"Elite factions"

[Vogel]

I believe there is a rather large hole in your reasoning, Aphil, the result of a double-edged sword.

With a faction that is entirely centralized, it certainly makes removing disruptive elements easy, and prevents others from acting out their take on the whole thing.

But by the same token, what if the faction does something stupid? What happens when different viewpoints, perhaps valid and genuinely beneficial, are written off as "disruptive" and cast aside?

In extreme cases a regular faction will accumulate the evidence on an independent, make a report, and get the player in question auto-repped to hostile, or have their ship deleted. Now condense that down to "We don't like you" and then deleted, or better yet "You don't exist because we say so". It's more streamlined but that doesn't necessarily make it better. "Elite" factions are just as fallible as any other, only when they screw up it's within the faction itself, and there's nobody there, within or without, to tell them otherwise.

One can easily conclude that this leads to two, inevitable outcomes:

- Ego tripping

- The inability to correct mistakes

Both of which are extremely detestable and have already shown up in arguments with existing "Elite" factions.

I rest my case.