Permission to Purchase and Fly

[WillV]

to the Order Counil,
Gentlemen,

My name is William Topper, one of the three directors of the (currently) unofficial faction, the Zoners Trading Consortium. (]c[). We have a formal request in for official recognition.
As I'm sure you are aware, with the change in mod, many of the ships have been changed, including virtually all of the ships in our fleet.

The Zoners Consortium is seeking permission to purchase and fly Order ships. Of primary interest is the Order GB; as you may be know, the new Zoner gb, is, how shall I say this: not suited for heavy escort duties.

We are a relatively small faction with 7 qualified ( tagged) pilots and 3 cadets now qualifying. We're never going to get big, because our entrance requirements are so high -- it takes 50-60 hours of online play to qualify as one of our tagged pilots, and we have dismissed several candidates for shoddy RP. We take great pride in our Zoners Guard rep -- neutral with every faction (and their guards) in Sirius except nomad, wild, phantom, coalition, and, at this point, Gallic Navy and Police.

The Order and Zoners have always enjoyed a close relationship, and we hope that you will grant us permission to use your ships. We will be completely respectful of the ships and our privilege in flying them.

Thank you very much for your kind attention

William Topper, Director, Zoners Trading Consortium

[Tenacity]

...Incoming Transmission...
Source: Aki Kimura, Order High Command

-Begin Transmission-

"Your transmission is fairly vague and confusing, so I'm hesitant to offer anything right now. I will say this, you are not to use any order vessels at this time, and you will not be given free access to order ships at any point in time."

"However, if the other four high command members collectively agree to your usage of one order gunboat, you will at that point in time be permitted to obtain one. Until then, stick to craft of your own making."

-End Transmission-

---

[Heartless]

I still fail to see why a trading company would need to get ships from a faction with limited numbers and use them for whatever reasons. Our gunboat is a ship of war. It is designed to kill. Traders are not. Why do you require such ships when you can use the Zoner gunboat?

---

SwissScorch --> Heartless

[werner]

[font=Fixedsys]From: Zoners Trading Consortium
To: Order Council
Topic: permission to fly Order Gunboat

[font=Palatino Linotype]Dear Sirs/Madams,

As your reaction to the letter of intent from our CTO doesn't look very optimistic for us, I took the liberty of the second try to present our reasons and to explain the doubts.

True - we are a trading company. True - we do not intend to take any offensive actions against anyone. But we face the sad necessity of defending our convoys (whether against human species or not) in order to survive and do our jobs. This requires us to be equipped enough to issue proactive defense too, as being a Trader doesn't contradict our aspirations to safety.

Let us look at the numbers. Compared to the Zoner Gunboat, the Order Gunboat offers 100% more firepower (eight gun points compared to four), and 26% more armor. On contrary, in the Zoner Gunboat we have an additional slot for mines - good if you defend yourself, but not very helpful if you try to protect your colleague in a Whale, attacked by swarms of enemies. Swarms which are much stronger equipped and much more numerous than yet a few weeks ago, I might add.

Therefore we decided to turn to our allies for help. We hoped to be treated friendly, especially that we never hesitated to provide to the Order the best aid we could afford (e.g. our battlestar Orendel). The mentioned aid was of course not calculated for exchange of anything (it was a long time ago), I mention it just to show that we do not perceive the ally relation as just another way of getting nice ships. We treat it seriously, and two-sided.

As said at the beginning of my letter -- although I don't feel much of enthusiasm in your replies - I very hope that I managed to state our rations more clearly, and I still hope for a positive processing of our application.

Best regards,
Dr Werner Mazursky
CEO, board member
Zoners Trading Consortium Ltd.

[Malaclypse 666]

Comm ID: Malaclypse, TAZ

Dr. Mazursky,

Two words for you, sir. "Sour grapes!"

The Zoner Conference class Gunship is a marvel of technology and agility. Your denigration of this fine new design is a slap in the face to the designers and builders.

Might I suggest that your boast of neutrality with Factions, both regular and Guard, should serve you sufficiently without the need for twice the guns and a quarter more armor.

In the last six month, sir, TAZ vessels have documented less than six cases of piracy against our traders. If your traders feel so threatened, perhaps we can offer you some pointers.

The TAZ Guard are in process of converting all their IMG Gunboats to the new Conference. We are happy as clams with it. Take another look, eh?

Mal

---

[Heartless]

I still do not see why you need war machines for simple duties. Also using Order ships to fire on anyone who gets in your way. As if our Sirius-wide reputation as terrorists and what not isn't bad enough, we don't need to have more people thinking we are giving away our already very limited number of ships to traders out of everything to protect boxes and crates instead of humanity.

