(From Email Conversation)

Remember the stuff about the Grey Zone, and the hidden, REAL pirate bases? The only way Burrows can get to a real pirate base is by joining the Brotherhood. And he needs to get to a real pirate base to be able to buy exploration equipment (jump point detection/elemetry sensors and computers, space elevator kits, etc.). And to join the Brotherhood you’ll have to first be enemies with the militias, and then attack (not necessarily kill) a number of merchant vessels. Once you become VERY friendly with pirates, you’ll get an invitation. During the gray ops part of the plot, you’ll become the Confeds’ enemy number one. The militias will hate you. The mercenaries and merchants will hate you. The retros will hate you. The pirates will probably be your only friends in the sky.

Actually, not exactly. Most Confeds will love you, but they’ll still look red on the radar. Long story. We’ve talked about this in the WCU forum: Decoupling your computer’s FF heuristics from the feelings of the actual people piloting the ships...

Spiritplumber wrote:

The decoupling part is going to be a total biatch to implement... this said; what are the pirate bases in gemini that we see, if they’re not real? I was thinking “interface” bases, where all the drugs are sold to the legit world.

Chuck_starchaser wrote:

I agree, it will be difficult. It’s actually two decouplings, not one: 1) The official confed position (the ships) 2) The low ranking confed pilots, who love you. 3) The high officials, who hate you or love you depending whether they are aligned with Belisarius or against it.

In addition to that, some Confeds might love you but still feel they must follow orders. And then some high official that’s Belisariusish might launch escorts and tell them to attack you, and the pilots might fake they are shooting at you but actually shoot to miss... :(

In addition, there will be a new faction: The Secret Police, who, unlike everybody else, have control of their transponders. They fly dark green Excaliburs and often turn the transponder off, so your radar will show “unidentified ship”. When their transponders are enabled, they show as “Military Police” and their color will be same as Confed appear to you, as if they were aligned with Confed. But not:

At the beginning you cannot follow them. If you do they just say “DO NOT FOLLOW US” and you’d better turn around or kiss your ass good bye. Once you have an Excalibur and can cloak and follow them, most of the time their mission is to attack a militia or confed. They will be very mysterious and scary.

Remember that someone at Origin thinks that mines, bars, and specially bars at mines, are hiding places.

Anyhow, yes, the pirate bases sell drugs and slaves, but I think they are tolerated. Their illegal activities are kind of minimal. With so many pirates in Gemini, those can’t be the Real pirate bases. At the real ones you’d find a lot more pirates flying around, believable defenses, pirate caernavens and other larger ships.

Do Talons have jump drives? I don’t think so. They are too small. Obviously they are brought in in some kind of carriers. And talons don’t have enough cargo space for all the loot they pick up. Well, you’d see those pirate cargo ships and carriers and caernavens if you were around a real pirate base.

“Interface bases” sounds good to me. The gray zones are big. There are plenty of them and there are many unofficial bases and planets, who need drugs, and specially slaves for the labor camps, agricultural and mining slave labor are rampant. Slaves spend all their money on drugs; that’s why they can never buy their freedom. But pirates also want to sell drugs to Flatlanders, and so they need a few pirate bases in Flatland.