Pirate
Pirates are a notion with a great deal of historical-cultural cachet even in the current age of Starweb space, however they are comparatively few in number and do not operate with anywhere near as much glamour as popular media portrays.
Long considered enemies of all people (an ignominious designation also shared by slavers), pirates have long been present in human history. The pre- and early-industrial age saw a golden period of ocean-based piracy, ships of the time used sails for propulsion and a pirate vessel could in some cases stand toe-to-toe with one from a state-sponsored navy. Privateers were also common. Widespread ocean piracy ended as industrialization advanced, one contributor of this may have been the support structures required for new technologies—there were few if any pirate steamships, since such vessels were dependent on industrialized economies for fuel and supplies.
Similarly, there have been few pirate spaceships. The cinematic notion of space buccaneers lying in wait in the dark void for a hapless target to wander along is just that—cinema. Unless they are already on virtually parallel trajectories, two ships traveling through deep space can only meet up at great expense of time and delta-vee. (Getting a close enough intersection to fire weapons is much easier, but useless to pirates as any cargo not destroyed would still remain on a similar trajectory as its carrying ship.) Piracy in the orbital spaces of celestial bodies like planets and moons is much easier since the delta-vees required for rendezvous are much lower and the body being orbited can offer some degree of concealment to pirates. But easier still is simply stealing the cargo from a warehouse before or after it goes on a freighter.
Thus, pirates in the usual sense are extremely rare, even in chaotic regions and even during the turmoil of the Age of Strife and Interstellar Dark Ages—spaceships require complex civilizations to support them, and if said civilizations break down they will usually stop working in very short order. Privateers, on the other hand, were used by feuding powers in the Second Interstellar Period, and there have indeed been cases of privateers with military-grade warships turning pirate, though this has never been anything close to a regular threat to civilian shipping in all but the worst places during the worst periods of spacefaring history. In short, there are simply easier ways for criminals to make money than space piracy.
Long considered enemies of all people (an ignominious designation also shared by slavers), pirates have long been present in human history. The pre- and early-industrial age saw a golden period of ocean-based piracy, ships of the time used sails for propulsion and a pirate vessel could in some cases stand toe-to-toe with one from a state-sponsored navy. Privateers were also common. Widespread ocean piracy ended as industrialization advanced, one contributor of this may have been the support structures required for new technologies—there were few if any pirate steamships, since such vessels were dependent on industrialized economies for fuel and supplies.
Similarly, there have been few pirate spaceships. The cinematic notion of space buccaneers lying in wait in the dark void for a hapless target to wander along is just that—cinema. Unless they are already on virtually parallel trajectories, two ships traveling through deep space can only meet up at great expense of time and delta-vee. (Getting a close enough intersection to fire weapons is much easier, but useless to pirates as any cargo not destroyed would still remain on a similar trajectory as its carrying ship.) Piracy in the orbital spaces of celestial bodies like planets and moons is much easier since the delta-vees required for rendezvous are much lower and the body being orbited can offer some degree of concealment to pirates. But easier still is simply stealing the cargo from a warehouse before or after it goes on a freighter.
Thus, pirates in the usual sense are extremely rare, even in chaotic regions and even during the turmoil of the Age of Strife and Interstellar Dark Ages—spaceships require complex civilizations to support them, and if said civilizations break down they will usually stop working in very short order. Privateers, on the other hand, were used by feuding powers in the Second Interstellar Period, and there have indeed been cases of privateers with military-grade warships turning pirate, though this has never been anything close to a regular threat to civilian shipping in all but the worst places during the worst periods of spacefaring history. In short, there are simply easier ways for criminals to make money than space piracy.
Type
Illicit
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