003 [voice]

[justguidelines]

[You all remember Hector, of course. The ass who's torn apart most of the folks who've asked stupid questions? And has been highly offended at the assumptions about the way he speaks? Well, he's just come upon a thought that struck him out of the blue, and really, in his opinion you just might want to pay attention.

But hoo boy, does he sound full of schadenfreude. Because he is.]

Just as an aside, as that execution do bring some things to mind. At least for meself, as I'm a bit more versed in the laws and rules of the sea...

You do realize, o'course, with your sailing and bartering without proper papers - letters o' marque or otherwise granting you permission to do such from a nation - you are all, in fact, committing acts of piracy, aye?

No papers, no authority to conduct yourself as a legitimate crew. No authority, of course, to organize yourself in a militaristic force. You aren't privateers. You aren't merchants, and you aren't treasure hunters.

You're pirates. Piss poor excuses for pirates, I'll grant ye that, but not a single soul brought to this place has authority to do anything. You're conducting in black market trade, operating a craft that is not, in fact, registered in any home port, and not a single one among ye has a place ye make berth.

This, of course, does include our little ship full o'sparkle and light in the name of justice et cetera, et cetera.

Pirates, the lot of you. Every last one of you be staring at Jack Ketch, waiting to be the next to dance the jig. No matter your noble intentions.

Comments

voice

[sparkplasma]

What?! That isn't fair!

voice

[justguidelines]

Life often fails to be fair. Get used to it.

[sparkplasma]

But - how can they just make a snap judgment like that? None of us asked to be here, surely the authorities would understand that!

[justguidelines]

Aye, and you can be telling them that at your execution.

[sparkplasma]

[Dude the sarcasm is not helping matters here :( ]

Do we at least know which waters they control? Or who "they" are?

[justguidelines]

I'd imagine all of them.

[sparkplasma]

... With all due respect, sir, [which is steadily declining the longer they talk], that's just conjecture. [a sudden thought-] And besides, you aren't from this world, either, right? Maybe that's how piracy is defined where you're from, but for all we know it could be totally different here!

[justguidelines]

Did you happen to miss that execution, then. Sounds quite a bit like martial law to me.

[sparkplasma]

[a pause.] I didn't miss it, I just - we don't know all the facts. They may have been innocent, they may have been guilty. Until we know more, we can't jump to conclusions about how this world works, and we certainly shouldn't spread those conclusions as fact.