Re: Pirates and Privateers

> On a military level, I would guess that most governments have taken
the
JFK
> possition with respect to the AE (i.e. an attack fron one memeber of
the
AE
> will be considered an attack by ALL members of the AE).
>
> On a trade level, each governement is likely treated seperatly.

The AE's position, expressed quite clearly to anyone who asks, is "each
sovereignity is to be regarded as a corporate person and each is solely
responsible for its own actions."     Anything that happens with AE
space is
under AE or sovereignity law.  If you're outside AE space and you get
into a
situation, it's up to you to get out of it on your own.  If you do get
out
of it and make it back to AE space, you are (probably) safe from hot
pursuit, but you're not necessarily immune to legal action under AE law.

The AE will occasionally intervene--retroactively endorsing someone's
action, so to speak--and lend support, but it is uncommon.

The exception is for someone acting in an official Imperial capacity--eg
Imperial Navy ships, mercenaries operating under contract (eg Reynolds
Corp
troops), that sort of thing.  The Empire provides full governmental
support,
including direct action where needed.  On one occasion some mercs under
AE
contract were captured by IF forces and scheduled for an unpleasant
execution.  The AE wasn't able to extract the mercs by diplomacy and
couldn't get assault teams there in time.  In an amazing coincidence,
though, a small antimatter meteor hit the town about three minutes
before
the executions were to start.  Of course the AE didn't have a ship
there, so
it must've been one of those statistical flukes.