I really could respect that. Cold Clan and Pierce Clan operatives were not happy we were backing them. However, they were the only ones we had good contact with. It was not that he hated their faction. Lightning Clan was in the dessert and Sonic Clan was still a big unknown to us. When Cold told us about the hit on Sonic Clan failing a month later, I was shocked. They said that Void Clan was funneling our support to their fellow faction members. I guessed that made sense. As such they said they were going to target Sebastion if he came back to get more stuff from us. Not wanting to put him in danger, we told him that we would wire him the credits from now on. It left the matter of the supplies up in the air. Since we were human led, they could not swallow their pride enough to actually ask for our help. When they told us about the failed hit, we were loading the crates in our trading hub. We asked if they would like to buy it on the condition they don't attack Void Clan anymore. They refused us. Their eyes did linger though. That was when they gave us a big counter offer. We were listening.
Should we let them have it for free, they would sponsor us in a coalition faction. We did not know what that meant. The leader rolled his eyes and explained. Now that we were actually deep in the mid-game, we could kick of the late game. Once a faction got control of 9 transmission hubs, the blueprints for the XX-frames would begin to drop among that faction's clan members. New clans in those regions would be slightly easier to form and X-frames would once again be the price they were at the start of the game. We already guessed at that because we had an initial blueprint for one. Their explanation went beyond that. When the XX-frames were built, they could spawn in the AEA units. A coalition faction could cross the normal lines of the 3 factions to get the job done. The rates the blueprints would drop would be proportional to the amount of members in each faction. Now that they had 8 hubs again, they could add Heat Clan to get to the 9. Heat Clan would only get 1/9th of the benefit of the coalition, but Researchers were a dark horse anyway. We were ahead with the blueprint too.
Obviously, this was a giant decision. We were going to have to call them up and ask them what to do. Heat Clan was shocked. "You want to know our position? I thought you would have gone rogue and tried a confederacy. My fears were not realized. Paul, Brett and I did not know what that was." After digging around in the library and then in our in-game encyclopedias, we found the answer. It had several pre conditions. However, it was essentially a coalition between members in a single hub's area. I was curious. The members of the confederacy would then collaborate to make one XX-frame. It was the ultimate sign of no confidence in a leader. It was also a failsafe against the human's if they took control of several hubs, making a 9 hub faction impossible. The list of conditions were still tedious though:
No faction has control of 9 transmission hubs after 3 months from first war
1 of the following:
Faction of particular transmission hub does not have plurality of the 13 transmission hubs
-or-
Particular transmission hub under human control
1 of the following:
Major clan with 2 vassal clans in a transmission hub's territory
-or-
3 independent member clans in a transmission hub's territory
Defeat major clan in battle
###Log confederacy into transmission hub
OR
Not member of faction with control of 9 transmission hubs
1 of the following:
Major clan with 3 vassal clans in a transmission hub's territory
-or-
4 independent member clans in a transmission hub's territory
Defeat major clan in battle
Log confederacy into transmission hub
OR
Particular transmission hub under human control
1 of the following:
Major clan and 4 vassal clans in a transmission hub's territory
-or-
5 independent member clans in a transmission hub's territory