---

SwissScorch --> Heartless

[werner]

[font=Fixedsys]From: Werner Mazursky
To: Malaclypse, TAZ
Topic: Re: Order Gunboat purchase


Dear Madam,

Actually I should thank you for your interest in the negotiations between the Zoners Trading Consortium and the Order. Maybe this was not the strongest support from the Zoners Community I could imagine, but -- heck, noone said it would be easy and that no astonishing opponents would come.

As to your suggestions:

The Zoner Conference class Gunship is a marvel of technology and agility. Your denigration of this fine new design is a slap in the face to the designers and builders.

We compared two numbers and stated that one of them is bigger. We try to standardize our fleet equipment -- and "Denigeration", "slapping in the face" or "marvels" is not our preferred level of abstraction. We try to lead some rational negotiations here.

Might I suggest that your boast of neutrality with Factions, both regular and Guard, should serve you sufficiently without the need for twice the guns and a quarter more armor.

Being a better/worse negotiator you regulate only the probability of avoiding the conflict. In situations where you fail at it, you have to defend yourself in a best possible way. It's untrue that twice as good diplomat, needs a half amount of guns. No - he needs the same amount, he will just use them twice as rarely.

In the last six month, sir, TAZ vessels have documented less than six cases of piracy against our traders. If your traders feel so threatened, perhaps we can offer you some pointers.

1) Who said we are talking about piracy?
2) Do you know anything about the trading routes we are planning to take?
3) piracy statistics of another factions have zero meaning in this case, according to points 1 and 2.
4) As to the ironic tone of this remark: Madam I beg you for mercy. I'm sure we both graduated from our highschools long time ago, please let us treat each other seriously.

The TAZ Guard are in process of converting all their IMG Gunboats to the new Conference. We are happy as clams with it. Take another look, eh?

We did before starting this entire thread, otherwise we would not bother our allies. We have come to the conclusion that the Order Gunboat would fit our security strategy in exceptionally dangerous areas.

Now if you don't mind, I would like to get back to the negotiations. As you may see, they are very difficult and our partners - very sceptic. God only knows why you decided to devote your time to lower our negotiating position, but I have to do my best to provide the best level of safety to my colleagues.

Werner Mazursky

[werner]

[font=Fixedsys]From: Zoners Trading Consortium
To: Order Council
Topic: Order Gunboat purchase

I still do not see why you need war machines for simple duties. Also using Order ships to fire on anyone who gets in your way.

Sir, you don't have to see it, because we don't need them for simple duties, and we don't want to fire on anyone who gets in our way. What made you think so?

There are routes, which we plan to take, and which are exceptionally dangerous. For example the route to Freeport 11, where we intend to provide some basic goods like water, food or medicine. As you know, after the recent... environment transformations, the nomads activity there has increased, furthermore there are better equipped and more numerous now. We need your design of gunboats to provide enough level of safety to our traders.

Is the above justification clear enough? Or should I provide you with more details, like ship statistics comparisons, expected threats and dangerous points? If so, please let me know, I can do this.

As if our Sirius-wide reputation as terrorists and what not isn't bad enough, we don't need to have more people thinking we are giving away our already very limited number of ships to traders out of everything to protect boxes and crates instead of humanity.

By comparing my colleagues to crates and boxes on contrary to humanity, you insult us quite seriously, sir. If this is the way you would like to discourage us to asking you (our allies) for help, maybe it would be easier just to say "no". Of course provided you are interrested in negotiations, not just using out the situation to insult other people.

If the limited number of ships is the restriction, maybe it is possible for us to provide your shipyard with the needed goods, like hull panels or engine parts? Furthermore, we take as natural that the additional effort of your engineers would be additionally rewarded. Would this increase the chances of our application or the preferred number of the sold ships?

If you are afraid to be perceived as the "mass ship provider", we could agree to a low, fixed number of the Order ships we could maintain in our fleet. We are a small faction anyway so this would not be any problem. In the first post there was a proposition of one ship. Unfortunatelly this is not sufficient for our needs, that's why we keep bothering you and trying to convince you to more.

What would you say if we asked for three Order Gunboats?

Best regards,
Werner Mazursky
Zoners Trading Consortium Ltd.

[werner]

[font=Fixedsys]From: Zoners Trading Consortium
To: Order Council
Topic: permission to fly Order Gunboat

[font=Palatino Linotype]Dear Sirs/Madams,

This is just to notify that we hereby consider the negotiations closed, and our request - denied. The form of this denial I shall not comment.

Best regards,
Dr Werner Mazursky
CEO, board member
Zoners Trading Consortium Ltd.