I recently have had a few encounters with some Blood Dragon players while trading in Kusari on the traditional Diamond/Niobium run from Tokyo to Berlin to Tokyo again and have had some pretty decent RP with half of them. Kudos to those people especially one independant player who I fail to recall the name of but I'm sure you; whoever you are; may remember it better.
Now, i'm sure those of you who have flown the Diamond/Niobium may have ran into the odd Blood Dragon, official or not who tend to favour the...
"Your fueling the corrupt reigime of the Kusari government"
...reason for blowing your ass into the next sector. But the thing is, are we?
Now thanks to few individuals in the Blood dragon (and i mean FEW) they seem to see the reason in which way this excuse actually applies. The logic of it is, by delivering Rheinland diamonds to New Tokyo it doesn't necessarily mean you're 'supporting' the Kusari, actually your 'supporting' Rheinland by buying a few shiny rocks off them with money. Just to make that clearer, Rheinland is now richer due to the money you gave them for their commodities. By delivering those shiny rocks to New Tokyo you are making them poorer by taking their money off them for your commodities.
So in a way, we are doing the kusari unlawfuls a favour. Yet diamond shipments are the most targeted or sometimes the only shipments targeted.
Now Niobium shipments have the reverse effects, so they would have more reason to tax those shipments. So for all you pirating piraters in Kusari who claim to be pirating for "The greater cause", here's a little news flash for you. Would help increase RP so it's all good.
Feel free to punch holes if you wish, best debated than determined.
I see what your saying but...
If I bought AR-15's from the US and sold them to Germany, the US is profiting and the Germans are loosing money... But I just helped the Germans with War - Diamonds = Lazorz
So that might be a hole...
The reason dragons and gc feel fit to target diamond shipments is that any trading going into Kusari is being taxed by the Government. All of those diamonds are generating income for the Kusari government. When your trade ship docks in New Tokyo, in rp, a little Kusari man with a data pad comes over and inspects your shipment and assesses the proper amount of tax. This tax is paid to the government, which they use to buy those fun ships to attack the gc and blood dragons in.
Diamonds are used in Kusari's weapon production.. Further, they help the Kusari economy by importing cheap Diamonds in large quantities. Weapon producing commodities are actually worse thean commodities that simply aid the economy. (That part Zelot explained well enough.)
It's actually the Niobium that helps them less. It is their export, yes. But when we stop a trader with Niobium, the Kusari economy has already profited from that sale. The only people who didn't profit from it is Rheinland, where it goes, and the traders themselves, who paid for it, but don't get the payoff.
Ash, you... really have no idea of how trade works. The perceived wealth of both parties increase, or there would be no trade.
Besides, those diamonds may well go to create ships with friggin' lazorz on their wings!
It's true.. And unless they roleplay a reason for saying diamonds actually cause a strengthening of the Kusari Navy, and the Shogun they shouldn't pirate you. Maybe diamonds are being used in experimental ships, or maybe the carbon structures can be refined to be useful in cutting tools ship building machinery or weapon creation. If they SAY things like this then yes they have created a good ROLEPLAY SITUATION.. Better then 2mil or die.. But it doesn't matter, roleplaying with the GC are always fun.. Sentai-86 ENGAGING is getting really really old.
Edit: Quick edit, Looks like weapon building/ship building methods are common knowledge.
Edit2: And the taxing on trading is a good point too.
' Wrote:The reason dragons and gc feel fit to target diamond shipments is that any trading going into Kusari is being taxed by the Government. All of those diamonds are generating income for the Kusari government. When your trade ship docks in New Tokyo, in rp, a little Kusari man with a data pad comes over and inspects your shipment and assesses the proper amount of tax. This tax is paid to the government, which they use to buy those fun ships to attack the gc and blood dragons in.
Not Necessarily, I doubt the Tax will amount to the cost of the diamond shipment all together, by doing this the only thing they are doing is making the diamonds slightly cheaper. They're still losing money all round.
' Wrote:Diamonds are used in Kusari's weapon production.. Further, they help the Kusari economy by importing cheap Diamonds in large quantities. Weapon producing commodities are actually worse thean commodities that simply aid the economy.
It's actually the Niobium that helps them less. It is their export, yes. But when we stop a trader with Niobium, the Kusari economy has already profited from that sale. The only people who didn't profit from it is Rheinland, where it goes, and the traders themselves, who paid for it, but don't get the payoff.
Aiding Kusari's weapon production - Agreed, One fair reason to stop a shipment
Diamonds themselves don't exactly aid the economy, they are just a bunch of shiny rocks and I doubt their going to be fighting many wars in the showcases of private collectors on Tokyo. They are only given power by the value placed on them, it's Kusari's weakness to admire useless rocks for ornaments and accessories (except for weapons production like you said)
Supplying Kusari with anything is helping their economy and war effort...diamonds are not only "pretties", they see industrial use in cutting tools and the like. Any trade heading to or from a base in a house is beneficial to the economy of that house.
If it is heading to, it is a needed commodity, and thus should be stopped. If heading out, it is merely contributing to the income of the house. As such, diamonds should be hit harder than niobium by Dragons...
If nothing else, Diamonds are like gold. You can use them to base your currency off them. They're hard cash, in other words. Anyone will accept diamonds in payment, just like they'll accept gold.
If not used for weapons, they'd go into Samura's exec's homes to show off how rich they are, not a particularly resourceful use of them so the Dragons point to it as a waste of resources by corrupt morons or some such.
The moment you dump diamonds off on New Tokyo, you'd probably sell them onto a bulk dealer. Who sells them on to other people for more money ( So he makes profit, duhh), Kusari would collect a tariff on the Diamonds being imported, income tax from the bulk dealer on New Tokyo, and probably various other forms of tax that'd be bought about by that time/ I don't know about... So, I'd say that's a big ol' cut going to the Kusari Government that the Dragons want to overthrow...
(FYI; I've got no clue what you're on about with the tax thing... are you saying they wouldn't tax it? Because they could get away with it easily... so why wouldn't they.)
I personally hit Niobium just as hard to try to get them to stop shipping Niobium through Kusari, and it's fairly obvious that they'll take Diamonds back if you can even partially spot patterns...