Thanks, Loki. My mistake. I was thrown a derp and derped in my response to said derp, as, in fact, the fact that the derp was here was a derp in the first place. Derp.
On topic: My baby is finally becoming a real, grown up faction, with indies, a non-guard home system, and an actual functioning economy that doesn't require a million under-the-table deals with basically everyone. Plus, Guadalajara is getting a docking ring. You have no idea how happy that makes me. <3
You have no idea how much squeeing I would do if someone told me HF lore had evolved fully to where the Legion itself was just the military of a micro-state. We've been (ICly) mostly civilians and non-combat personnel basically since I got my grubby little hands on leadership (and, consequentially, more direct control over lore direction) way back in ye olde 4.81 or .82 or whenever it was. Now to see all these back doors open into what was for way too long a desolate and isolated fortress-system makes me so happy. I mean, you have no idea. Add to that actual incentives for real activity, and Vespucci becoming less restricted superfortress where outsiders got pewpewed and more a home people have been settled into for over two decades, and suddenly, it starts becoming a real IW system.
In fact, that kinda extends to the rest of this change too. It looks to me like it's mostly about making systems matter - culling the systems that were added apparently just for the sake of having them and using their assets to make the other systems real systems. I remember coming to Discovery and watching the explosion of new systems every version just to put up big numbers. Poking my head in to see it going the other way is pretty neat. That's my general take on it, anyways. I dunno enough about mod balance to comment on that part, just lore and roleplay and the stuff that's actually fun like that.