piracy

Nemo Me Impune Lacessit

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PREVIOUSLY

“Ledger Embiggening, this is the captain of the armed vessel currently on intercept with you. As you have noticed, we have our weapons locked on you. Your options are these: cut your engines immediately, heave to, and permit us to board and claim whatever passengers and items of cargo we wish… or don’t, and we’ll slag your drive, then take your ship by force and have them anyway. You have until I get tired of waiting to decide. Over.”

“Unknown armed vessel, this is Ledger Embiggening. All our off-site backups are up-to-date and we have enabled our proximity-triggered spite charge, as required by the terms of our charter insurance carrier. I am legally required to advise you not to approach within 10,000 miles of this vessel under any circumstances. Your move. Ledger Embiggening, clear.”

PRESENT DAY

“And that’s how I lost this leg,” the former pirate slurred. “Also one kidney, three-quarters of my liver, both spleens, fifteen feet of assorted intestine, and a not inconsiderable portion of brain tissue.”

Trope-a-Day: Space Pirates

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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.

Headlines: A Day in the Worlds

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The Imperial Infoclast
Supplementing Your Memeplex Since 2042

EMPIRE

Sidar Colony Celebrates Ecopoesis Bicentennial
The Sidar Colony in the Principalities will celebrate the 288th anniversary of the initiation of its ecopoesis program next month, with a series of low-lying valleys being opened to habitation for the first time by unmodified colonists.

Eleven Temporarily Killed In Solar Sailing Accident
This year’s Meridia Cup ends in tragedy as an unpredicted coronal mass ejection wrecks five of the competing solar sailers.

WORLDS

Presidium Condemns Trikhad Conquest
The Presidium of the Conclave has unanimously condemned the military expansion program of the Trikhad Conquest in the Tanion Wilds. Sources close to the Presidium suggest that containment action may be in preparation.

Piracy Again Rising In Dark Sea Constellation
Unusual shipping movements around the ruins of Litash may indicate a rebirth of the pirate syndicates that once controlled the area, INI warns.

Republic Delegation Protests Uncontrolled Exports, Smuggling
In a now annual tradition, a delegation from the Voniensa Republic protested the uncontrolled filtration of technologies and other artifacts across their border with the Associated Worlds. The protest was heard by the Conclave, who expressed sympathy but regretted once again that the situation was beyond their power to address.

BUSINESS

A Probable Discovery, or A Probable Bubble?
Shares in Probable Technology, ICC (ticker: PROBL) jumped 21 points on the Seranth Exchange today based on unconfirmed rumors that their relativistic xenoarchaeological expedition beyond the rimward Periphery has reported a major find. While the company itself has refused to comment on the rumors, many usually knowledgeable investors seem unusually bullish on this stock today.

ENTERTAINMENT

Anticipation Rises As Aelaviel Fashion Show Opens
Expectations are high on Seranth this week as the 187th Aelaviel Fashion Show opens in Mer Dinévál, especially since last week’s leaked news that several major fashion houses have contracted vector control engineers and swarm roboticists. Join the Infoclast’s memeweaves for real-time, on-the-spot, full-sensory reporting!

“Ah, Yes, The People”, Triumphs, Flops
As expected by most critics, the palace farce which mercilessly satirizes galactic politicians from core to rim, while a runaway success in the Accord’s most notoriously libertist polities, freesoil worlds and independent drifts, proved unpopular elsewhere.  Nevertheless, after pulling in 3.9 billion exvals in its opening week, the producers are laughing all the way to the bank.

TECHNOLOGY

Cognitech, ICC Announces Breakthrough In Bulk Mnemonesis
New advances in axiom feeds and neural imprinting may double the speed of synthetic learning.

OPINION

Point: It’s Time To Crush The Militarists
“The recent expansionism by the Trikhad Conquest only goes to reinforce that we, as the responsible members of galactic civilization, simply can’t afford to let these dangerous idiots and the rest of the Interstellar League of Tribal Chiefdoms run around loose.”  Cail Amanyr-ith-Velcyr, doyen of the belligerati, makes the case for preemptive action to prevent the wars that always seem to accompany the introduction of certain types of society to the galactic neighborhood.