Corsairs, who are they?

[Carlos_Benitez]

Not a real house. Just a bunch of criminals with shared origins and later became an organisation.

Their technology doesn't justify them as a real house. Why? Although official houses have the resources and expertise to develop such things it doesn't mean criminal organisations can't. They just have a harder time doing so.

Besides, if Corsairs were a house with strength comparable to the five big houses they would have gone total war with them and won already. Good example is that they can't even advance into Bretonia territory.

Oh and don't give me that "WE HAZ BEST GUNZ N BADDEST SHIPZ“ crap, as I said technological advances alone cannot define the characteristics of a major house.

Erm, you are fundamentally mistaken.

As per established in-game lore, from vanilla (1.00) the Corsairs are descended from the half of the passengers of the Hispania who left the damaged ship vire escape pods to try and survive on Crete. They only later became pirates when they captured the ship of the first explorer who found Crete, and attacked shipping along routes in the Omegas, capturing more ships and gaining resources to build more.

Therefore, the Corsairs were a NATION long before they could even fly! They were not "criminals" that later became an organisation, they were a nation who grew through necessary piracy.

Crete Infocard, Freelancer Version 1.0
[color=black]The ancestors of the Corsairs that had set adrift from the crippled sleeper-ship Hispania made planetfall on Crete shortly after the other Houses arrived in the Sirius Sector.

Scratching out a living, the Corsairs managed a bleak existence for four centuries. Eventually they developed a strong self-identity, isolated from the rest of the Houses. In 450 A.S., the insular world changed. An exploratory expedition headed by Franz Schulman -- financed by Daumann and the Rheinland government -- stumbled into the system while mapping the far reaches of the Walker Nebula. The local inhabitants, sensing a historic opportunity, attacked the landing party en masse, killing all save Schulman, whom they took hostage to gain control of the mother ship Schiller in orbit above the planet.

No one is entirely sure who first nicknamed them the "Corsairs", recalling the ancient pirate clans of the Mediterranean, but the name came into popular use among the Houses sometime around 500 A.S. The Corsairs began attacking unprotected outposts and ships, plundering whatever supplies and equipment they could lay their hands on, before escaping through one of their secret jump holes. The systematic expansion of the Houses into the Omega Border Worlds further fueled the Corsair movement, dramatically increasing the quantity and variety of accessible goods.

The final chapter began in the sixth century A.S., when an enterprising, well-armed Liberty freelancer named Jim Bown made his way to Omicron Gamma. He brought various commodities to trade, but the Corsairs could offer little but Artifacts. A year later, he returned. Those trinkets were all the rage with the elite of Planet Manhattan. He saw a great business opportunity if they could set up a viable trade route to Liberty. The Corsairs were on their way. They grew rapidly in size and sophistication as they built up the Artifact trade.

---