Whatever you do, you're still a Freelancer, so you can't actually "join" a faction.
You can take missions for them, or go shoot up their enemies, which will earn you their respect (and, in turn, the hate of their enemies).

yeah its a common misconception, you are basically an all around hire out person, people, factions hire you for a particular job and you get paid for that job, but you don't actually get to join the navy, if you have ever seen star wars that empire strikes back think of Boba Fett, sure he is on the empire's side, but he is only working for them (meaning no rank, uniform, etc.) as in lifestyle, that totally depends upon the kinds of jobs you take, if you take jobs that entail you hauling cargo then i guess you are a freighter pilot, if you do jobs for the navy then you are a mercenary, if you destroy ships and steal their cargo then you are a pirate. its very open-ended

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Peace through superior firepower.

Thanks for the info guys!!

My lifestyle will be: goth in space

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"In all likelihood you're going to die out there. We're all going to die out there, but none of us needs to be reminded of that fact. So you die, you never existed."

My lifestyle will be a greenpeace environmentalist in space with my VW "humpback" bus..

Peace out

The Humpback part sounds right with turrets but I want lots of toys and that takes MONEY! The life of an explorer, few folk around and lots of stuff to loot, mine, find and sell.