Corsair - Zoner

[DAnvilFan]

Linkus: I wish we had an official Discovery RPG manual. It wouldn't solve everything, but it would eliminate a lot of bickering.

The Zoners functioned best when we had the Council. We would debate, we would vote, there would be resolution. It did not fall apart because of a collapse in ideology. It collapsed because of oorp reasons (people got upset, leaders left, nobody wanted to pick up the torch). I was upset that after all the good the Council had done, suddenly people were just content to let it die and do its own thing. The Zoner official factions pretty much went 'Woop, no more council? Oh well! Time to go do our own thing.' I don't even remember what the Zoner Alliance was or attempted to be, because to do anything other than directly resume the role and form of the Council seemed to me absurd. I left Disco for a year, and when I came back, found the state of Zoner politics to be as muddled, directionless as I expected. On the sea of diplomacy, we are adrift. We are one boat with motors mounted on different sides, each attempting to push us in different directions, and getting us nowhere.

There was a point in time when I believed that the Council was OORP until I properly researched Zoner Lore. You see, a lot of folks complained about a lack of independant policy making. Why should the TAZ and ZTC vote on the same thing if they're on the opposite sides of the map, people told me. Well, as it so happens, none of that makes a bit of difference. If you make policies independent of each other, you are okay. But if you make policies on a global scale, you are STILL okay because if the issue doesn't concern you - it doesn't affect you.

If it DOES affect you, that means that you are moving all over Sirius. But if you are doing that (and most players are) it means that Zoners are globalized and that despite Freeports being scattered, it wouldn't make much difference because what difference does "distance" make if you're bouncing between four different Freeports ten times a day?

Eventually, it all came down to ME not wanting to be associated with YOU. But this is an entirely player driven preference to escape Roleplaying challanges. At the end of the day, there is much more evidence in vanilla lore which suggests Zoner unity than the opposite. Zoner ultra-independence mentality exists because players want independence. Everyone wants the same tag but does not want to share responsibility for the other's mess. Which is a pity because that's half the fun of the game.