Rule clarification

[Jinx]

yes - but i was more or less thinking of caribean pirates for that matter. most of those outlaws had a strong code of law - but still they wouldn t be considered to be following any law at all, cause freedom was one of the very important points of a pirate. ( in reality - they might have followed even stricter rules than a lawful citizen )

from a roleplaying point of view - it makes no sense anyway not to use a battleship for pirating a trader. it just makes no sense to go out with a battleship to pirate - but if a battleship on a journey to its destination happens to meet a juicy and fat trader - there is no reason the battleship wouldn t take the traders goods.

now - if a battleship happens to be in the orbit of a planet, its homeplanet and a trader approaches with goods that could damage the planet - it makes perfect sense for a pirate BB to take that trader down - no doubt about that.

what i tried is to squeeze the roleplay into the rules we have. so i try to consider the rules based on official house laws. while pirate factions don t have "real" laws. of course that is not true, but it helps. the point of view is - that a pirate is allways the aggressor, no matter what he does - he is sort of born with that stigma. while a house law enforcer is born as a defender. if both act accordingly to their laws, the pirate is allways attacking, even if he is in fact defending. ( its unfair from a roleplaying point of view - but explains the rules about the unfairness of lawfuls being allowed to use large capital ships - while its not allowed for pirates. )

with that in mind - a trader approaching crete with a hold full of passengers - or worse, cardamine... is allways defending, while the pirate is allways attacking, - since attacking with a capital ship is not allowed, he cannot shoot the trader.
it also means taht a smuggler approaching a lawful planet is allways attacking ( provided he has contrabant, if he has not, he is not a smuggler, but a trader ) so the defender can launch big ships.

when you try to look upon it from a neutral point of view - then a pirates territory is the same like a house territory - and so the pirate faction would enforce its laws with the same rights as the lawfuls. the only difference there is - that in a house fleet, everyone is supposed to follow every rule the same, while in a pirate faction - there "might" be a rather lax interpretation of rules - ( but thats only subjective, - a lawful would think of a pirate to be unLAWful, while a pirate will think of a lawful as ... well LAWful )

--- all that is just meant as an attempt to describe the unfairness of pirates not being allowed to stop a trader in their homelands --- i wouldn t try to defend the rule as such, cause it makes no sense.

but it makes little difference anyway - like i said, a battleship may break the rules when it shoots the trader - but the trader must not dock when the docking rights are denied either.
actually, its a bit like lawfuls - a lawful "should" not be as trigger happy as they use to be. a lawful should much rather try to escort a smuggler out of their territory instead of blowing them up. ( problem is that its not practical to do that ) but if a lawful tells a smuggler not to dock somewhere, the smuggler must not dockthere either. ( same rights for pirates and lawfuls ) - shooting down someone should be the very last option. its more profitable to make the trader keep on trading - but with good that are actually needed instead of blowing the trader up.

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