Some of us have taken the effort to free ourselves from the friendly fire restrictions imposed upon us by the nations of our origin. In doing this we have made a sacrifice. This is the price of freedom. And that freedom is our new commonality. Since many of us that have made this choice, but come from differing nations, there is only one area of space left that treats us all as equals. In gray space we can meet as equals, free not only from friendly fire restrictions, but also from the immediate consequences of our sacrifices. And this reality imposes a stark imperative upon us. The only defense of our freedom, our access to gray space, our right to meet as equals, is by our own hand. I call upon my fellow free pilots to defend the peaceful pilots of gray. If a free pilot does not seek aggression, let us not allow outsiders to seek aggression against them. In this unity, we defend our right to be free, to be equal, and to meet in peace. This is a deceleration of the free pilot's rightful claim to the space outside the the borders of the superfaction trimary, and the call to defend that claim.

I dispute any claim you make on grayspace and will shoot at you regardless.

So nyah.

Translation from Leebspeak:

I will go after you and die horribly to your guns, possibly creating another embarrassing situation for ITAN.

I certainally think that the option to become "unaligned" ( or perhaps corvus aligned ) should be included in the revised faction system . It ought to be labelled differently from the hive , who really should be designated as "hive aligned "

Ecka

I like the concept you describe. However I think you need a way to determine the difference between a "free pilot" and a scallywag. Most people won't consider a red dot moving up on them as friendly. :D

Are you suggesting an alliance of:
pirates?
free pilots opposed to piracy?
free pilots and pirates?

Ecka,
In the current system, we are not so much unaligned, as dis aligned, realigned, or just plain old independent. Whereas you can expect unaligned to be every bit as fixed as aligned, or even more so, an independent is truly free to chose, or forgo, alignment at a whim.

Martin,
You raise an important and valid point. The issue of piracy is independent of the issue of alignment. A Serco may decide to commence in pirating UIT an Itani, while maintaining his alignment with Serco. He is not a free pilot, as defined by this article. If he where to forgo his alignment with Serco, he would then become a free pilot, but he would still be a pirate, and could even begin to pirate Serco as well. A free pilot may, or may not engage in piracy. You can not judge an Itani by his nationality, and you can not judge a free pilot by his lack of nationality. A pirate is a pirate because of his piracy, and that is the only true method to judge a pirate, aligned or otherwise. Now, while I am calling on all free pilots to defend our claim to gray, I am not calling on free pilots to defend piracy. If a free pilot unjustly pursues aggression, then some free pilots may grant reasonable license for the pursuit of the aggressor. Not all Serco will defend every other Serco, and not all free pilots will excuse every other free pilot. We expect our neighbors to respect our claim, and we understand that our neighbors may have rightful claims of their own, in respect to the security of their persons, properties, and borders.

I do not think Ecka was referring to the current system, but one to come. I might be mistaken.

However, you are (technically) wrong about piracy. Since the Serco Dominion and the Itani Nation are at war with each other, disrupting the oppponents' trade cannot be counted as piracy. Piracy starts as soon as the person has no commission and conducts attacks upon vessels trafficking under a nations' flag. (cf. wikipedia on piracy).

It is interesting, though, that players have no choice in the matter in the current system, since they are de facto issued an irrevokable commission upon character creation.

It would be even more interesting to have such 'letters of marque' introduced to VO. It would make distinction between real pirates and privateers possible.

Naturally, we would then also need an official military, to keep within the likeness.

The factions do not really make any provision for privateers. If an Itani kills a Serco in UIT space, that is liked by UIT, UIT doesn't care what anyones standing is with any other faction. Your term of privateer is a label of convenience for pilots only, and has no bearing with the factions.

It doesn't matter if you call them pirate, privateer, or cold blooded butcher, judging a pilot by his faction standings is a limited perspective, and can even be misleading if you have erroneous misconceptions.

Some free pilots will indeed be pirates, make no mistake about it. But a free pilot is free to make such choices. A free pilot can be a pirate, a pirate hunter, a merc, or whatever.

Some pilots are free pilots of convenience, they are free pilots in pursuit of some other activity. For very similar reasons that a pirate would choose to be a free pilot, a pirate hunter may also choose to be a free pilot.

Some pilots are free pilots first, and that they may choose the path of the pirate or the anti pirate is almost a secondary concern to them. The fact that they can choose being more important than the actual choice itself.

Yes, but the fact that there is no explicit 'privateer' status is exactly what I deplore. It would make what you propose easier.

However, people could be able to 'tag' other players judging from their experiences with them.

Let's say, there's a list to choose from, with checkboxes that can be ticked: Pirate, Privateer, Griefer, Ally, Trader, Military, etc.

The one checked would show up in the target info window on the HUD (I know, we lack space...), and this would allow for such distinctions.

But Roda, you're one of the most aggressive people in Grey, how will you police yourself?

--Harpo

I appear as aggressive to those who have initiated aggression against me, or who will defend those who initiated aggression against me. Your [ITAN]. One of your guild members attacked me without cause. When I defeated him, he called on his guild [ITAN] to assist him. When I questioned your guild's leadership about it, I was told to go away (to put it politely). When a pilot attacks me, and I expect, or discover, that their guild will also intervene, then I hold the remainder of the guild equally responsible. In my view, aggressors, and those that defend aggressors, have no allowance to complain about aggressions against them. I submit to you, that your perception of aggression is skewed by your complicity with instigators.

And thus, the true question. If anyone is to "police" anyone in grey, then who is to decide what will be "policed". When you have a clear cut case of Pilot X demanding $ on threat of combat, against an otherwise uninvolved Pilot Y, then there may be little incentive for non-aggressive free pilots to become involved. But when the issue is questionable, then free pilots may have an opinion of their own, and if you are gunning for a free pilot, then we reserve the right to defend our own.