So I've been thinking. I'm actually close to taking a shot at making an attempt to revive the Unioners myself.
There have been quite a lot of attempts to resurrect the Unioners and keep them alive, but all of them failed. In my opinion, that's because the faction failed to produce anything that would be largely different from the roleplay of the other Rheinland unlawful groups, so one might as well play a Hessian char with natters and Odins if he wants to shoot lawfuls inside Rheinland.
So, what we need to keep the concept interesting is something that introduces a whole new approach to roleplaying the Unioner faction. Something that largely differs from what other Rheinland lawfuls do.
This is what I've been brainstorming about:
1) Corsair-friendliness: Unioners deal with the Corsairs since vanilla. Artifact runs could be done from the Omicrons to Liberty, as well as establishing diplomacy with Corsair factions in general. Might even assist Corsair expansion into Liberty with artifact trade.
2) Hostility to Rheinland unlawfuls, especially the Hessians: Being Corsair supporters, the Unioners could assist the Corsairs in their conquest to the Omegas, with weapons if need be. Generally, I see no need to produce hostility towards the Bundschuh or the LWB though, but the Hessians could be enemies of the faction.
3) Expansion into Liberty: One of the problems of the Unioner faction is the general inactivity of the sector the faction works at (Liberty-Rheinland border). This could be solved by the Unioners working inside Liberty (TX, NY), alongside Rogues and other Liberty unlawfuls.
4) ZoI: As I said above, the ZoI of Unioners is dead right now. It requires an expansion for the faction to be playable. Therefore, while the bulk of activity would concentrate into central / northern Rheinland, the Unioners could still work inside the Omegas and the southern part of Liberty with weapons and do trade runs with the Corsairs and Liberty unlawfuls.
More ideas (no matter how wild) are welcome, as well as feedback.
Just a note: yes, there is no need to produce any hostilities towards Bunschuh because they'll shoot to kill already anyway.
Also, Sair-aligned rheinland unlawfuls would be neat to see. I generally agree with all you wrote, such an approach could actually work quite well for Unioners.
@Sauron: Bundschuh would be neutral, rather than allied.
@Fluffyball: There was, but it appears to be dead for months. What you said was pretty much how the AGS worked back in the time, it only happened because of activity reasons too. I have an entirely opposite concept in my mind, instead of working together, I wish to distance the faction from other RRA factions so that our RP would have something unique.
I was to propose to form a shadow government in opposition to Rheinland one, but someone already fixed up things for me... I wasn't aware that diplomacy was so different what I've had from my knowledge.
(06-07-2015, 09:11 PM)Sturmwind Wrote: @Sauron: Bundschuh would be neutral, rather than allied.
Uhhh, even back in the days of the VF we already had some skirmishes with the Unioners. VWA too is firmly unfriendly with the Unioners and if we find any in Frankfurt we force them out. Hessians on the other hand have usually been rather neutral in the Bundschuh - Unioner feud.
That aside, I'll definitely like seeing a Corsair-loving Unioners again, I encourage other Rheinland unlawfuls to be more unique. The Hessians being everyone's bigger brother has always been problem.
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Honestly, a move to differentiate the Rheinland unlawful factions would be absolutely fantastic. For a long, long time Rheinland's unlawful groups' story progression has been a textbook case of "doin' it wrong", because all of the interesting developments and characteristics have simply been attributed to the Hessians while the unique elements of all the other groups were slowly eroded away.
Angry miner or construction worker? Make a Hessian. Anti-government left-leaning political RP? Make a Hessian. Hatred of foreign corps like Synth? Make a Hessian. All of the above while pirating? Make a Hessian. They've slowly but surely absorbed all of the nuances and attributes that made each of the groups distinct, and that sucks.
Seeing someone really try to underline the difference between the different groups would be grand. I'm sure the lawfuls always feel slightly despondent when they see a unified wall of pirates facing them as well. I know that was the case back in the day when the Rheinland Revolutionary Alliance was a thing, or whatever it was called. Throwing in a little internal discord would liven things up for all sides involved.