Discovery Gaming Community

' Wrote:**Target Communications Relay: Found**
**Datalink connected...**

Am I the only one disturbed by the sudden and dramatic increase in resignations? Four! In the last month! Countless others seem to have died quietly in their chairs and passed unnoticed. But for what? Well, they all have the same message! The Sector is pushing us too far. Quite frankly, they're right, we're changing for the worse. We're going the route of the Jupiter Guild, passing into extinction at the price of conformity! As I understand it, they gave Sirius their wish and were molded by their peers, and as I understand it now, the Zoners as a whole are doing the same.

I'd very much like to keep some old codgers in the Council instead of having it filled solely with fresh meat and left to chaos, yet they've all left for the same reason.

We are becoming a facade which we cannot sustain. Sirius is forcing its bloodthirsty will upon us, and we must not break nor bend lest this Council dissolve nearer the future than what any of us would like.

Paddy O'Donaghue,
Captain of the OSI-Lazarus (IV)

**Uplink terminated**

I fully support Paddy O'Donaghue's statement.
We must stand firm behind our believes and not bent to the will of others.

The Council of Zoners policy states that no pilot may flee into NFZ nor use Freeports as a base of operations. It is imperative that this edict applies to every non-Zoner.

Neither Liberty, nor Bretonia, nor Hessians nor anyone else will get special treatment. If people question our ability to enforce No-Fire Zones, then it's up to us to prove that we can. Otherwise, they can git.

The Universe seems to turn upon us, but we shall not give in. Stand beside your beliefs, brave Zoners, and do not bend to the pressure of the masses. Remember why we became Zoners in the first place.

Yev Lightwing, Zoner Guard.

From: Louisa Salome, (]c[)
To: Council of Zoners
Subject: NFZ


Great Council,

as it seems our political relations are mainly depending on our NFZ policies as well as their approval by other groups or nations of Sirius. Many of our current issues are fundamentally connected with the will of these to respect our neutrality and approve our NFZs as a necessary application of it. Liberty is even stepping forward to find an official agreement with us which clearly hints on the necessity to invite as many third party authorities as possible to our planned Ratification Convention, and a great part of our concerns regarding the QCP is also based on our will to enforce our NFZs.

It has become necessary to amend our first version of Official Zoner Policies to satsify our basic need of sustaining our neutrality while providing certain possibilities for third parties to display the necessary respect and support of our NFZs. Therefore Delegate Duke and I will work on a second version of our policies to encompass both desires, and to provide common terms to be signed by third parties who are interested in negotiations with this council. We will hopefully be able to propose this second version within the next few days.

Sincerely,
Louisa

From: Louisa Salome, (]c[)
To: Council of Zoners
Subject: Official Zoner Policies


Great Council,

as announced Delegate Duke and I have prepared a revision of the Official Zoner Policies according to some recent developments. It is a raw draft though, but it is meant to be reviewed, discussed, properly worded by this council and put to a vote here.


Sincerely,
Louisa

**Incoming transmission**
Comm ID: #scrambled#
Location: clasified
*Message opens*

Fellow delegates,

I believe that the effort which delegates Salome and Reisiger put into making of the re-written policies has given great results.
New/old policies entirely cover "grey areas" which were so often abused. I'm also glad they specify rights and the responsibilities of the (ZRT) members. My brother should be happy with fine definition of his day-to-day work.
Hereby I place my vote as "Yay" to these policies, understanding that they will be polished a bit.

Good work delegates,

Mohammad-Sadiq Al Noori

*End of message*
**Signal lost**

Well done Mrs. Salome and Mr.Duke!
Here are a few remarks on my behalf:

"4. Only individuals fleeing into Zoner Spaces, in order to evade the justice of local powers, can be banished from the according Zoner Space upon evidence,"

This is too specific in my opinion. Try something more generic along the lines of:
"Individuals fleeing into a No-Fire Zone in order to escape pursuing aggressors can be banished from ever entering No-Fire Zones or other Zoner territories."

This clause may become probelmatic in the future, especially if QCP declares all of us hostile:
"The group of Zoners must never declare any human group as hostile."

I would also add this very important clause:
"No non-Zoner may use Zoner stations as bases of operation unless through explicit approval of the space-station's owners."

Otherwise, the two of you have done a fantastic job!

Sincerely,
Yev Lightwing, Zoner Guard

Comm ID: RFS Freedom

We believe that the proposal is good, but needs tweaking.

