Equality Concord
…they studied the gentle art of sophotechnology, and they built themselves some nice bionic implants…
What happens if the implants go wonky?
Machines break, conditioning breaks: some good citizen suddenly finds he can lie, cheat, steal (or just say ‘no’), and he likes it. If he runs (for Empire space, or Rim space), will he be pursued? And: if he makes a clean getaway, can the implants be removed, conditioning negated?
Probably won’t be pursued beyond the borders, in most cases - but on the other hand, it’s not like they usually need much pursuit, since the defective implant is pretty obvious to the network. Indeed, most Concorders with implant trouble don’t even try to run, instead turning themselves in to the mental health service quickly, since experiencing all sorts of impulses that they’ve never previously had tends to lead them to believe that they’re going mad.
As for losing the conditioning - sure, just the same way you can change your entire worldview. 
Yeah, I figured the answer would be sumthin’ like that: depressin’.
From As We Wax Hot In Faction
“The Rim Free Zone, also, is a dedicated supporter of the alignment, but one which frequently ends up opposed to us in internal debates.”
Why?
Is it cuz Rim folk skew toward, as you say, ‘a rough and ready version of natural rights’ while Imperials skew toward a more refined interpretation, or is just cuz Rim folk favor bein’ contrary for the sake of contrariness?
And: what kinda internal debates are we talkin’ about?
I’m tryin’ to wrap my head around it all cuz, fundamentally, both Empire and Rim seem to prize individual sovereignty, the difference bein’ Empire does it with AWESOME and Rim does it with get outta my face or else.
(For future reference, probably best to split these up into multiple topics for the sake of easy future searching.)
Well, the thing is about the Rim Free Zone is it doesn’t even agree with itself much. As I think I said somewhere, among its 49 worlds you can find places as polite and civilized as the North American Confederacy, somewhat less reputable but still fairly reasonable like, say, New Hong Kong, and as pit-of-scum-and-villainy-ish as Jackson’s Whole.
Mostly the arguments in question come about over things like externalities, or the rights of non-sophonts and children, or intellectual property, or certain types of banking and corporate bodies, and other assorted topics where dogmatic Rothbardians make my ears bleed.
As a general theme, it’s an argument between the Empire, representing the enlightened, consensual approach to solving coordination problems if one wishes to stay in it, and not-all-but-a-great-deal of the Zone preferring to stick its fingers in its ears and deny that there are such things as coordination problems, or at least that they’re problems.
(For future reference, probably best to split these up into multiple topics for the sake of easy future searching.)
Will do… 
the thing is about the Rim Free Zone is it doesn’t even agree with itself much.
As I say: Rim folk favor bein’ contrary for the sake of contrariness… 