Arguments should be made using gameplay and to some extent lore reasons, not tenuous equivalencies to earth.
Rational human behavior is the only reason I need.
blueprints are rare and heavily guarded. Not everyone can make them
What in the the name are you talking about? Blueprints are everywhere.
You mean the blueprints that can only be aquired by finding them in abandoned bases or by stealing them?
You have a strange definition of everywhere.
Doesn't the lore state that blueprint chips cannot be copied, and every single one is priceless?
You seem to think this game takes place on Earth. It doesn't. Which military is tracking which ships? How many times have powers risen and fallen, who's checking ship ID's and keeping track of owners, who's stopping CIVILIANS LIKE THE PLAYER from building colonies, and how is it difficult to imagine other colonies started by other PRIVATE people. Whatever it takes to build a ship, the resources are there and NO ONE is stopping anyone from building anything.
The player can do whatever because he is the player.
A fictional universe doesn't have to make any sense, as you said. Doesn't mean it's a good idea to make it like that, and I honestly think the devs dropped the ball on this one. There are ways for the player to have ships that makes more sense (licences).
It's not that hard to track ships - unique ID, can only be produced on specific places and any ship coming in or out is tracked. Hell, there are FAR more cars in s a tiny country than there are starships in the entire Sector, and all can be tracked.
Says who? I can't think of one military produced weapon/ship where there were more destroyed in war then what remained. 1000's of fighters were lost in world wars, and there we're many times more waiting to be deployed. The war didn't wipe out the entire stock.
Stop and think for a bit. They are produced because they are being destroyed and there is demand for more even if they weren't. Demand that must be met. Every single ship and tank produced in WW2 had a serial number. Every single one was shipped to a specific place.
If the government found you in possession of a ww2 tank, they would require proof of purchase and license to hold it in the first place.
I think you imagine it was just business as usual after the gates shut down. It would have been chaos, not the place where orderly ship registrations take place. LOL. Resources / blueprints / ships / entire planets would have been up for grabs. Things changing hands over 200 cycles. Think about it, how would any sort of accurate records ever survive that turmoil and time scale. Who's enforcing laws that don't even exist?
There's always hose in power. The gates shutting down didn't remove all registries or ID's (which are created by the forges), nor does it prevent making new registries.
What's stopping the Hegemony from cataloging every ship that docks at one of their planets? What's stopping them from taking it if you don't have a license for it?
The law doesn't exist for it's own sake. Anyone in power will WANT to keep tight control over dangerous things like starships.
No, just super-freighters... so far. But your point is moot anyways since they would happily capture one if given the opportunity - which they would have in a galactic war.
Yes, and they would be blown up the second they appear in civilized space. You CAN theoretically capture or salvage one. Bu that doesn't mean you get to keep it when others find out you have it, and you bloody well can't hide it when you fly to the planet in it.