Think of space as the High Seas. You had pirates everywhere. The Navy couldn't keep you safe at all times. You had to have weapons mounted on your ship to protect yourself.

Life: No one gets out alive.

I go down the road with .25s .50s and .75s straped to my car. Gotta problem with that?

-~-~-~-~
There is no Silicon Heaven! But where do all the calculators go ?

You could no more evade my wrath... than you could your own shadow!

space is large... their are to less cops and navy to protect the whole damned space...

they can only protect specific points in space... that's why they have also hunters (hunters where captured criminals and pirates)

hunters r also the first line off defence...

i look strange to other things... shouldn't it that the faction weaps have light, cops medium, hunters/crim/pirates high and navy very high damaging weaps

but GMG weaps do more damage then the best cop/navy/hunter weaps.... isn't that strange... co'z the navy shall have better weaps to get better protection against criminals...

If u c some1 in a dagger make fireballs from hunters it can be me

Give a private corporation the ability to rule itself, and it becomes a military faction. They've practically got the entire fuel supply of Sirius under their boot; they'd need some pretty nasty tech and personnel to keep everything in line.

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"Although I do not consider myself a member of the Bounty Hunters' Guild, I find that their goals and mine often follow the same path. I will aid them when I can...if they give me a percentage of the salvage from whatever they frag along the way. But god help them if someone puts a bounty on THEIR heads, for I don't care who I hunt for, as long as their live capture(or untimely death) can get me enough credits to buy a decent sized mug of my favorite drink."- A Freelance Bounty Hunter.
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Anub- damn, what IS the plural for that? Anubii? Anubises? Anubice?

i would say the bottom line is money talks

I get the feeling that I'm gonna get flamed by star wars nerds left, right and centre by writing this...but......

wasn't the millenium falcon effectively a civilian cargo ship that was "adapted"?

I think RILMS hit the nail on the head with his analogy of the open seas....if civilians are going to venture out into the unknown every day, where there are pirates, clans and bounty hunters, of course they're gonna defend themselves, right? They may be taking a knife to a shooting match, but hey, thats another point entirely

<< I mean, who drives down the freeway with .50s strapped onto their minivan ... ? >>


Might make other drivers treat you a bit more respect.

Jose Chavez: "Trent! It's good to see my kind of scum."

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wasn't the millenium falcon effectively a civilian cargo ship that was "adapted"?

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Adapted, I guess you could say that. It was a CEC CORT-1300 YT Series Light Frieghter that has been extensively modified to illegal limits with an enhanced hypedrive that runs at 0.5, twice the speed of the average military vessel. It also mounted 2 military grade quad laser cannons on turret mounts which were operated by gunners, and I'm quite sure the Falcon has a stolen high end shield system with the rear deflectors tweak to 14% over original specs.

Edited by - Kheiron on 04-11-2003 23:52:48

In the classic era of high seas pirating between the great old world powers, England, France, and Spain, so-called "civillian" ships were by no means unarmed either. Long before the advent of radar, the high seas (like "space" in freelancer) were a wide open and often treacherous abyss out of which a pirate ship could strike and disappear in an instant (relatively speaking). As the fleets of the great powers were already occupied battling one another, they were stretched far too thin to insure the protection of merchant ships sailing from the old world into the West Indies. As a result, pirating became a lucrative business and such an incessant danger to merchant shipping that trade ships were often armed with light 3 pound guns and cannonades as a crude means of defence.

This light armament was by no means a match for a two or three decks pirate galleon bristling with five pound guns, but was even so often enough to persuade a lazy pirate captain to avoid the annoyance of combat and instead pursue a more helpless ship... preferably one of a power with which the nation of the armed merchantman was at war. This way, in the end, both sides were often satisfied.

@kheiron you scare me

@gromit: I have that effect on most people

Attack, Engage, Destroy, Survive

kheiron how the hell did you find that one out?

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http://www.cardamine.net/

Lets go into a long winded and essentially unnecessary explaination shall we.
Star Wars, thanks to its huge success and popularity has become a sprawling array of movies, books, comics, and other such stuff. Each of these sources contains information, whether in story format or something more easily definable. Therefore Star Wars contains enough information to allow research on the subject for general interest.
I've done quite a bit of Star Wars research and as a result have plenty of information on various elements of the Star Wars 'universe'. When asked a question relating to Star Wars I can usually give an answer based on my current knowledge on the specific aspect of Star Wars.
Therefore when asked about the Millenium Falcon and its origins I could give an indepth and informative answer which, to my knowledge, is correct in the context of the Star Wars world.

Hope that explains it...

Attack, Engage, Destroy, Survive

lol. Kheiron, the correct response should have been...

"...just because, OK?!!..."