Right, first off. Today I had my crew members patroling in thier fighters and bombers rather than the LABC to hopfully find the pirates hiding. They did find a few so it was successful, however, they also stumbled across something rather distrubing.
We got a report of a gathering of Zoners at Manhatten and a possible capital ship. Due to the capital threat Liet. D Roberts was dispatched with his bomber to check the situation with Cmdr. S Eversman in his fighter on backup. Liet. D Roberts came across no cruiser, but a Merc gunboat and Zoner fighters. The Zoners were argueing how he is vialating their tech agreements and must buy a cruiser ... which is odd. As a result I then contected A TAZ member " [TAZ]Tau.Ceti.Center " who confimed that they were not official Zoners and also agreed to come talk to them. Just before they arrived they calimed they were ORI! First they attempted to pirate the TAZ, they then proceeded to intimidate others until they eventually left.
Later, Cmdr. S Eversman was on his way back to Norfolk after successfully dealing with some pirates at Manhatten. Prepairing to go off duty for the night he undocked out of the trade lane outside norfolk to come across something rather distubing. His chat coms caught the end of a conversation between these two again and a trader, along the lines of "you think you can try to *censored* with me?" before shots were fired on the trader. Acting quickly Cmdr. S Eversman shouted "Hold it!" before moving to attempt to defend the trader. Unfortunatly he was unsucessful. And the traders ship was destroyed. He did however manage to put off these guys from a further attack, one fled and the other was killed by some Navy trainees (// NPCs). Unfortunatly Cmdr. S Eversman was only able to get chat logs due to being busy trying to defend the traders.
These guys should be considered dangerous. They have engaged and intimidated liberty citizens. This combined with thier ORI connections, which already have a history of hostilities towards Liberty, I would strongly recomend others to be on your guard when near them. They may be flying Zoner colours, but theres no way these guys arn't hostile.
Also the TAZ mentioned requested me to point out they are NOT connected to them in any way. And also to mention they did attempt to defend Liberty citizens from them dispite being outgunned.