We decided as a clan to take a neutral stance during the mega-bloc war because it felt like a gangbang at the time. It is hard to say that Astralis gave FCC merc support when I am the only one who consistently merced for FCC (or merced at all for that matter) during the war. Kesh was the only person who asked me to merc for him while we had a neutral stance so, if he sent me a message asking for merc support, I would give it. I did at some points use the FCC free trade fiefs but, in order to maintain a neutral stance, I provided the Frisians with some services as well (whether or not it all balances out in the end is another story).
For the record, I mostly avoided the FCC free trade fiefs due to the high tax rate. The vast majority of my trading was done @ Tadsamesh, Mechin, Kwynn, Tismirr, and the Dracul and FPoF free trade fiefs. I only sold at an FCC fief once and bought about 1000 goods per trade run from Rivacheg (compared to my 11-12k total good load).