Well, since everyone seems to want to start a new debate on this at YKYGTHOEVW, I thought I'd resurrect this and we could do it at a more appropriate place. Sound good to everyone?
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Originally posted by ChristopherH:
**Of late, I have found myself finding many areas of agreement with David in the
theme of Rebellion Vs. Confederation. It also has bothered me that the Rebels seem to
use attacking civilian vessels such as shuttles, freighters and luxury liners as a tool of
war against the Confederation. (It might be possible to justify the shuttles and freighters by saying they are aiding or abetting the Confederation war effort by delivery of supplys or carrying messages for the confederate military, but the same cannot be said about Luxury liners. For evidence, fly around in Capella or even in the Sol system and you will eventually witness Rebel ships attacking and destroying luxury liners.)
The Rebels also make use of assasination as a tool in their war with the Confederation. It might be possible to justify attacks on military leaders, but the assasination missions involve the killing of diplomats. These diplomats are not identified
as being Secretary of War, Head of Security, etc. they are simply described as Senators or diplomats in general. Who is to say that these diplomats are not on a mission to start peace talks? Or being sent on a mission to try and find a way to end the conflict peacefully such as the Confederation being willing to allow the Rebels to withdraw from the Confederaton? (As David hinted about.)
Finally, the fact that the Rebels deal with Pirates is to me a major concern. In one particular mission, you are asked to attack a Confederate Munitions fleet and steal the munitions and take them to a PIRATE BASE. The mission ending text says you are met by a group of Rebels, yes, but the implication is at least that they are going to sell or at least share the munitions with the Pirates, persons that will use them to attack anyone for their own gain, including Rebel Civilians.**
There's been a lot of debate on this thread about the civilian ships deal, and David has not yet been able to prove to me satisfactorily that the Shuttles etc. are civilian vessels. I don't want to reproduce my reasoning here, just look back at the last couple of pages. The Luxury Liners I admit to finding more questionable, but as I've mentioned before here, there is the case of the Lusitania in WWI. While there was a large outcry at the time, if you know your history, you understand that the Germans were in fact fairly justified in sinking it and its captain did little to prevent a submarine attack, he was guilty of negligence at least. There is also the fact i have sited that Luxury Liners are armed, and actually have more weapons space than cargo space, which is suspicious.
For the diplomats; and who is to say they are on such a mission? They are also described as "officials", not diplomats. That could mean a lot of things.
Pirate base: I've never seen any implication that they intend to share with the pirates. Furthermore, those locations make sense from a practical view. The pirate system nearest a Confederation base is 5 jumps away from it, and the furthest one from a Rebel base is only 4 jumps away, most are 3 or even 2. Further, Confederate patrols never make it out that far. There is the isolated little Frigate fleet, but that doesn't count. If you look in the EV düde resources, you'll discover that the chances of Confederate ships being at a pirate system are nil. Using them as a transfer point makes sense in that regard.
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Originally posted by The Hunter:
I tend to side with the Feds, the Rebs background is rather murky.
No more murky than the background of the Confederation, really. The intro text doesn't tell us much about either. Just because the Confederation is the government in power doesn't mean that it isn't murky, or that we know much about it's history. In fact, all that we do know about it's history is rather negative.
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Originally posted by David Arthur:
For comparison, I'll point out that all of the Nova preambles are the official story from Ambrosia, and yet they represent the views of different groups within the game. The EV intro text is quite obviously told from a Rebel perspective. Also, have you read Scumdog's story in the EV documentation? He never mentions the Rebellion as anything except as one of the reasons the Fringes are "dangerous to travel without some firepower on your side" and never has any complaints about the Confederation - in fact, he was a Confederate fighter pilot during the Great War - and his story is just as official as the intro text.
The intro text has always seemed to me to be a neutral perspective, from a non-aligned narrator with no real stake in what goes on. It's a historical account. By contrast, Scumdog's story is heavily Confederate. Since he was a former fighter pilot, he sees the good side of the Confederation, the side that won the war, and was probably indoctrinated against the Rebellion. That's not a knock on the Confederation, armed forces in general tend to show the good side of their nation and the bad side of all others to recruits, and attract patriotic people besides. I find his story to be a lot more heavily slanted than the intro. Besides, it never gives any indication that he's had any dealings with the Rebellion, so he doesn't have a personal opinion of them.
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Originally posted by David Arthur:
I don't know if you've noticed, but the Core Worlds amount to pretty much all of Confederation territory, and again, nobody's shown any evidence about whether any oppression took place, exactly who was being oppressed, and who was responsible. Remember, just because somebody was oppressed doesn't implicitly make the central government to blame, especially since the Rebellion doesn't seem to have ever made much of an attempt to solve its grievances through legitimate non-violent means.
The Confederation used to be larger, we know that for a fact. Deneb III was once a Confederate world, which we know from Scumdog's text which you put so much faith in. The Confederacy basically spanned all known worlds to fight off the aliens. The oppression which followed, we can see from the intro, was in fact the central governments fault, exploiting the outer territories for the good of the Core Worlds. Further, how do you know that the Rebels didn't try peaceful means before Rebelling? It doesn't say either way. Failed attempts could be left out, since the intro is rather brief.
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Originally posted by David Arthur:
Mind you, the Confederate Osprey in Battle for Sol is pretty nice to fly.
You haven't flown one of my Supercruisers yet... 
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Originally posted by David Arthur:
Do you think it's possible for one person to completely control an entire frigate, even if he is that captain? There's no way he could defect and take his ship with him unless his crew supported him. Indeed, the description says that the captain, officers, and crew are defecting, not just the captain
'Fraid I have to go with David on this one, Rak. You can't have a one man mutiny on a ship with a crew of over 200, unless he has one of those combat suits from one of Heinline's novels (Starship Troopers, I think? I'm not up on Heinline's works as much as I should be).
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Originally posted by David Arthur:
and helping pirates escape a crackdown on illegal arms manufacturing, while more of the Confederate missions involve observing the Rebellion and reacting to their actions.
Where do you get the helping pirates idea? I've never seen any of that, and I've played through the game many times, from both sides. There are also minor Confederate missions involving "striking Rebel Freighter Convoys".
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Originally posted by ChristopherH:
Correction (to use your phrase) there are indeed Rebel Light Freighters in the game of EV. Dude ID 194 (Dude name - Rebel LF's) Govt ID 129 (Rebellion) Ship type 129 (Light Freighter). I have yet to see a Confed Warship attack any of these, but that is not to say it doesn't happen, I just have not seen it.
Hogwash. Yes, it exists, but that düde is not used in any system for ships that show up regularly. It is used in missions only, and if a Confederate warship is present, they get pounced on.
Sorry if I brought up any points other Rebels have already covered, I was just looking at the replies of our Confederate supporters. Also sorry for the length of this, I've been busy dealing with Battle For Sol II recently, and haven't had time to respond here.
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