zoners - my suggestion

[Jose Benitez]

As I have said elsewhere, I don't have a Zoner, and as a result have little real knowledge of the internal workings of the Zoner "government", however, I do believe that in more recent times the Zoners have tried to act in too much of a co-ordinated (almost house like) way. I'€™m not stating this as a fact, but it is my perception.

Rather then be a very loosely associated group of like minded individuals that didn't particularly like rules, and wanted to each go their own way, it seems that there is a real governing structure emerging. That, in and of itself, is fine but in game terms a Government that has to remain as neutral as the Zoners do is going to have quite a dull job.

As a leader(s) of the Zoners you can't easily make "deals" with other factions as it will upset their enemies (and affect your neutrality). You can't be seen to pick sides and claim to be "friendly" with factions as that will upset their enemies (and again affect your neutrality).

Zoners are neutral because all of the other factions permit it. It is not a god given right.

In essence, I believe that Zoners are neutral because the positives that they bring to a faction with whom they deal, outweigh the negatives and so that faction allows them to be neutral.

For example Zoners shipping food to Corsairs results in a number of positives, allowing Corsair enemies to dock on Freeports results in negatives. Historically the food shipments have been considered of more importance (and therefore earned more plus points) than the occasional enemy escaping to a FP (which earnt negative points). Once the balance of negatives and positives shifts to the extent that there are more negatives than positives then the Corsairs will stop considering Zoners to be neutral.

This positive and negative position can be applied to just about all (if not all) of the people that the Zoners do business with - not just the Corsairs. Equally if the Corsairs can secure food shipments in sufficient quantities from elsewhere then the benefits of receiving shipments from the Zoners is reduced (although not removed).

No one should be dictating anyone else'€™s RP, but for Zoners to not appreciate that their decisions have consequences is naive.

For instance, I believe that there has recently been a secret (in RP) security meeting between the Zoners and "others". In the event that any of the factions not invited found out that the meeting had taken place and that in many cases the uninvited factions enemies had been there, then they would immediately, and with some justification, believe that the Zoners had picked the side they wanted to be on.