Embargoes

[Xoria]

The main point of an embargo in Freelancer must then be the creation of additional roleplaying opportunities.

Therefore the usefulness of an embargo must be judged by measuring the opportunities it creates against the opportunities that it destroys.

A blanket ban creates opportunities for lawfuls belonging to one House to attack all traders moving through a region.

But, a blanket ban also discourages those traders from ever coming through that region to begin with, so the net effect of success is : a region empty of traders, which is hardly a worthwhile goal when the point of multiplayer is to play with other people.

That reduces opportunities for those traders, especially for traders belonging to the House's ally who have legitimate reason to smuggle for the benefit of their ally.

Since pirates depend on traders, it also reduces opportunities for the pirates that might operate in that region.

Since it discourages import smuggling, it also reduces opportunities for the House being smuggled from, because the smugglers are less likely to be there to be pirated or interdicted.

If it is successful, a blanket ban is a policy that undermines itself by eliminating the reason for its existence and eliminating gameplay opportunities for everyone else.

While some have pointed out their ability to ignore such blanket embargoes, ineffective enforcement is no excuse for poor policy decisions. Poor policy decisions cannot create good results. At best they are simply less effective at creating bad results.

If the only positive benefits of a blanket embargo are imaginative reasons (and those are the only ones that have been submitted) and completely one-sided, while the negative impacts are real, practical disincentives created on the server, then it is a simple matter to adjust the imaginative "reasons" in such a way to enforce an export embargo and encourage smuggled imports, creating positive benefits for the House's allies, and the unlawful groups which depend on that trade for their entire gameplay experience, not to mention the benefits to the House's enemy which would have export trade to interdict that they might not have otherwise.

Creating a win-win-win-win scenario for your own House, your House's allied commercial interests, your House's enemy, and the pirates which prey on them all is superior to a win-lose-lose-lose scenario which only benefits one group that gets to blow up transports for imagined benefits while creating real, practical harm to every other interested group.

To put it in simpler terms, imports brought to your House by neutral or friendly traders from your enemy House should be welcomed, while exports from your House to your enemy House should be interdicted (unless the cargo is people or humanitarian supplies). Blanket bans on trade discourage the creation of roleplaying opportunities, and are ultimately destructive to server gameplay.

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