commerce raiding

Epistolary Experiment (6/30)

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“Very well, gentlesophs. Since the main intrusion’s down coreward in the Reaches and the Expanse, the Warmain’s cleared us to go raise hell in the Vonnies’ 31st-sector backlot. We’re dividing the flight into talons by threes.”

“First Claw, under Flamefang, head rimward up through Kordal; your primary target is the fuel depot at Dantry. Blow it all t’hell. That should make sure their fleet operations stay quiet in this sector.”

“Second Claw, under Shadowstrike, straight spinward via Adesh; you’re going after the repair yards at Manar. Make it look like a raid. What you’re actually doing is planting replicant disorder in their systems. Any starship that refits there in the next year’s to have a raging case of ship-cancer, okay?”

“Third Claw, under Voidchill, down coreward, Adesh then Uinul. Commerce raiding for you, hitting up and down their main routes to the constellation. Bleed ’em white, and report to flag instantly by tangle if you observe – when you observe – military support coming up from coreward.”

“Meanwhile, Impertinence will be punching through to their colony at Vontok II. We’ll be securing local space and waiting for the Legions to arrive. Then we’ll see how they like ground fighting.”

– flight briefing, CS Impertinence, Quor (Csell Buffer) system

From: Phoebe Dracotarthius, Sheriff, Nightside Rock
To: Strategos Lucian Avaranaith, 73rd Imperial Legion (“the Apex Predators”)
Subject: Accomodations

Certainly we can accomodate you physically. This place is huge. We’ve got a fully-fitted class V star station here.

But you do realize that we have a physical staff of four – and five more-or-less helpful residents – to cover the whole of Uílel System? You’re going to have to bring your own tail, because while you’re welcome to our spare logistic capacity, we don’t have any in the first place.

Phoebe Dracotarthius

P.S. Any of your chaps in need of a warhorse?

Captain, I’ve occupied the Imperial enclave as you instructed, but I can’t hold it.

So far, I’ve lost two men to poisoned food, three to coolant leaks, eight to runaway transpods, five to runaway nanotech blooms, nine to basilisk hacks, and one has vanished entirely. We’ve had to blow out all the nanofabs to stop them from manufacturing some sort of attack spiderbots, everyone’s covered in bites from cyborg rats, and the whispering WON’T STOP.

And this is after we lobotomized the AI core.

Let’s just get clear and blow it. No way we can sterilize this.

– records of the occupation force on Ódeln (Vanguard Reaches)

Trope-a-Day: Space Pirates

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4

Space Pirates: Type I is occasionally possible, thanks to the constraints of economically favorable trajectories, refueling stations (around gas giants), and the stargates themselves making it at least possible to lie around in somewhat-disguised- bearing in mind the constraints covered under Stealth in Space – ambush for merchant shipping to show up.  That, and raiding isolated colonies (which is actually substantially easier).

In their more stupid and brutal (“Yarr!  Kill – or enslave – everyone gratuitously unpleasantly, then takes their stuff!”) forms, seen occasionally out in the lawless backwaters of the stargate plexus – but even then, only occasionally, because everyone hates these guys, and even if they don’t run into anyone’s regular navy, mercenaries, bounty hunters, and heavily armed “free traders” – and a lot of star nations out there have, shall we say, a relaxed attitude to what a merchie bearing their flag can bolt onto his ship by way of insurance – have no particular problem making an extra exval or two by reducing them to inventory.  Especially since their business model is rarely profitable enough to let them buy decent ships until after they’ve given people plenty of chances to whack ’em, unless they start out as renegade naval units or some such.

Played somewhat straighter by people with more complex business models involving tangle-enabled insider trading, commerce raiders, privateers, and mercenaries hired to be commerce-raiding privateers, mostly because either due to better business models or access to thinly-disguised naval auxiliaries, they can afford decent ships, or have someone backing them up who can.  Generally also less stupid and brutal, since they want to live to spend their earnings and/or have a patron who will clean them up himself, lest he be held responsible by someone who finds their casus belli just the thing he was looking for.