To: Junker Congress; CC: JM| ; unaffiliated Junkers

[FynnMcScrap]

Greetings, fellow Junkers.
Congress , Arbiters, Grand Marauder.

I want to adress you all because it is important to you all,
and even more important to me.
Because I would bid you state your viewpionts, and also to ask you all for advice.
There is an increasing levle of aggression along the Colorado <> Shikoku corridor,
one of Tinker&Transport´s main trade routes.
And currently - with the Hogs getting more and more active again, there are questions about us here at Tinkers Haven that I do not want to answer behing closed doors.

First of all :
Tinker & Transport trades with Premium Scrap, but we do not see our main markets out at Omikron Alpha or Gamma.
Instead our main goal is to trade PremScrap in a legal setting in House space, enabling us to haul back standard cargo. To ceep a clean facade against all lawful forces and companies.

We are Freelance traders here at Tinkers. Working together with Junkers, and living together.
A new sort of Amalgam , flexible and strong.
I am a Junker of Beaumont, but I am proud to work with Tukker and his Skippers, they prooved to be friends many times over.

( // working with 2 ID´s, Freelance and Junkers, because we are not jet an official Faction .
Faction ID is still developing , through RP like this one)

But we try to ceep a peaceful stance here.
Even if many of us hate the Hogs, including me myself, we see no profit and no sense in repeating the old warcries.
We will defend our ships and our friends against attacks, but we are no bucaneers.
And even if we do not trust or like Samura, the owner of one of our main sellingpoint Shipjards : we still trade with them.
Why ? Because we are Traders.
And because trade and money are the weapons we use.

Secont fact :
Actually there is a Samura sub-faction that tries to be more open minded.
Or at least pretends to.
T&T has a trade deal with these traders, known as the KTA.
Also we have a mutual trade cooperation with Kishiro.

These traders haul Scrap too, bought at the Haven.
They trade with Bretonia, they trade with Rheinland , they trade with Gallia, and in a limited fashion they trade with Liberty.
Mainly through us here at the Haven. So... are we actively supporting our enemies , as I was told just recently ?
Or are we simply doing what makes sense : enhancing trade, getting more ships into the lanes, building up a trade cycle that brings commerce and trade to the areas we all live in ?

We all : Junkers and Freelancers. We might not be the same slow witted cattle like most of the Libertonian civilians, and we still take quite a delight in jumping a hole, evading an embargo or running a blokade. But we do not follow a nomadic lifestyle.
We have families here, friends. Assets to care for, deals that have been closed. We can and will not simply leave, and we live with our neibours, not against them. So we can not afford trading with Orange, Jewellry or Fireworks.

Meaning that we here at Tinkers build up a reputation and a facade that is designed to help all Junkers, be them nomadic or settled.

• We offer a white collar facade for trade deals, including the possibility to wash money and get it clear for Sirius wide use
  
• We help getting medical care and life saving knowledge over to Junker communities Sirius wide.
  
• We set up a neutral meeting place for diplomacy
  
• We offer open and legal storage and transportation for that stuff that does NOT have to be smuggled.
  

So this all is not worth trading sorted Scrap to Yokohama ?
Because the Hull plate we salvaged might be wielded onto a Samura or Hogosha vessle ? Or a Kishiro ship ?
If a majority of all Junkers tells us that we should quit all trade with Samura, and cut all contact with KTA, we will do so.
We can find other markets, send Scrap to Sabah or Singapore.
Build up our MedEvac services to full scale or start building our own Smelter.
Or even trade full scale to Gamma, maybe Alpha. But that is not what T&T is about.

If fear and hate close the door to Kusari, then I will try to hold it open as long as I can. Not because I love Hogs - I hate them !
I nearly ended up as a juvenile Slave at a Dreampalast, so I know what I am talking about.
And I killed my first Hog with a Knife before I was twelve, during the mutiny that freed me.

We work to better live for all of us here round Texas. In Puerto, in the bases scattered through the houses, at Inverness.
Look at your crews, your families ! Normal medcare and healthcare readily available to most other Sirians is often missing to us.
Do you want to wait till the situation is worse ? Till all Sirius turns at us as an ulcer ready to be cut out ?

I hope there will always be some Hotshots out there experienced enough and willing to wipe any Hog or Xeno agressor from our Turf if the need arrises.
And even our Freelance Skippers agree that we don´t look to closely where the tradeables come from if we pick up a load at one of the Black Market Bases we fly to and help supply.
Same as I always hope there will be enough big -scale money out in Puerto or at Inverness to through serious weight into the fray if the Houses start getting greedy again.

But frankly : We walk a thin line between grey borderline running and fully licenced trading here at the Haven,
and the last thing I need is getting fire from my own folk.
I am opening chinks in the Samurai Shield, the Kusari republic is weakening,
even though I do not expect to overthrough them or wipe them away like magic.
But these chinks are enough to get the rust deep into their machinery.
Kusari politics is like dancing with knifes... and I love to supply them with sharp knifes as long as we send them no sword against us.

So... nobody can tell me he does not know what I am up about.
We at the Haven do not see our trade with Kusari as collaboration.
We can and will find other markets if we have to,
but we see more profit and more sense in continuing our work as in stopping it.

FynnMcScrap

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FynnMcScrap, Foreman of Tinkers Haven