tl;dr I think this plotline leaves a lot to be desired It's done at the expense of Omicron factions almost to the point where it's insulting. There are far better alternatives for Liberty to get activity that make roleplay sense.
I'm curious to see an open discussion on the matter, based on a conversation in the Omicron chat. Of course, I can't divulge all the details of that discussion as some of it is still under wraps.
(12-21-2019, 04:41 PM)Xalrok Wrote: A similar zeitgeist prevails over House Liberty thanks to the losses suffered during the Gallic War. With Powell's emergency powers rescinded and his term in office long overstayed, a new and polarizing figure has been elected President of the Republic. This new president, Mildred Hawthorne, built her campaign on a growing nationalist sentiment galvanized by Liberty's seemingly endless sacrifices for Bretonia, which Libertonian citizens fear may never be repaid.
Forging the people’s fears and patriotism into a popular movement of manifest destiny, the Hawthorne Administration has reinvigorated Libertonian ideals of rugged self-sufficiency and stoicism. Standing at the forefront of this new initiative is Ageira Technologies. As Alberta’s dark matter storm encroaches on the system, President Hawthorne faces her first major trial in office. Ageira works to dissemble the Alberta Supergate, scrambling to relocate its components to a new zone of the Alaska system which has been made accessible to corporate interests by order of the President. A Libertonian Supergate directed at the deep Omicrons could provide opulent new ground, provided they can face the great unknown.
So as everyone knows, based on recent patches, Liberty is gearing up to expand into the Omicrons. From what I have been told and read, the roleplay justification for this is some kind of ultra-militaristic group in the Liberty Government managed to pass a vote in the Government (not voted by actual player Lib Gov, afaik, to clarify) to expand into the Omicrons, to obtain resources and territory. There's a fair few things to unpack from that.
If Liberty needs resources and has a desire to expand, why look towards a region of space so unknown, perilous and fraught with risk? Plus their last super-gate plan did not go so well. Logically speaking, it would make far more sense for Liberty to divert its focus somewhere like Kansas or Vesspucci. Not only do both systems contain habitable worlds, but there's considerably less risk as Liberty would only be fighting an enemy that is not only much weaker than them but much more understood as well. Otherwise... it's news to me that Liberty is in a dire position where it's willing to take such risks?
If Liberty does, for whatever reason, require things from the Omicrons, The Core exists as the perfect proxy to see this through. The nature of the deal with Interspace Commerce, for example, is that, instead of having a presence there directly, IC uses The Core to obtain for them rare resources and alien loot from the Edge Worlds. Even in lore, the background of the faction is that at one point it did exist as a Liberty Black-Ops group, doing their bidding in the Omicrons. I always felt that with the Omicron Xi stuff, at least from a roleplay perspective, it would have been better for Rheinland to fund The Core and have it take over Xi for them (and well, that did almost happen, but then I think Custodii complained and the whole arc was terminated).
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of limited House influence in the Omicrons. But my opinion is that it should almost exclusively be restricted to Corporations and small groups (through native factions), not Governments and militaries, setting up a hard presence there. Doing the latter creates an imbalance. These rules exist for the purpose of protecting independent factions and preventing House Governments swinging their weight around in places outside of their borders, with things like FR5 and other consequences that those independent factions are powerless to resist. Without going into details I think the application of Liberty laws in the Omicrons would be disastrous. And how can groups compete with let alone push back against something like Liberty? Zoners are totally boned, the Order will struggle to fight back and Core has to effectively roll over as they give up on all their objectives when faced with a House behemoth that they're dependent on.
As much as I think Order and Liberty should be absolute enemies, it feels a bit unfair to forcefully put Order| and 5th into a position where they'll be shooting each other. They've done a significant amount of roleplay recently to represent lukewarm diplomacy with each other.
Do the players even want this? As far as I can tell, none of OFs from either respective region are keen on this storyline development, least of all Omicron factions.
