but we should be fair and not ask more from a zoner than from any other faction, shouldn t we? "a zoner without a zoner tag is not a real zoner" - allright, so a police ID without a proper police tag cannot scan/demand to drop contraband. how many corsairs ( sorry, only corsair examples, cause i never really meet outcasts ) fly around without the corsair tag? are they allowed to pirate then?
the RULES put the major importance on the ID. only then comes the tag into consideration. don t make the tag more important than the ID, people.
edit: about taking trading vesself from them ... this is about as "fair" as taking transports from generic traders only allowing them to cooperation traders. zoners are traders - you cannot disallow them their main ships. ( allthough i see a reason for that for balance and all - but taking away transports would be VERY out of roleplay for them - it would be more appropriate to take away every combat ship that they have; cause the npcs never use capital ships in any system ( as opposed to the major pirate factions and houses ) )
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Drake, the type of monolithic response that you describe would be forthcoming from Zoners to an incidence of a pirate taxing a Zoner seems to me to require a certain degree of nationalism that is the very thing that the Zoners are attempting to escape.
Zoners are not nationalistic or monolithic.
They have banded together, because they want to live separately.
They work and build together, because they want to go their own way.
The attitude that you describe is very unrealistic.
People behave badly all the time in the real world and they still do business in the community where the bad behavior occurred.
I personally would not tax a TAZ or other official Zoner clan, and I will persuade my Lane Hackers to refrain as well. However, anyone else claiming to be a Zoner falls into our very specific piracy policy, and had better find some way to make themselves useful if they want to operate in our area of operations. I'm sure my Hackers can be useful in return (we aren't the only pirates around, you know).
Every member of every faction is not of the same mind, and every act committed by a member of a faction does not have geopolitical consequences.
In any case, Zoners survive in many places due to the sufferance of their neighbors. Don't think of it as a tax, just think of it as a bribe for further sufferance.
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Drake, Chopper, if for some reason the RoS Legalized pirateing of TaZ and THEY declared war on US, I would expect AW to remain Nuetral in the conflict. Why? Because the Zoners are not a close faction, and TaZ is a LOT different than AW, infact you kicked the AW out of your Zoner Council, so what would you expect?
There is nothing worth living for, unless it is worth dying for. -Elizabeth Elliott
Technically we had a vote as to whether we should include non-full Zoners (though with Zoner tag but no ID), and AW was included in that list (they don't have a Zoner ID, nor do they generally act the same as 'normal' Zoners). But then their representative stormed off before we had a vote as to whether we should make an exception for AW, as we later did for the Jupiter Guild. But AW still claims to be the 'defenders of the Zoners', and having a friendly relationship with a faction which makes a habit of taxing Zoner traders would be absurd.
I'm still mulling this, but Duke, get yer facts straight. AW was never "kicked out" of the Zoner Council. I personally reminded them several times that they were still listed as a voting Member. It's not our fault if they choose not to exercise that vote.
And, most of you are correct regarding how Zoners, both npc and PC, would behave if one segment were threatened. Zoners seem to unwittingly follow a prime Discordian Catma: "We must all stick apart!".
I hope that the Zoner Registry has been a useful tool for other factions and players, both lawful and unlawful. Those who want to roleplay a "true" Zoner have made the effort to become registered. It hopefully serves as a "clearinghouse" or database for those who are not sure about a certain vessel's or player's status.
As to the Zoner Council, Eris has kicked my butt several times for even attempting such a thing. I have mixed feelings as to its validity and effectiveness. On internal and inter-faction Zoner policy, perhaps it serves a purpose. On the gripping hand, issues like a Zoner response to the "Nomad threat", and to individual pirate threats, or how to respond to trade restrictions by the Houses or other Factions, have resulted in a lot of hot air, and not much else. Perhaps more work is needed.
As to taking away trading capability from Zoners, which would basically leave us sitting around, guarding freeports and home systems, with our thumbs up various orifices: Nix to that bloody bright idea. I'm perfectly happy with the Zoner ID Infocard as it stands.
I've made the point about pirates who insist on accosting Zoners actually living that RP by making themselves hostile to the Zoner and Zoner Guard npc factions, so I won't belabor that again here. But, yeah, I'd like to see doing Zoners dirt, and then docking on Zoner facilities be a sanctionable offense.
Carry on. You're all doing great. In one sense, this discussion means that Zoner Affilliation has somehow become an institiution... whether a lofty edifice or a nuthouse is in the eye of the beholder.
I personally do not feel as if Zoners should be immune from taxation (in an RP sense or otherwise). No player that has decided to make trading his business should be... no matter what his affiliation may be. That is the occupational hazard of trading.
As many have already said, the Zoners have no central form of government by which to dictate where their neutrality lies with any one group or individual. Now, the PC Zoner factions certainly do have this abilitly as they are tightly knit organizations within the very loose collective that is the Zoner faction. If TAZ or AW are taxed by a certain faction, then certainly they may revoke their neutrality, but I do not think this would effect the entire Zoner race if you will.
With that said, I do also believe that if a pirate (again no matter what his/her affiliation may be) taxes and/or kills a Zoner ID'd trader, they should not be docking on a Zoner base once he/she is through. That is when we start treading in the OORP pool. This, in my opinion, would be no different than attacking the SA or LSF and then landing on Manhattan.:nono:
<span style="color:#FF0000"><strike>RETIRED</strike></span>
ON MY WAY OUT OF RETIREMENT
Quote:As to taking away trading capability from Zoners, which would basically leave us sitting around, guarding freeports and home systems, with our thumbs up various orifices: Nix to that bloody bright idea.
Thank you Mal for that disturbing choice of words. I am going to have nightmares for weeks...
@AC - Couldn't have said it better myself.
While being quite funny, your sig was the biggest one i've ever seen so far. No more than 700x250 please. ~utrack http://pastebin.com/SYQXBufs
' Wrote:if thats aimed at the NovaPG. since they are loosly affiliated to the blood dragons, i d advice them that if they decide to call out a war against the zoners, they better get the zoners deep red for all their members. cause fighting zonerplayers but still docking at their stations ( seen or not seen ) should not work.
If and i mean a big IF <span style="font-size:10pt;line-height:100%]i was to take the NovaPG to all out war on the zoners, trust me now , None would dock on the zoner bases,
at this moment under role play conditions its the ZR that have upset the NovaPG,
and have set a bounty on one of our members,
Neutral and Bounty do not fit right close together, same as a zoner trading food or even drugs is that Trader or Smuggler.
at this Moment the NovaPG are in talks with the council of the zoners and are keeping to a peaceful state,
but in my next Post under my NovaPG name i will be making all ZR tagged ships KOS and leave all the rest of the zoners alone,
it is now up to the ZR faction to come talk to the NovaPG and make peace. look out for our next posts on the Council and The NovaPG dumps.
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