Well, it's a system-wide damage trigger at a certain time or a random interval, considering it has a min/max value. So you don't get two of those storms one after another.
It would show the freelancer space as it should be, hostile, unwilling, cunning. Pirates are not the only thing to worry about i think.
What about a plugin that actually changes the object's stats? Like a solar object, suddenly increses it's usual corona for 15k for a short (2sec) time. That would be a real "flare"
We may not have the source code, but the hook does give a lot of possibilities.