path /=/ luddic church. the evidence is that they shoot each other.
i think sub-factions are a good idea, however shaking out how it would actually work in practice would be dicey; if they become too separated from each other they might as well just be factions in their own right, but if they behave as if they are an entirely cohesive whole then what is the point?
i do agree though that the pirates and indies are too unified. it stretches credulity that factions that are supposed to be semi-decentralized behave exactly as if they are a unified sector power. ideally i think there should be some difference between how the pirates operate and how the hegemony operates, because organizationally they are probably nothing alike.
indies are there own thing, but IMO they should behave closer to the way pirates behave than true sector powers. while they cooperate within the market system (organizing escorts for their own convoys, selling things to each other at discount prices, trading intelligence, etc) they probably don't have a "faction military" like the hegemony or tri-tach does, which follows a unified chain of command. they are basically free-captains, and i imagine they go where they want and do what they want, operating on a voluntaristic policy.
i could see indies being split up at least on a per-sector basis (or maybe per region, once there are more stars in vanilla) with them having an inter-region alliance system that waxes and wanes. as a faction they don't really have a unified ideology or goal (besides making money) and there's no reason to say that a bunch of belt miners couldn't have a war with other belt miners (who are still independent)
basically independent is a much wider umbrella than hegemony or tri-tachyon, and they should be split up more.