminate all the obstacles which may disturb the traffic.

In case of violation of the agreement by an individual pilot, or in case of the piracy which has not been stopped in real time by the Security Fleet, the Vindication Fleet will come into use. According to the procedures established by the Board of Directors of the consortium, they shall impose the following sanctions on the guilty pilots. The sanctions shall be escalated according to the scale of the crime.
retrieving the stolen sum from the individual
invoking the termination procedure
setting the decreasing counter of terminations which are to be performed by the Vindication Fleet (outsourced or in-house)


3.5 Structure of the organization

According to the commercial profile of the organization, all the military division is to be controlled by the decisive body consisting of the civilian persons. This is to assure that all the undertakings performed by the company members (especially in the Security Dept.) will be approved in accordance with the economical policy of the Zoners Trading Consortium Ltd.

The highest body of the Consortium is called Board of Directors. It consists of three executive officers, from among which one is appointed a CEO. BoD is entitled to represent the Consortium, speak on behalf of it, take personal decisions and approve missions.

On the diagram below the ranking system applied in the Zoners Trading Consortium has been shown. There are five ranks, whereas each ranks constitutes at the same a particular management layer in the company. Arrows indicate possible promotion directions.



The ranks have been briefly characterized below.

• Cadet a person willing to join the facion, ought to train and gain the
  neutral reputation in order to become a regular tagged Consortium Pilot
  (Guard).
  
  
  
• Guard a regular Consortium Pilot, obliged to take part in the approved
  Consortium missions and to suitable representation of the faction.
  
  
  
• Captain leader of a small crew of Guards, responsible for his teams
  activities and obliged to provide support to its members within an assigned
  budget.
  
  
  
• Advisor higher level manager, entitled to posses his autonomous areas
  of competences and own projects with assigned budgets.
  
  
  
• Director the executive level, entitled to speak on behalf of the
  Consortium and to take personal decisions.
  

A mechanism of a horizontal promotion has been envisaged. It serves purposes of distinction for a pilot who has special merits, but is not to be promoted to a new management layer (higher rank). Guards, Captains and Advisors can be therefore additionally decorated with the rank modifiers: senior and staff. The rank doesnt change the basic role in the faction, but provides additional reward and prestige to the pilot.


3.6 Long and short term goals

Long term goals:
promotion of the Zoners community
establishing a platform for a profitable, efficient and professionally managed trading
stabilization of the 5k no-fire-zone around Freeports

Short term goals:
getting in touch with the main Sirius factions and houses, establish the diplomacy relations
perform the humanitarian/strategical trading missions to the main bases
recruiting pilots to the Trading and Security departments
protecting Consortium traders


4 Faction members

Board of Directors

• Dr. Werner Mazursky, CEO
  
• John Chrichton, CFO
  
• William Topper, CTO
  

Advisors

Captains

Guards

• Krismar Raag
  
• Dix Rivan
  
• Charles M. Burns
  
• Jay P. Burningham
  

Cadets

• Lou Salome
  
• Alex Staag
  
• Amali
  

5 Diplomatic status

Allies: Gas Miners Guild, The Order
Neutral: all other factions, trying to support positive relations with everyone.
Hostile: Nomads, Wild, individuals breaking the agreements with the Zoners Trading Consortium or disturbing the flow of the Consortium Trading Fleet.

The consortium will strictly stick to the traditional Zoner neutrality with all factions and individuals, whether lawful or otherwise. Consortium pilots will not interfere with piracy not aimed at a Consortium ships. Consortium pilots will act only in self defense, in protection or our ships or the Freeports, or in aid of our allies at their request. Consortium pilots will never initiate hostilities with any faction or individual.


6 NPC faction alignment

IFF: Zoner Guard
ID: Zoner Guard


7 Joining requirements

Its strongly recommended to report for joining with two characters, to be able to conduct both trading and the military activities.

All the Security Department pilots are obliged to have the Zoner Guard IFF, and neutral reputation with all the Sirius factions, including all Guards factions.

Persons willing to join the Zoners Consortium are asked to contact one of the Consortium officers for further details or to start the recruitment procedure.


8 Ships and equipment

8.1 Ships

Zoner, Civilian, GMG, IMG ships might be in use. In case of the non-Zoner ship owning factions, usage of each ship type has to be approved by the corresponding faction authorities.

8.2 Weapons and equipment

Zoner, Order, Civilian, GMG, IMG weapons, as well as codenames, might be in use.

8.3 Ship usage rules

Zoner Whale as a default ship for trader pilots
Reaven's Talon as a default ship for Cadets and Guards
Spatial Explorer as an escort ship for special missions (exploration, nomad/harvester areas)
Zoner Gunboat for the team leaders (Captains)
One luxury liner serving as a mobile Headquarters Office
Zoner Capital ships might be in use by Advisors and Directors