Charlie Stross once posited that the most likely kind of space pirate in a universe at least vaguely resembling the "real world" would be insider trading pirates.

Basically, the idea is that actually stealing cargo and then moving it would be such a preposterously high risk endeavor (you don't just show up with billions of tons of water or rare earths in a star system in a gigantic freighter whose registry you cannot adequately account for and expect to find buyers) that instead the action of boarding would be, not to seize the ship, but to audit the cargo.

You go through the entire ships manifest. You physically inspect the holds. You physically inspect the ship to ensure that you've found all the holds. If you're extremely lucky, you've found a smuggler, someone who is shipping cargo in contravention of the laws of the destination.

Then you pile back into your own ship (which really couldn't hold any appreciable amount of stolen cargo anyway, being a military-style vessel)... and send all that information on to confederates in the destination system.

Who make the appropriate stock market or investment moves based on their now-advance knowledge of what is being shipped into their system.

>and if you're thinking, "Hang on, recruited by pirates sounds pretty badass,"
>keep in mind that it's generally not the kind of recruitment where you get
>paid).

I find this admonition supremely ironic given the supposed provenance of the entry, as Bartholomew Roberts began his career by, in fact, being "recruited" by pirates.

Six weeks later? Captain.

> Each Imperial pirate captain holds a special
>commission from the Salusian monarchy known as a letter of marque
>and reprisal, which authorizes them to own and operate privately
>registered warships against the enemies of the Crown.

I have to imagine the "reprisal" part is either a mistranslation from the Salusian by overly romantic human speakers of Standard, or that it doesn't get used very much; I can't imagine that many nations that enter into diplomatic relations with Salusia don't demand that Salusia not allow any idiot to whose ancestor they issued a letter of marque to cross international borders and take reprisals with the full legal backing of the Crown. That's the sort of thing that starts wars.

> Regardless, as you might
>imagine, there are a more than a few other bodies in the galaxy that
>are not entirely comfortable with this state of affairs; but as it has
>been a matter of settled Imperial law since the Standard Year 1074,
>there is little recourse for anyone who isn't prepared to attempt the
>wholesale overthrow of the Salusian legal system.

Well, you could embark on a campaign of murder or ship-sabotage. That would also work!

Also too: I'm pretty sure there's an extra word in there somewhere. "there are a more than". Sadly, H2G2 has never been known for rigorous editing.

>This Guide entry was written by Captain Bartholomew "Black
>Bart" Roberts (1682-1722), the scourge of Martinique.

Interestingly, I just last month finished my full-completion playthrough of Black Flag, which prominently features a functionally-immortal Captain Roberts.

(The gross, evil kind of immortality where you hop from body to body, though. Not the fun kind. Well, not fun for other people.)

I would like at this point to recommend A General History of the Pyrates (yes, that was how he spelled it, it was 1724, cut the man some slack) by Captain Charles Johnson, generally but not conclusively thought to be an alias of Daniel Defoe. You may want an annotated edition if you find the language of the period to be hard going, but if you understand Shakespeare you'll probably be fine.

This book (whole swathes of which are entirely fictional, it is to be noted) is the seed from which nearly every romantic story and notion about the life of gentlemen of fortune at sea grew. Any book or movie you've ever seen or read in which an overly dressed fellow posed Captain Morgan style on a rocky point with a black-flagged ship resting at anchor behind him owes its genesis to this three-centuries-old work that was quite possibly written solely as an attempt to make money in order to satisfy some rather dogged creditors.

-Merc
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