If I were a band of Pirates in the Tuffleyverse, where would I spend my
downtime? Some out of the way planetoid hideout? I Pirate "base" or safe haven
port that no one messes with even if they kinda know where it is? A "mobile
base" (stolen ship dock or with welded on engines, or
converted bulk frieghter/repair facility)?
Does anyone know why Spain never took out Port Royal, or other such buccaneer
centers?
> On Fri, Oct 24, 2003 at 04:13:21PM -0400, Noam Izenberg wrote:
> downtime? Some out of the way planetoid hideout? I Pirate "base" or
I'd go for planetoid or artificial substitute, with generous liberty
parties (to places that don't mind "freelance merchants" - after all,
you have to sell the loot somewhere, so their existence is something of a
prerequisite for piracy). Keep the ships out of sight...
> Does anyone know why Spain never took out Port Royal, or other such
You can mount a lot more guns and armour on something that doesn't have to
float.
R
> RBW wrote:I'd go for planetoid or artificial substitute, with generous
Caribbean piracy was possible, AFAIK, because Spain wanted a monopoly on
the merchant traffic to her colonies--buying raw resources at a low
price and selling manufactured good at an artificially high price. A buccaneer
(usually French or English) would snap up a Spanish ship and, mostly, sell the
goods to the Spanish colonists.
So you'd want to pick a route with colonies nearby. You might even get tacit
cooperation from colonial officials, eg they might warn you if they
know there's a cruiser division arriving -- in return, you sell your
loot to the official's company at 50% of the monopoly price, they mark it to
80% of the monopoly price, everyone's happy except the insurance companies.
> Does anyone know why Spain never took out Port Royal, or other such
> You can mount a lot more guns and armour on something that doesn't have
True but that doesn't explain why Spain never dropped a battalion or two off
to deal with the problem.
True but that doesn't explain why Spain never dropped a battalion or two off
to deal with the problem.
I'd say fear of yet another Armada debacle had something to do with their
caution.
Too much empire, too little resources (troops and ships.)
> On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 17:08:59 -0700 "Don M" <dmaddox1@hot.rr.com> writes:
> If I were a band of Pirates in the Tuffleyverse, where would I spend my
Books by CJ Cherryh might be worth reading. In the Chanur series there is a
spacestation, Meetpoint, which is neutral territory between various alien
species. Most of the trade is on a "no questions" basis as to where the goods
came from, since there
are no extradition/banking/etc treaties. In the FT
universe you could have somewhere similar on the
borders between hostile human states and/or aliens.
Rimrunners and Tripoint in the Alliance/Union
series deal with the remnants of a military fleet
that have turned pirate/buccaneer. (The first is
about the hunters, the second about the pirates.) In the books there are old
space stations built before faster than light travel, now disused since the
star systems in question don't have any useful planets and everybody now jumps
past them to more interesting places. One of these places isn't even a star
system, just three big bodies with enough gravity to distort hyperspace. In
the FT universe, the first FTL pioneers presumably wouldn't have jumped very
far at a time so might have built similar stations until they'd explored
further out.
> Does anyone know why Spain never took out Port Royal, or other such
I think there were political factors as well. The British, (and maybe the
French too?) had some kind of claim on the area containing Port Royal. Since
the buccaneers were mostly giving the Spanish grief, they didn't care about
cleaning it up themselves. But if the Spanish had tried to move in and take
over such a good port, the British would quite likely have intervened. As
already noted, the Spanish were a bit overstretched already elsewhere.
(Corrections welcome, this is based on hazy recollection rather than recent
study.)
Shouldn't be too hard to find a similar place in the FT universe.
Didn't we have this conversation once (about fixed defenses in orbit so
slightly different) and conclude that you bring in Salvo missile armed ships
and waste the facility?
Now, pirates (with hostages) might require more finesse (or troops) to reduce.
Hx, SF, and Fx: 6 mm figures, Starships and 1:6K "Wet Navy" warships are my
main interest.
Gracias, Glenn
On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 21:27:20 +0100 Roger Burton West
> <roger@firedrake.org> writes:
> True but that doesn't explain why Spain never dropped a battalion or
Also, it depends which era of piracy you're talking about, but all the
European powers in the area used pirates as an extension of their foreign
policy when it was convenient at one time or another. Hand out a letter of
marque and a pirate is now a privateer and on your side. Well, he's
theoretically on your side.
How about - maybe the Spanish left them alone because it was less
expensive than doing something about it...? To be really effective, they would
have to send a large fleet to stop the pirates scattering and sailing off over
the horizon in all directions. And they'd have to do it secretly, and not put
themselves in a position to be taken advantage of by the other European
powers.
Putting this back into an FT context, one might suggest an arrangement whereby
a pirate hunted ONLY ships of X and Y nations, and hid in an area nominally
controlled by Z who turns a blind eye to them because it is, at the moment,
convenient. The pirates would have to watch out, because expediency rules and
if it became a big issue, Z would step on them, but for the time being the
unofficial arrangement satisfies both parties. Z gets to give X and Y a hard
time, without actually doing anything overt. And the pirates get to do what
they do and have a safe place to go back to.
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