Yes, but the trouble is that it would be very easy for the big dogs to reassure me that they'll be allies with me and ask me to invest in trade/explore actions for the first few rounds, then gang up on me militarily with secret actions and invade me within one or two rounds of pretending to help me out, leaving me basically defenseless.

I have nothing against players personally, but in the absence of a contract or rule of some kind, IC if not OOC, new players appear to be very vulnerable to getting killed or exploited and I've never played a game in my adult life wherein even the best of friends didn't take advantage of that sort of situation. I don't know, maybe everyone here is a saint and I'm just a mistrustful troll :P