"4. Only individuals fleeing into Zoner Spaces, in order to evade the justice of local powers, can be banished from the according Zoner Space upon evidence,"
is problematic, because those fleeing from oppression in the Houses should generally be welcome guests of the Zoners.

"The group of Zoners must never declare any human group as hostile" is problematic because in some cases, groups have and continue to threaten to, as a group and not as individuals, declare Zoners hostile. For proof, simply examine our list of Declared Hostiles, which includes at least one group.

-Jonah Robinson and Crew

Ladies and gents, after reading the QCP's response to our counter proposal, I have a few comments I would like to make:

Quote:I'll now move right along to the most important issue, and we can discuss the other minor points later on. The No-Fire Zones. First off, if the Wilde damaged your Freeport, then it was assuredly a directed and continuous assault, not a few stray shots. If your base lacks the armour to protect it from an occasional energy blast, then it has no business staying in operation. If you like, we can supply you with some new armour plating, pioneered on the Leeds front, which should prove more than adequate. Likewise, stray weapons fire from anything short of a battleship has no chance of harming the surface of the planet. Even a battleship's weapons will be little more than a pretty light-show. Leeds has had its share of combat in orbit, and has not had any problems with surface-side casualties.

When you get right down to the issue, the QCP need to attack Corsairs who flee into NFZones. And we need to make sure that our NFZones are respected. I have an idea as to how we can make a compromise regarding this issue that will work out for both of us. It's a little tricky, so bear with me:

Instead of asking the QCP to adhere to Zoner Policies in writting, we should instead make them agree to understand our Zoner Policies in writting. Example:

"QCP has read the Terms of Agreement as they are expressed in the Council of Zoners Policies. QCP comprehends that should any member of its organization open fire within a No-Fire Zone, such action will be met with immediate retaliation by any Zoner authority present. Furthermore, QCP fully understands that it may be charged with penalties of any form in the event that any of its members violate CoZ Policies."

What this does is not bind QCP to agree to follow our edicts, effectively allowing us to move on with the proposal and possibly end hostilities. On the other hand, it still leaves us with the power to shoot them on sight should they disrespect NFZ. Surely we don't want to give QCP power to stomp over CoZ policies, yes? I believe this is the best form of compromise for us. Next point:

Quote:"Now I do have a question for you: Why do you charge Bowex to lease a limited portion of 'your' land on Gran Canaria, yet let the Corsairs colonize freely? Corsairs who are not, supposedly, allies of yours."

I would point out to them that Corsairs are not leasing our territory, they are simply living on it. The difference here is that Port Jackson belongs to Bowex, while the location of the Corsair Communities belongs to us. This is a very fundamental difference. Correct me if I'm wrong, here.

Sincerely,
Yev Lightwing, Zoner Guard.

From: Louisa Salome, (]c[)
To: Council of Zoners
Subject: Zoner Policies


Great Council,

in order to proceed with our debate about the Zoner policies but to provide also an easy possibilty to discuss several topcis in parallel I would like to claim the record marker #FFCC66 for this specific discussion. All further contents concerning the Zoner Policies shall be marked accordingly.


Delegates Al Noori, Lightwing and Robinson, thank you for your suggestions. I would like to explain two of the terms I would not like to amend.

4. Only individuals fleeing into Zoner Spaces, in order to evade the justice of local powers, can be banished from the according Zoner Space upon evidence,

has been changed to

4. Individuals fleeing into a Zoner Space in order to escape pursuing aggressors can be banished from ever entering Zoner Spaces,

while the intention should be sustained: We should not try to protect those who are using our spaces temporarily as a safe haven to escape the consequences of their crimes committed in the same region, the region where a local power might have rightful claims to enforce its own policies. We have to take precaution not to be blamed for our political neutrality. We should not initiate enforcement foreign laws of course, but we might be urged to extradite criminals if they are in a Zoner Space being contracted by a local power and if this local power has clear evidence to corroborate its accusations.
An example: Let us assume that our negotiations with Liberty would succeed. On Zoner Space of interest would be Freeport 2, while a global scope of validity extended to all of our Zoner Spaces would certainly be off-limits. Now let us assume that a criminal is fleeing from Texas to Freeport 2 to seek shelter in our neutral space. While we would not initiate investigations on behalf of Liberty we would surely have to approve Liberty's right to persecute this criminal if Liberty has negotiated an agreement with Freeport 2. If the said criminal would flee to Freeport 10 we would have nothing to deal with at all.


