The analysis of the situation....

Commander Harkis was bringing the frigate in towards Port Martini largely out of curiosity....he had never really been beyond Treaty space before, and he wondered what sort of people lived out on the frontier fringes, beyond the jurisdiction of the Omnibus Treaty, but still within the human pale? He would rely on Lt. Rose to brief him on the particulars....that was her job, after all, to know the legal ins and outs and such....

So he was informed that Port Martini was the center of a Regional Authority, as recognized under Article 47 of the Frontier Protocols which were reached at the end of the last round of hostilities between the hybrid buffer states and the natural human client entities which more or less represented Treaty interests this far down towards galactic center, where the ancient machine culture held sway over vast star clusters. The hybrid states were dominated by cyborg clans and gene-altered biological tribes....."borgs and biots" in popular parlance.....Treaty Forces were of course tasked with keeping these creatures away from natural human space as much as possible.

But money talks, and there was money to be made in trade with the galactic center, so a degree of tolerance was needed along the frontier.....there had to be some place where deals could be made between corporations under Treaty jurisdiction that wanted the exotic products of machine culture, and the various shady and semi-legal associations which operated in the buffer states along the edge of that culture. Port Martini was such a place, and business there was booming.....

"In short" concluded Lt. Rose, "Any Treaty warship does not go into Regional space displaying any tough-guy attitude. You go in with weapons powered down and locked off, asking for docking permission, the ship all spiffed up and proper to show the flag in a friendly manner. That is official procedure. And besides, the quantum cannon emplacements ringing the Port have the megatonnage to crack this boat like an egg for breakfast, Sir."

"I hear and understand your analysis Miz Rose, thank you." says the Commander.