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[Saede Riordan]

Something that seems to come up a lot OOCly (and ICly, but I can pass that off as propoganda) that the pirate nations aren't real nations. They're just gangs of thugs oppressing their populations. I'm rather surprised by this considering we're talking about groups with shipbuilding abilities that rival the highsec empires, domains that extend, in some cases even more extensively then the Big4, and likely have populations in excess of a few trillion people. I just don't see how the treatment they get can be justified. People claim the angels are just gangs of thugs oppressing the planets...but is that really a realistic outlook? Is that really something that can be justified with PF? Cause I don't think it can be.

So discussion time then, what are people's opinions on the level of organization and the organizational structure of the Outlaw Nations?

[Horatius Caul]

"Do you have a flag...?"

[Ken]

"Do you have a flag...?"

[Louella Dougans]

Something that seems to come up a lot OOCly (and ICly, but I can pass that off as propoganda) that the pirate nations aren't real nations. They're just gangs of thugs oppressing their populations. I'm rather surprised by this considering we're talking about groups with shipbuilding abilities that rival the highsec empires, domains that extend, in some cases even more extensively then the Big4, and likely have populations in excess of a few trillion people. I just don't see how the treatment they get can be justified. People claim the angels are just gangs of thugs oppressing the planets...but is that really a realistic outlook? Is that really something that can be justified with PF? Cause I don't think it can be.

So discussion time then, what are people's opinions on the level of organization and the organizational structure of the Outlaw Nations?

Shipbuilding is trivial. You just need spaceminerals and machinery.

having ships in space across X amount of systems means very little.

Populations are not that big. I understand the Caldari State is something like 2 trillion.

The PF stories have pirate factions as mostly disorganised groups.

They aren't nations on the scale of the empires. Most of the reasons why have been explained in the "outlaw lifestyles" thread.

[Casiella]

Reading The Burning Life, they certainly do appear as nations. Some more than others, perhaps: the Angel Cartel certainly gave me that impression, and the Guristas have some really advanced stuff including terraforming entire planets.

One could quibble about whether Sansha's Nation qualifies, though I think perhaps it does, and the Blood Raiders comprise an arm of the Sani Sabik that appear to be a nation as well.

[Seriphyn]

Again, Terminus Systems!

I think they can only be very loosely defined as such. They don't really have a government beyond an oligarchy saying "This is our space", they basically own planets by virtue of a protection racket (tribute), their economies are going to be basket cases, and their populations will not rival the Big Four.

I mean, the Big Four are the Big Four for a reason. We know that Utopia III is heavily populated though (the only Curse planet with city lights), but compare it to the Amarr Empire which spans 40% of all solar systems, with many worlds and stations. The Big Four have working governments, economies, corporations, institutions, infrastructure and so on.

The way I see it, the style of the pirate cartels is not to be the same as the Big Four, but to literally be a frontier region, of rough-and-tumble settlements, Wild West space stations, organized anarchy held together by the iron grip of a cartel.

The exception to this is probably the Serpentis, which is a corporation, so has lots of wealth and infrastructure backing it.

[Esna Pitoojee]

I think it'd be valuable to define the term "nation" here. The modern concept of a Nation (centralized government, national directives, support of overarching, homogenous* organizations designed to keep the system running smoothly, deliberate collective support of any other part of the nation should it fall under some disaster) doesn't seem to fit many of the pirate factions.

Some of them, at least, seem to me to be far closer to feudal "patchwork-princedom" nations - i.e., there's a local heirarchy of people culminating in some kind of bigwig, who in turn pays tribute to and may follow vague orders from a higher agency which provides some form of limited support, often in the form of reinforcements in the event someone forsees large-scale hostilities. Immediate hostilities are far less often noticed the most one could expect to see is a handful of local reinforcements, but nothing on the scale of a response from on of the "Big 4".

The one massive exception to this rule is, of course, Sansha's Nation. While the inner workings of the True Slave network aren't known to us, it's long been an assumption (reinforced by the pre-Incursion Live Events) that most, if not all, of the Nation exists within a single cohesive hivemind; in this case, it would less be a case of not knowing or caring about some distant action, but calculating that intervention simply isn't worth it.

Whether you still call this a "nation" is largely a question of personal preference, but it should be pointed out that there are instances where actions by one branch of a pirate organization ended up being unsupported and ultimately crushed by those they attacked (see the second of the two instances when the Cartel attempted to sieze a Minmatar system - they were utterly wiped in part because this was a local, not a national initiative, and as such the Cartel at large didn't sent gazillions of battleships to back them up.




*Homogenous, i.e., they operate under the same laws and rules regardless of what particular physical bit of the nation they're operating in.

[Casiella]

Seri, if the Serpentis are an example of a large corporation, why not the Cartel?

As previously mentioned, The Burning Life provides a lot of background here. Is there anyone in the thread who hasn't read it?

[Seriphyn]

Seri, if the Serpentis are an example of a large corporation, why not the Cartel?

Oh, sorry, didn't elaborate. I meant how Serpentis in its home constellation will likely be highly developed with full infrastructure and direct control, versus frontier settlements under a tribute system. They directly have authority over a concentrated area, whereas since the Cartel is other an entire region, the protection racket way of doing things is used.

[Saede Riordan]

Seri, if the Serpentis are an example of a large corporation, why not the Cartel?

As previously mentioned, The Burning Life provides a lot of background here. Is there anyone in the thread who hasn't read it?

I haven't, it costs monies that I lack.

[Casiella]

I would suggest that most of this is covered to varying degrees in that book.

[Saede Riordan]

I would suggest that most of this is covered to varying degrees in that book.

>_< I can't afford the books.

[Louella Dougans]

the blood raiders certainly oppress native populations:

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Half Cocked Jack]

I would suggest that most of this is covered to varying degrees in that book.

>_< I can't afford the books.

This is coming late, I know, but don't underestimate the power of the dark si...er...inter-library loan system. We wants to loan you free books. Use us! 

[Matariki Rain]

the blood raiders certainly oppress native populations:

Do you read this as being written before the canonisation of Evanda Char's version of the Vitoc method involving Vitoxin and Vitoc?