"The group of Zoners must never declare any human group as hostile"

This term must sustain at all costs. The group of Zoners is neutral towards every other huoman group or society of Sirius. We have to act consequently, not led by prejudices. Individuality is one of our basic values, thus we can only judge individuals but never entire groups, and we can only put individuals on our list of hostiles after having collected certain evidence. We cannot forsee if others of this group will violate our policies, which is in some cases likely to be happening sooner or later, but it still must happen before we can recognize an individual to be hostile. The moment we are starting hostilities against a complete group the CoZ would have declared war on them which we cannot do without threatening the Zoner Neutrality.

Another change to the document: I have excluded military factions of being able to negotiate with us, because our communities are of civilian nature, thus only able to deal with other civilians or their authorities.

The current version is linked here.



Sincerely,
Louisa

**Incoming Transmission**

To: The Council of Zoners
From: Samuel Nichols, CEO Omicron Supply Industries

Message reads:

' Wrote:4. Individuals fleeing into a Zoner Space in order to escape pursuing aggressors can be banished from ever entering Zoner Spaces,

I like this change very much. This also states exactly how we enforce this anyhow. We need to enforce the NFZ the same for all. Compromise is not an option here. Other factions either abide or not, if they do not then they face reprisal.

Also here is a restatement of our current agenda since I had forgotten what was on it, I know other have

Quote:Item 1: TBH Counterproposal (Ambassador Holliday) ~In Progress~
Dr. Holliday, have we received news from Elder Sephardi?

Item 2: Negotiations with the QCP (Delegate Lightwing) ~In Progress~
Delegate Lightwing ... Yev, do you have news from the QCP for us?

Item 3: Negotiation with Admiral Seith about the CoZ' Order Support (Delegate Salome) ~In Progress~
I darsay that we have found a common basis for a final porposal to the CoZ that can be put to a vote as soon as the Admiral will have sent us detailed terms.

Item 4: Ratification "Convention" (Delegate Duke)
I suggest to put this item behind our amendments of the Official Zoner Policies, item 6 and item 7.

Item 5: Use of Freeport 10 by Highland Security (Chair)
The Highland Security has been dissolved.

Item 6: "Penal Code" for NFZ Violations (Delegate Duke)
This item is so strongly related with the NFZ Violations that it is indeed a part of them and thus a part of the Official Zoner Policies. Both items, item 6 and item 7, can be put together to one vote containing two items.

Item 7: Amendment to Official Policies (Delegate Salome)
If my suggestions are accepted this item will be decided together with item 6.

Item 8: Chairman Election

Samuel Nichols
CEO - OSI

**End of Transmission**

COMM ID: William Ironfoot
To: Council of Zoners
Subject: Zoner Policies

Members of the council, I applaud the work that has gone into creating this new look document and can agree with most of its content however one section troubles me a little from a personal level:

Quote:Section IV - Zoner Response Team
----------------------------------
1. The Zoner Response Team (ZRT) is not the army of the Council of Zoners, but a voluntary militia dedicated to protect the Zoner Spaces. 2. Ships dedicated to the ZRT have the appendix (ZRT) added to their transponder ID ( <ship-name>(ZRT) ) and use the Zoner Guard ID and IFF, unless they belong to a Zoner faction which ratified the Official Zoner Policies.
3. Only vessels under the command of a member of the Council of Zoners may assume ZRT duties and draft Zoner volunteers not on the Council to help. 4. Due to their civilian nature, the following ship classes are not allowed to be used for dedicated ZRT duty, but may be drafted for defensive purposes only:

- "Corvo" Class Zoner Deep Space Explorer

- Zoner "Jinkusu" Class Juggernaut

5. The ZRT's duties contain to following items:

i) Enforcing the Council of Zoners Official Policies - especially the No Fire Zone Policies - towards representatives of all parties, even towards other Zoners and individual allies.

ii) May only protect Zoner convoys, single freighters or transports on official CoZ business outside the NFZ.

iii) The ZRT may hunt down and attack any vessel which has been declared "Hostile" to Zoners.

6. Attacking a ZRT vessel - or any Zoner vessel on official CoZ business being escorted by a ZRT ship - results in the offender to be considered hostile to all Zoners.

I have a Corvo exploration cruiser that has been used many times to defend freeports and Gran Canaria against attacks from Keepers and QCP aswell as being used to interdict between the squabbles of other factions around our bases, I hope this doesn't mean that I will no longer be able to take part actively in the ZRT.

Also my impression was that the tag "ZRT" was optional, is this now a requirement?