Faction Confusion

[destroyitnow]

So I've pledged allegiance to Mahon (Alliance), but I'm being offered a promotion mission for Federation. I'm confused by this - my rep shows my rank as 'Recruit' for Federation, but I'm sitting here trying to gain faction rep for Alliance. Federation patrol ships are always trying to interdict and attack me.. yet I'm offered an opportunity to rank up to Cadet within the Federation faction. Anyone have any insight on this weird mechanic?

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Thing is, there are two ranks now. While you still can choose to not participate in PowerPlay (this is a feature that got recently added to the game), you can still decide to help a minor/major faction. See, PowerPlay was more or less already implemented. The Empire, Alliance and Federation as well as independent factions were already persistent. PowerPlay added the "Play" to "Power" but in this case you have to devide up the feature of PowerPlay and the old mechanics of t he factions Empire, Federation, Alliance and independent.

The just mentioned factions are major factions while the powers you can pledge to are subfactions. For example the Empire has four powers, the Federation has two and the Alliance only one.

Hope that helps