[Public Discussion/request for recommendations] - Unioner faction allegiance.

[The Syndicate Leagues]

The Unioners have an Oorp reputation for flip-flopping between allegiances, to the detriment of a set direction. This is mostly due to the following issue:

- The Unioners have been infocarded and developed, in Discovery and Vanilla, as having no ideological motiviations in regards to other groups, except through local rivalries and suspicions to factions native to their own ZOI. They are also rather mercentile and trade freely, having few resources of their own, which they then dedicate to the production and modification of ships. They are highly ingrained within the Rheinland blackmarket. Unioners have a rather lassie faire attitude to individual freedoms.

They are not a party to the Omega or Hispanic wars, and have no intention in joining, nor any interest in doing so.
Neither side is a benefactor to them in any particular way, and neither side supports, or contradicts, Unioner objectives.

This creates the following effects:

- Unioners trade Cardamine if they so choose to. They have no inherent objection to the drug. There's a big market for it in Liberty, less so in Rheinland, although there's few options other than the Junkers and Unioners to bring Cardamine to Rheinland anyway.

- Unioners trade Blood Diamonds when they can get them - because they have a market in Liberty and the Unioners are excellent at running the border.

- Unioners are also shipping artifacts. Those a three mixtures that present a potentially explosive cocktail.

- Unioners are territorial about their own place in the black market, but prefer to work together than shoot at other unlawfuls, unless they're complete opposites such as the Xenos.

- Unioners deliberately avoid involving themselves too heavily in wider conflicts, such as the Hispanic War, Gallia, or the Omega conflict between the Corsairs and the Hessians/SCRA.

They're essentially a faction of middle-men. Not true neutral smugglers such as the Junkers, but instead more like a mob of distributors that will ensure delivery without too many questions or attached strings. There's a tonne of infocards and prior history supporting that fact in the game, right now, and we've been trying to RP that development.

Why this currently doesn't work in Discovery.

- Unioners are quite RP active, which makes the Sirian 'impact' of Unioner activities seem inflated relative to its actual scope due to a prominent forum presence. This means that people gravitate to interactions with the Unioners which can end violently because we're an active group that's a relatively easy target.

- All it takes is one person to say to the Hessians "This Unioner is hauling Artifacts" or for one Corsair to note "That Unioner is hauling Cardamine" and any attempt for that distributor dynamic is completely destroyed. Unioner smugglers are encouraged to log off rather than actually encounter people - UN leadership has persistently encouraged people not to log off and take the encounters due to overall impact on server health, however, it results in a complete degredation of Unioner reputations.

- The Unioners are RP'd as quite decentralised with individual cells and Unioners largely doing their own thing, and working with different group. This doesn't work in disco where you have four our five roleplayers embodying the RP face of the faction, so any decision or action necessarily represents everyone. That doesn't reflect how real world criminal organisations operate, but it's an artefact of how this community operates considering its size. Separating people from characters is very difficult - Unioners deliberately play a bunch of different characters to create the sense of a wider universe, but it's still the same few people behind them, which makes separation hard.


- There's a level of confusion as to what the Unioners actually are. This is partly due to a faction info page that was inspired by combining every previous Unioner attempt into a continuous timeline, so nationalist incarnations, socialist incarnations, apolitical incarnations and pro-LWB incarnations were all integrated together. That worked great at the time, but it ultimately meant that there isn't a solid faction identity as, say, the SCRA. We're slowly creating Unioner lore 2.0 by taking the most unique elements and pushing them to the nth degree, but it's a big lore and it's taking a while to revamp.

This results in the following chain of events:

Big Omicron or Omega faction - has pre-existing enemies and allies.

Unioners: - Asks to trade and sees if they have any projects that they could require assistance with, or shared piracy areas -

Big group X: - Agrees, under certain terms, realising that the Unioners sometimes work with people that they don't share the same rep with (Call them Big Group Y)-

Unioners: - Attempts to placate big group X by showing that they are independent from Big Group Y and that they don't want to be controlled by Big Group Y, as they're Unioners - their focus is in Rheinland and Rheinland-Liberty border and surrounding central independent worlds.-

Big Group X: - allows Unioners to trade -

Big Group Y: - Hang on, Unioners, we've seen evidence that you are trading with/assisting in combat against a third party hostile to both/Supplying/Stated in chat that we intend to work together with group X. Time to murder you with my Big Group Assets unless you renounce all ties to Big Group X. Because I am a Big Group, you're useless to us. -

Unioners: - Doesn't want to lose their role as a faction or be railroaded into a war that doesn't fit the faction Mission Statement or function on the server. Does the minimum possible to prevent big group Y from killing them. Trust between both groups goes down. -

Freelancer/Zoner/Bundschuh/Defector/SCRA#1: - Hi, Big Group X/Y/Z, I overheard/I have left the Union because I am dissatisfied with appeasing...-

Big group X: You're working with big group X? Time to show these uppity little syndicalists whose boss!

