Pirates have always been characterized by anarchy. They don’t accept any laws or kings. After all they make a living from ignoring the law. At times there were attempts to force other laws on them, but these either failed or worked only for a short period. More pirate lords ended their lives naked in space than law-abiding citizens had rulers. Pirates have never been united successfully.
Any major collaboration or cooperation worked only if it was driven not by external laws but internal motivations. Such an example is laziness resulting in the passivity of pirates. This was not caused by peace treaties, pirates are simply too lazy to loot actively. Their latest well-known joint action was fleeing from the s4 galaxy group, which was the result of another vice of pirates, namely cowardice.
The description above reflects the position of official piratology. Therefore, as typical in academic history writing, it can be regarded only mildly reliable. And right here is the tricky part…
Interestingly pirates are much more aware of their own history than average people. This may be due to the absence of any centralized government, which could have forged history for its own interest. History is written by the victors, and although in the long run it is always changing who’s the winner, there are eternal losers who never get their fair share of history, so some parts of the human history stay distorted forever.
But among pirates there are no real winners or losers, so their history writing is more reliable. The problem is it is hardly accessible. Inaccessible to be more precise. Or it has been until now.
Tinburg Jensen, who defines himself as a professional adventurer, just released a lot of information on pirate history in a blog post. He spent years in the company of pirates, for which he could expect long years in prison if the authorities could find him. He translated old shiplogs, collected pirate songs. After this publication probably the pirates would not spare him as well, so Jensen is now not only an outlaw, but an outoutlaw.
Piracy, like almost every other human activity began on the ancestor planet. In those days it was done the traditional way on water, only later did they switch to outer space. As looting was always uncertain, pirates made a living from fishing. Yes, fishing, the existence of which is denied by official history writing. But the pirates of course remember the fish. Which raises the suspicion that the mass amnesia on this topic came not by chance but in the interest of someone.
Many theories circulate about this among pirates. Each of these assumes that the most sensitive topic is the sudden extinction of the fish. If someone is responsible for that, he might have caused the oblivion. Since the direct consequence was the Third Food Crisis, the motivation should be sought in its effects.
Spaceship factories and the construction industry benefited the most from the acceleration of colonization. Previously they lobbied for tax relieves on extraterrestrial areas and ran major campaigns to convince people about the advantages of emigration, but all in vain, they couldn’t achieve any boom until famine broke out.
There were obvious political interests as well. The drastic change in the population has overwritten the previous balance of power, which now clearly favored the colonies. And not only the leaders of the latter. The demographic-political balance that had set centuries ago on the ancestor planet led to a narrow elite, with no place for the up-and-coming youth. After the crisis there has been a complete generation change in the political elite in the next decade.
One very bold theory even suggests religious causes in the background. Dysonism flourished in those days, by conservative estimation 10% of the population believed that the human race emerged to spread life and civilisation in a totally uninhabited universe. The ratio was about 50% among scientists and engineers. The cardinals of the Church of Dyson were almost exclusively leading scientists, which is not surprising, as academic secularism had been gone a thousand years before that.
Like conspiracy theories general, all of the above seem plausible, although there’s no real evidence. So you can choose according to your own liking…
But let’s get back to facts and the not so distant past. When alien fleets appeared again in 6383, the pirates had already been preparing for some time. Only fifty years earlier came the first news on the hyperwave about the new galaxy, and this upset them for obvious reasons. Although there is no clear evidence, there is good reason to believe that the Bering Fish Alliance was originally a pirate alliance. The hope that such an ancient legend might come to life, mobilized the pirates. This was the real reason for their retreat, not cowardice.
But the basically anarchist nature of pirates was not suitable for such a long journey. So around 6500 far from every living planet in the outest outer space, civil war broke out among the pirates. The conflict ended thirty-five years later, when ten pirate lords contracted peace, defeated the remaining rebels and created the Brotherhood of Pirates.
Since then they arrived at the new galaxy, declared war on every alliance, and although they claim to be interested only in looting, with such a background, it is not so plausible…