Note that if you do attack them, you'll recover some standing with the independents once hostilities end.
Well that's nice to know
Yea I just opened it up and checked, I was already well in the negative with independent so the punishment makes no sense, Sindrian Dictat I get, but I'm neutral with them.
I think I'm just trying to express that it's frustrating when I just took out 5 or 6 large pirate fleets my own faction comes chewing at me to throw my fleet at someone else, and they're not even paying me enough to be hitting enemies regularly.
I do like how this adds depth, I definitely would not suggest someone becomes a commission with any of the powers that be at this point. I only had access to the better weapons for the course of a few days before they started docking me for not hitting everyone.
Maybe private objectives (similar to drox operative) that you have no choice but take just to keep your rep up and they send these special missions (with a few credits) on some sort of random basis.