Space Pirates

Space pirates are rogue cultures who seek to steal resources for personal gain. Primarily operating in the civil periphery where desperate spacefarers are numerous and security is weak, pirates extort goods and hijack information in order to bolster themselves or to exchange with a third party. Without much capability for stealth in space, piracy rarely if ever involves direct contact.

On the civil periphery societies are often small and isolated, working hard to establish a solid foothold in a new location. These colonization efforts often involve large “static” infrastructure, such as buildings across a planet or expansive space-based energy production stations in a regular orbit without the ability to relocate. Space pirates on the other hand may operate entirely from mobile ships, with powerful offensive weapons that a fledgling colony simply cannot defend against. This imbalance affords pirates an advantage, where they threaten a colony’s infrastructure with destruction, demanding a tribute of resources like energy or materials be launched to a particular location in exchange for leaving the colonists alone.

Information pirates are those who attempt to hack or otherwise steal information, which can itself be an extremely valuable commodity. Prospecting data, atmospheric research, spacecraft design blueprints, subspace transmitter ciphers, human biotechnology trial data for new environments; there is a wealth of highly valuable data exchanged across space that was acquired by its originators at great cost. Information pirates can obtain this data in a variety of ways, from tapping transmissions to scavenging derelict vessels to, again, extortion. There are always potential buyers willing to pay or trade for valuable information without concern for its source.