I (mostly) promise I won't step up on my Hyde Park rantbox here...
::wait for it people: there's gonna be a 'but'::
::wait for it, wait for it::
but guard systems are great things.
Ever since I grasped the concept, I've seen 'em like this- The empty guard systems are unused real estate, & no matter how poor a faction is, it's not a big stretch of the imagination to RP the player faction spearheading a series of cartography missions.
The fact that it costs a billion dollars & some hoop jumping to meet the requirements for purchase is not something I personally feel is necessary to roleplay out.
For example, the Lewis system is now owned by the NLH. Within RP, did they pay a billion dollars to the A.D.M.I.N.S. & ask "nau I can has?" Hell no they didn't. The system was paid for by a pool of credits by me & the other NLH after talking about it for forever & a day. As far as the characters involved are concerned, they simply worked out a deal with the Gaian Guard to put the NLH name at the top of the deed. After the ink dried, they then took the initiative that the Guard never did, & started to map the place.
Whatever they find in the system won't be clear till .86 but right now, they know that whatever the hell is inside that mysterious minefield next door in Orkney, it's simply too close to home to be ignored & a buffer zone has to be created to ensure the safety of Edinburgh just in case whatever it is turns out to be is a bad thing.
That being said, Every NLH player knows that we now own some massively prime real estate.
RP-wise, taxing traders for passage through the system is what can fund the building of the stations, & yes, there will be a planet...& it will be a perfectly pristine example to Bretonia of what the Gaians have always been trying to do.
Will it make the Gaians irrelevant? Oh god no...if anything it will prove the factions goal & true vitality.
The Gaians may be pigeonholed into a little box by others of what people think they should be, but it's not the NLH's goal to think outside that box...the goal has simply always been to make the box bigger.
We've earned the right to make our mark in history, & that's exactly what the guard system will help us do.
