I think we should allow new players a limited number of locks for their chests (5?) to prevent players like Aesopian from stealing everything they own.
HOWEVER,
I also believe that we should have a system whereby teams of players can conduct 'heists' from military storage for empires/kingdoms, taking items which might be valuable to the war effort (e.g. stealing TNT, or stealing weapons, potions, other equipment), but only on a small and specific scale. For instance, maybe each player who participates in the heist allows the group to steal 2 additional units of whatever item they are taking, so for instance, a heist involving four players could steal eight TNT.