Couple of questions...

[Craines]

Answer to question one: Must a house faction act like their respective house faction outside of their House Faction's territory? The answer is yes, but raises the logical question of why that person is out of their jurisdiction. Let us imagine that I am in Liberty Space whilst driving my Kusari Destroyer. Let us then imagine that you, being a smuggler, have a full load of cardamine. Finally, let us imagine that the Southern Alliance has contacted me via private channels and requested my assistance in apprehending you.

At this point, I can indeed aid the Southern Alliance and open fire. Now, let us remove the SA from the equation. In that event, I cannot engage you until I am given authority from the ruling body of the system I am in. Now, if you were to then enter Shikoku, I could open fire with extreme prejudice, regardless of whether you had dropped the cargo or not. Why is that? Because I know that you are a smuggler, and I have seen you smuggling. Because I have seen first hand that you are breaking the law, I can exercise whatever I deem necessary insofar as justice is concerned upon your entry into my space, which is the same territory as House Kusari. (However, this is an entirely hypothetical situation, and if I did find you in game without you smuggling, I could not simply open fire. I would need to first see you in the act. By "I", that means anyone in my faction that can inform me of it.)

Answer to question two: Must a house faction give amnesty for a smuggler when a smuggler has brought illegal contraband into the House Faction territory (or, must a House Government player faction forgive smugglers upon the said smuggler selling or dropping the contraband in the House Government's Territory)? The answer is no, for the simple reasons given by McNeo. Player Factions are a tad bit more intelligent than the Non-Player Counterparts (NPCs, if you will), and that means we won't give up. If you are caught smuggling, and by caught that means seen with any contraband in your hold that you do not immediately drop upon being requested to do so (having more than 30 units of cardamine is also considered incriminating evidence), then you can be placed in the Known-Offenders System (KOS, if you will), or simply be banned from returning to the area that you were caught smuggling in; i.e. if you are smuggling in House Kusari, and a Kusari Naval Faction player sees you, then we can permanently ban you from House Kusari on pain of death.

Another hypothetical problem. Let us imagine that a civilian has stated that you have cardamine in your hold. Upon reaching you, there is no such narcotic in your hold. What do we do? We must let you go. The civilian could have a vendetta against you and that brings in all sorts of problems insofar as justice is concerned. Therefore, the only word that must be taken at face-value and enacts an immediate registration upon the KOS is if you are witnessed by an officer of the law. In the event of multiple witnesses, a warning will be given. If it is over 5 witnesses, KOS registration is at the discretion of the officer.

Answer to question three: Can a smuggler clear his record by paying fines and compensation? The answer depends heavily on which faction he is interacting with is. For example, the Kusari Naval Forces has no official policy on the matter, but smugglers are often determined and set on the KOS registry. Is it unfair? Of course it isn't. It is a matter of perspective, but it does make smuggling a much harder profession. Smuggle smart would be a fun logo for smugglers everywhere in relations to smuggling within House Faction territories.

If a smuggler pays a bribe in order to no longer be in the KOS registry, the human who plays the officer will not forget his name and will look at the smuggler with intense scrutiny. That being said, the difference between the PCs and their NPCs is just that - memory. If the NPCs went hostile on the first time you didn't drop your cargo, moving in that House Faction's space would be utterly impossible due to the obscene amount of NPCs that there are. However, when there are but a few PCs running about, it makes smuggling more difficult without making it impossible. And if you don't always make it to your destination, well, that's the name of the game.

Answer to question four: Does the Southern Alliance have to go about all of Liberty, or can they be stationed? Well the SA can go and stay wherever they so choose for however long they want to, especially since they are, as McNeo stated, confined to those areas of Liberty. My destroyer stays in Honshu mostly, up until such a time as a criminal is identified elsewhere. Then, I can search for as long as I feel I must. Why can I spend hours in Honshu? Because my embassy is on Planet Honshu, and it makes total sense for my vessel to be stationed outside while I'm taking care of things.

Within a House Faction's territory, the house faction can do whatever they deem necessary to keep the peace. On that note, however, it is frowned upon when people take this to an extreme and crowd around a single jump gate in order to catch a perp. Now, let us imagine that the KNF are chasing a smuggler. Let's say we know he's coming out of a jump hole in five minutes. We can set up a trap. Jump holes and jump gates are different in that respect. Why? Because there aren't any lawful NPCs around a jump hole, so they are free game.

That is my extended view, without the veiled threats and such. Everything I stated here is my official opinion on the matter, and answers your four questions (three questions and an attack on the SA, if I may say so, which, I guess, I'm allowed to) concisely and with adequate use of logic and knowledge. Further, I hope that you find these answers to be satisfactory. If someone else posts contradictory information, then it is up to you to decide who to believe. To that end, I hope that no one else's opinion conflicts with mine, but it is very easy for it to occur. Thank you for your time,

Harlequinn

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