From: CoF | To the BDM: Regarding BDM|U-66

[Gytrash]

My Dear sirs.

Well, I'm not entirely sure why we are having this problem. I mean, it's not like the Confederation have any bases that are really INSIDE the jurisdiction of any lawful Rheinland entities. You may want to argue that Freeport 5 comes inside of your jurisdiction and I can see something to that but Freeport 9 and the Omicron Theta system are so far outside of your range you might as well be trying to claim rights to screw with Zoner vessels in the Taus.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that taking a group of Zoners, yes Zoners, and saying, "Well we don't think you dudes are Zoners because it's convenient right now." will make me any more impressed with your destruction of a Zoner vessel, an unarmed one at that, inside the NFZ.

Let's see the two sides here, on the one hand we have a military gunboat, heavily armored, heavily armed and way outside of his jurisdiction. On the other hand we have a Zoner in an unarmed transport, I myself frequently fly that model of transport and I can tell you now it's not anything that could pose a threat to a Gunboat of any kind, or even a light fighter.

Now, you have declared war on OSI vessels, good for you, I'll be sure not to fly there. I'll be sure that members of OSI don't fly there or I'll give them a right bollocking. That does not mean I want myself or anyone else to be shot anywhere in Sirius because one of your Admirals has a stick up his arse. Yes I am in OSI and Yes I have been made aware of how this situation escalated. It was stupid.

Regardless of that your ship committed an offence, I don't take this lightly when an uninformed freelancer breaks these rules. However seeing as the entirety of Rheinland wants to go to war with a trading faction that owns two, count them two, gunboats in total and about twenty other combat ships over the breaking of one law. This seems to make the impression that this is a much more serious offense. After all, the LAW HAS BEEN BROKEN! And it was a member of the Rheinland military who did as such!

Realistically there are three ways we can go from here;
One, you keep your ships inside Rheinland space, that means that you'll never even come into the same system as a Confederation freeport and we'll never have this problem again. And you pay a fine.

Two, you de-escalate the situation with the OSI so that you don't feel tempted to shoot them near Confederation freeports. And you pay a fine.

Three, you pay a fine. And you continue to screw around shooting ships near Freeports and you continue to pay fines.

So let's get some negotiation on the table shall we? After all, I am a generous man and although there is even a nice spreadsheet that I made that I can use to just hand out fines willy-nilly and even multiply them, I think I'll wait to hear from you first.

Respectfully,
James Church


//Apologies if it wasn't clear who this was from. I hate how that second line I used to use to say who it was from is gone now.