Big group Y: You're working with big group Y? Time to show these uppity little syndicalists whose boss!

Unioners: - Spends multiple months cooling relations with both groups through rube-goldberg-esqe diplomacy back to a begrudging neutrality with both parties, as there's no lore justification that would allow them to survive conflict with both groups, nor would it be in keeping with the role of the OFL to completely abandon the lore outlined by the story devs. -

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What this effectively creates is a cycle of continually reoccuring RP grievances which will only end up in turning Unioners into a faction with rep roughly analogous to that of the Xenos. That would be fine if the Unioners are the Xenos. Except Unioners arn't Xenos - most of us joined the faction because we wanted to be an oddball middle-man terrorist faction with a seperated agenda from the big-name stories of the edge-world and hispanic wars - a faction focused on mostly doing combat with the corporates, with inter-house paramilitaries, and other house terror groups in west Liberty and Rheinland. We aim to exist in silent synergy with the big factions by avoiding trampling on our toes, but the nature of how the server treats diplomacy has made that rather difficult.

Possibly a great example of what we'd consider a great, true-to-form Unioner relationship is UN's relationship with the BDM and the UN interaction with the various GMG factions that have existed over time, along with the UN / Bundschuh and UN / Seperatist / Hellfire / Hacker relationship. Those are all friendly/hostile relationships that have very much befitted the faction's role and have created fascinating RP/PVP/Mining/Gameplay/Econ.

We don't want to abandon everything that makes the Unioners, well, Unioners by siding with one big edge-world faction or another on any particular issue, as it ruins the faction's niche. This unfortunately has had the consequence of annoying the Outcasts, Coalition, Corsairs and Hessians, when the NPC faction as scripted by the story devs gets along just fine with all four organisations.

This is the Unioner infocard for the NPC faction ID:



There's also another infocard somewhere that states the Unioners trade in cardamine, and, verbatim: "Are one of the few organisations not to become involved in the war between the Outcasts and the Corsairs". It's the kind of faction we enjoy playing, and want to be. It's extremely hard to pull off, however.

This is what we have been attempting to do. However, doing one or the other requires increasingly drastic pendulum swings of diplomacy to cover our asses for one infraction or another, which increases the risk of angering the other side, to the point where neutrality is borderline impossible (a recent example was offering to let the Hessians murder all the Corsairs on an NPC base to prevent it from being occupied, which then angered the Corsairs. To avoid angering the Outcasts who thought we were working with the Corsairs, we were forced to tell the outcasts about our relationship with the Hessians, which then angered the Hessians again. Because we had to rebuke the Outcasts, the Outcasts were angered again. It's a cycle).

Any thoughts as to how we can get there? Genuine suggestions would be much appreciated. Obviously we don't want to pick a side, or stop smuggling entirely, as that would be to the detriment of both our current RP and where we want to go in both gameplay and enjoyment.

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[Victor Steiner]

I don't have an awful lot of knowledge about the Unioners. I've never had an RP interaction with them and have fought them very rarely, but from an outside perspective it seems to me that 90% of UN time seems to be invested in Bering and Hamburg. Now that's not an issue per say, but that system is now a proper warzone, which means RP interactions in that system are going to be...limited.

So, getting down to the issues you face it would appear that your stance of neutrality is becoming harder to maintain, which is not unexpected since that usually how neutrality works anyway, it's an unsatisfying position to all parties involved (aside from the neutral party itself of course). It appears that the Unioners will be required to pick a side in one of the conflicts, large pendulum swings of diplomacy only serve to make a faction look unstable and therefore untrustworthy because, I assume, the Unioners have their own goals and (like most other groups) seek to ally with others so as to push those goals. Now, that position will create conflict (at some point), what you lot are trying to do (it seems to me) is balance and cater to many, many different groups who are at war with one another, which means the likely outcome for the Unioners is isolation and (eventually) collapse. The UN are not Zoners, you have goals that you want to push and yet continue to switch, which (as mentioned) makes you look untrustworthy (why would a group side with another group that can't make up its mind?).

I advise then that you do away with the strict neutrality you seem to be trying to push and pick a side. An actual internal discussion is needed as to what direction you want to go because the current course of action does not seem to be working and it does not seem to be a position you (or most factions for that matter) can maintain.

I should like to point out this is just my general observation, I don't know the intricate details so I am not the most informed person on this matter, I'm not making any accusations, I'm just telling it how I see it.