Lastly, I think the most bonkers thing about this is that Omicron factions have been waiting over half a decade for some kind of meaningful plot progression for themselves and the region. Other than small, localized things such as Vagrants establishing themselves and the Nauru docking ring (which you could argue was only an aesthetic change), nothing has really happened on the scale of the Gallia conflict, or the Sigma War or Omega-49/Omega-3. It feels like the region is still mostly trapped in time, with no official events happening since the Yaren/Dabadoru ones (which were in 2015). It feels like a kick in the teeth to give the first bit of major roleplay progression the region has had in years to a House that doesn't even have ZoI there., roleplay progression that doesn't really benefit any of the Omicron factions (Outcasts and Corsairs included). I really wish I could be at liberty (badum tst) to voice some further concerns with a specific thing that's happening as part of this development, but that would be leaking.
I think, instead of this, it would be much more productive for roleplay and gameplay if the Alaska hole is simply reverted to its original form, and Omicron factions are given ZoI in Alaska. That way you create a new hotspot of activity for many factions, and it also returns the good old days of Zoner whales and the like smuggling artifacts in and out of Alaska, which would help create activity in the rest of Liberty. Put some good PvE content there as well for good measures, like giving Order indie battleships the chance to shoot some NPC Lib Dreads.
But above all else, what Liberty really needs is a war with another House. As stated, Omicron Xi failed to be the replacement for the Lib-Rhein war that RM needed, and I can't help but think lessons haven't been learned and it'd just be a repeat. It's the perfect time to have Liberty renew its hostilities with Rheinland, or perhaps cause conflict from an ill-fated border dispute with Kusari in Galileo/Kepler.
And I would so much rather that the economy, pve, and system issues crippling the Omicrons could get taken seriously and looked at first. There's not really anything to do there right now other than respond to POB sieges.
Nomads infected Lib Gov to open a gate to Omicrons so that the Nomad fleet can quickly slip through into New York and wreck liberty.
Nomads then spread out from Liberty to attack the other houses.
I mean, having Liberty infested and taken over by Nomads wouldn't even be a bad story to tell and experience. Although I have doubts this is an intended story to be told and not something less threatening than just Liberty playing Space 'Murica in the Omis.
All I'll say for now is that I hope every faction out there gets more ZOI, more equal mining bonuses, more trade opportunities.
There should be more freedom for players and factions to RP the way they want, where they want, and with the ID they want. They shouldnt be forced to RP as something they dont enjoy just so they can make credits of find pvp or pve.
It should also go for Zoners, Core, Order, Nomads, and literally every other faction too.
Again, I'm always for implementing a unified system, create some things on the server to fight over, like buffer systems with rare commities or anomaly fields, or planets or ore fields of actual value. Then, sure, the new connection might work like you said to create a new hotspot out of overlapping ZOI's.
With a system, the factions involved can simply take what actions they see fit with regards to buffer systems on their borders. If it leads to war, it leads to war. If we did things like that here, perhaps more would be enticed to join factions out of the hope of contributing to their development of important border areas, which would be ripe for actions like building bases to assert control of (annex/lay claim)...things that spark situations in those areas that lead to action, like supply lines and base sieges.
Story wise its just recycling what was left of the old supergate plot that was scrapped so the Gallic War could be made to end in a stalemate.
We're still waiting for the devs to do something with this game other than sit on it and let it turn slowly. A few changes to the rules and adding rules for factions to follow for fighting wars over territory would make for some epic times. Sadly they seem to cling to the argument that it wouldnt work, but its obvious why we don't get a lot of freedom here, in Freelancer (A UNIVERSE OF POSSIBILITY, its written on the box). This game should be being used to its full potential, not left frozen for those who are already happy where they're at.
This is the reason why the place never exploded in popularity. Just flying a space ship is an allure that lasts only a while, same goes for all the things you can do. Opening up a system creates situations where there will always be a NEED to use those things and do more than just face off in meaningless pvp skirmishes. The Omicrons are a pristine example, but it definitely goes for every faction all over the server. I wonder if the devs know how much more interest people would have here if they added more ways to develop game factions/assets, rather than add buffer processes.
Maybe there will be an event in O-Minor and then the jumpgate blow up and Alaska will be the new Omega 58.
Of course, Powell is infected, cardamine addict and artifact collector as well.
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