There are several reasons you can't put a new player faction in Colonia - at least, not using the form:
The immediate reason is that you're not allowed to put a new player faction in a system that already has at least one player faction present. Colonia contains 42 player factions in its 71 systems already. All but four systems have a player faction controlling the system ... two of those systems also contain two or more player factions already, and the other two - Colonia itself, and Ratraii - are "protected" in the BGS in the same way that Sol or Achenar is.
There is also a specific "not in Colonia" rule for the form, but this is at the moment superfluous as the other rules already prevent it.
The obvious question, then, is how the 42 player factions already there got there, if not by using the form. There were three routes to this:
1) One faction was placed before Frontier decided that the form was not the appropriate way to do this, very early in the history of Colonia. This will not work again.
2) Forty factions won a place in one of six competitive Colonia Expansion Initiative CGs. The last of these CGs took place around two years ago.
3) The final faction was established due to Frontier's recognition of the extensive contributions the player group had made to the Colonia region during the first year of the region's existence.
For completeness a 43rd player group has adopted an NPC faction, taken over one system with it, and has as I understand it been accepted as a legitimate diplomatic and political force in the region by many of the other player groups. But this is not official or recognised by Frontier.
(Routes 2 and 3 result in the establishment of a new inhabited system with a low population surface base, which forms the home for your new faction. This is very different to the standard way, in which you need to find space in an existing system)
So, the follow-up question is, how do you get a place?
There are I think three options for this:
1) The easy one: join one of the 43 groups already out there and support its faction. There is a very wide choice of government types, so you might be able to find one which suits you.
2) Not an easy one: join with other squadrons who also wish to establish a presence in Colonia but don't yet have one (I've seen several, and haven't been looking specifically for them). Together, lobby Frontier to re-open the Colonia Expansion Initiative, then if you succeed in that, win the competition (in whatever form it takes) for a place.
3) Definitely not an easy one: move your squadron out to Colonia, and do something so important for the region that Frontier recognises this with a factional presence. I have no idea what you could possibly do that would meet that requirement, but maybe after you've been out here a while you'll think of something.
Good luck.