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[Foxglove]

Having subfactions within an official faction works. The National Council made it work by giving ships additional tags.

NC-Name|CID -> Corsica Intelligence Division
NC-Name~V -> Vesuvius Flotilla
NC-AM-Name -> Atlantis Manufacturing
NC-Name -> without tag, they are a private interest

It works. You should try it. But you can't expect people to not hold the supergroup responsible. This way at least, you can distinguish whatever subfaction the people who did something belonged to.

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[Sand_Spider]

"You try mercenary work? It might suit you."

Thought I'd throw in some brainstorming, here. Feel free to use all, none, or some of these ideas! (Wall-o-Text begets my own, so prepare thyself!)

You might try declaring yourselves publically neutral to the unlawfuls of Sirius, but willing to aid all unlawfuls against many lawful parties. Make a mention of how the Junkers might have a similar approach to things - We salvage scrap for ourselves, hawk manifolds at anyone, and smuggle just about anything for the right price. The UN| could do the same, just that they would also be willing to be combat-allies against lawful and corporate targets, thus providing the difference between Junker (As Neutral As Possible) and Unioner (Neutral to ALL Unlawfuls, Hostile to ALL Lawfuls (sans maybe intelligence agencies)).

You've already made names for yourselves as go-to people for ship building - Use that as leverage. State that anyone looking to purchase weapons or ships from your organization are welcome to, provided they have the credits to pay and aren't picky in regards to who else might make use of your offered vessels. You may use that to produce Hels and LWB style Black Market ships for anyone. If you decide to produce Unioner-brand tech for non-Unioners, make them available to everyone (At an exorbitant fee, of course), and make sure everyone knows this. If you aren't willing to produce UN-specific ships for anyone, give them to no one who isn't a Unioner, and do not allow former Unioners to keep their vessels (They may exchange them for civilian or black market ships, since they'd be publically available).

Further state to the underground "public" that you are willing to smuggle, ship, haul, and supply almost anything to anyone, sans perhaps auxiliary installations (Player Owned Bases) in contested systems.

All of this sort of turns the UN into a profit-driven unlawful group, but then, that's sort of what I envision the UN as: A Rheinlandic version of the Liberty Rogues who are instead more organized and hold an interest in the welfare of the common folk; a group known for their ship building techniques and availability towards providing said ships, as well as combat and logistical aid.

Then, if someone cries "You provided our enemy with weapons/supplies!", you can turn around and say "Yeah, and these services are equally available to you at the same cost, no questions asked."

If you further find yourselves in a situation where you're providing one unlawful party (ex: Hessians) with combat-support, and an opposing unlawful party (ex: Corsairs) shows up, you have two options.
A: Play somewhat like the Firestalker Drone mercenaries did and aid the party you were asked to aid first, or
B: Pull FULL NEUTRALITY MODE out of your wallet and tell both parties "Yeah um, sorry, this is not our fight."
Option A might prove to be more fun for PvP-centric UN members, just make sure that in a public announcement, everyone knows that you're basically on-the-spot mercenaries regarding conflicts-of-interest situations. One day you might be helping Hessians, the next: Corsairs, and the next day after that: Some rich independent pirate.
Option B might leave the party you're currently helping that day somewhat moody, but they would know ahead of time that you're there to help shoot lawful and corporate targets, not unlawfuls of any kind.
Whichever of those two options you pick, stick with it in every encounter so that you are consistent instead of coming off as wishy-washy wild-cards.

I respect that you want to stick to the vanilla presentation of the Unioners and are trying to remain neutral in regards to the greater unlawful conflicts. Maybe it's a bad thing - Maybe Rheinland needs a little inner-conflict to generate activity? I can't say for certain, since I own no Rheinland characters. Then again, what's wrong with an RP-focused unlawful faction? Personally, the idea appeals to me - PvP becomes a reality only when full-blown lawfuls are involved, otherwise, it's mostly non-combat RP, which is a big selling point to those who don't like PvP.

Whew! Okay, lemme' stop here before I drone on any further. Like I said before, though - You're free to use all, none, or some of the ideas I've presented.

TL;DR: Declare full unlawful neutrality and offer ship building and combat/logistic support to everyone, provided the combat support is against lawful/corporate targets.

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[Enkidu]

The ideas here are incredible and genuinely creative. We'll try to build on @Foxglove and @Sand_Spider 's suggestions. Keep them coming if anybody else has advice.

Making the Unioners an umbrella organisation like the NC is, for a collective of different groups with different agendas, would be fantastic. We could replace the existing LWB/UN dynamic with different substrates of Unioners. We're slowly re-acquiring the playerbase for it.

I've got to admit, this is truly invigorating.

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THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
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