Miz raises a really interesting point, which I’m spending way to much time thinking about. Thank god for that, work is really dull today.
Counter point: Capsuleers are extremely limited in their ability to interact with planets via their ships. Are we, however, so limited in our ability to interact via our wallets? Ok, I can’t land my ship on a planet and deploy soldiers – but in the absence of a sovereign power to stop me (sov nullsec), can I hire the ships and soldiers to do it for me?
Ok, so there’s no in game mechanic for ever talking with an NPC that isn’t an agent, so you could say that I’m not allowed to talk to such people. But the moment you step out of the capsule, there’s no reasonable way to limit my ability to negotiate with someone and then have them go and conquer the planet in my name. Why don’t we do this in hisec/lowsec/npc null? Because there’s another sovereign power that controls that space and will stop our would-be conquerors. But in sov null?
Ok, so concord has made it so that capsuleer carriers can only carry other capsuleer ship and drones, so I can’t just launch the invaders myself. But I have a station. Is it impossible for NPCs to come and go from a station without riding in a capsuleer ship? Maybe the initial crew compliment is carried out in freighters for construction, but what if new people want to join or the old and sick want to go home to empire space? We already know that there are a ton of things that don’t appear on our scanners – most civilian ships, interbus shuttles, Sansha dropships, etc.
So while I’m not actually taking my ship down to conquer the planet in question, I’m funding the army that’s launching from my station, going to the planet, and taking over in my name.
Does that sound feasible?
EDIT: five freaking posts in the time it took me to write that. Will give them a more thorough read through shortly.