Four powers act on the station and none of them has a named leader: Security enforces the law, the Black Market expands illicit trade, Revolution is an insurgent network seeking leverage, and the Upper Level are former elites testing whether you stay useful. Joe Wild's Wild Network sits outside all of them as a vendor and community network.
On this page
Probably Stolen station factions: what each one wants
| Faction | What it wants | How you move it |
|---|---|---|
Security | Law and order on the station | Report wanted faces and cooperate with inspections |
Black Market | Wider illicit trade and punished cooperation with law enforcement | Move illicit goods; reporting an unlisted criminal sharply reduces it |
Revolution | Leverage against the station | Reporting someone important to the movement raises Security and lowers Revolution |
Upper Level | Premium or counterfeit goods that preserve their privilege | Haggle hard; they pay high margins for convincing fakes |
Wild Network | Your custom as a customer, not a faction | Daily insurance choice and network purchases |
Security catches smugglers, inspects the shop and pays for reports. A poster match has been observed paying 100 credits. Patch 48.3.12 removed an exploit in which a cleared inspection that still had visible contraband on display granted reputation.
Revolution retaliation is not always immediate: a threat can be raised after the customer has already left, and very low Revolution standing can task a hit squad against you.
The Upper Level want premium or counterfeit products while preserving their privilege. Premium Spring Water is the concrete example — its Water tag is rejected by tourists and non-Upper-Level customers. Security still investigates whether their goods are genuine, and no separate meter is documented for them.
Standing buys access and paints a target
Reputation determines access to customers, licences, exclusive deals and protection — and it creates enemies at the same time. Black Market reputation is a real meter that opens exclusive opportunities while raising danger, with documented extra handling at −40.
Joe Wild's Wild Network is not a government but a vendor and community network acting as neighbourhood insurance and water infrastructure, with Joe Wild as its one named figure. You choose daily whether to pay his theft insurance before sleeping; paying can carry a Rock Bottom run through a stolen crate, and refusing is viable when no vulnerable stock is left outside. It has no faction meter of its own.
One public milestone pays for that work directly: Diplomatic unlocks at the highest possible reputation with any one faction. Because it asks for a single faction rather than all four, the cheap route is whichever meter you already move — Security through poster reports, the Black Market through moving illicit goods — instead of spreading thin across the whole table above. The buyout milestone table sits it next to the credit and deed milestones.
Four ways to answer any transaction
| Choice | What you get | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
Approve | Credits | The heat and standing consequences |
Refuse | A clean shop | The margin, and possibly the relationship |
Report | Security favour on a poster match | Black Market consequences for an unlisted criminal, and Revolution retaliation |
Look away | No involvement | The faction still watches |
Those four choices are the whole reputation economy, applied one customer at a time — the customer reactions page works through who walks in and how each type should be handled.
The Aug policy cuts across all of them
Rogue sentient AI chips have taken human hosts with them, every faction's answer is shoot on sight, and a confirmed Aug is hostile regardless of which faction the host nominally belongs to. Dr. Jackson's Aug scanner assists identification.
Human customers — regulars, revolutionaries or rude elites — must not be mistaken for Augs. Shooting a regular is not a faction strategy and it damages standing, while shooting a confirmed Aug is broadly supported by both Security and the street factions. The Aug identification guide covers how to tell the two apart before you act.