My first point… Reptaria says that “Some of you call yourselves pirates but your [sic] not acting no where [sic] close to a real pirate or even pirate crew”… This, to me, raises the question of how pirate crews actually acted. Well, many pirate crews actually consisted of many naval sailors or traders. Conditions for traders and naval sailors were often so poor and underpaid (so bad, in fact, that sailors were often shackled to their ships so that they couldn’t run away) that when pirates offered them an alternative to their would-be death, many of them did not hesitate to join up with pirate crews… So… Pirates acted just like any other sailors. In terms of loot, I think this is another interesting point worth raising, a pirate’s primary goal was not to steal all the riches he possibly could, but to survive! This means that a pirate’s loot often consisted of food supplies, rope, wood, navigational tools, and the real treasure, medical supplies. And buried treasure? Again, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that has happened three recorded times. And each time, the treasure was found by those it was stolen from…
Moving swiftly on, Reptaria mentions settlements, kingdoms, realms, and empires… I think it’s worth defining each of these, and comparing them! So, a settlement is defined as “a place, typically one which has been previously uninhabited, where people establish a community”. So… Typically a very small number of people on a very small amount of land, most probably not particularly civilised in terms of living conditions… Okay… Kingdom? A kingdom is “a country, state, or territory ruled by a king or queen”. Got that? Awesome! Moving on! Realm! This is one I find particularly entertaining… A realm is simply defined as “a kingdom”. So… Yeah… Make of that what you will? Finally, Reptaria mentions an empire! This is defined as “an extensive group of states or counties ruled over by a single monarch, an oligarchy, or a sovereign state”. So essentially a kingdom that controls multiple countries.
The final point that I would like to counter here pertains to CaptainCrackerz’s and Crazypirate’s referring to the “fact” that pirates don’t follow guidelines. As a matter of fact, almost all historical pirate crews had a pirate code, which new members of the crew would need to sign to join the crew. The code covered such issues such as:
- The division of stolen goods
- Disciplinary rules and procedures
- Compensation for injured pirates
Some more famous examples of pirate codes include Captain John Phillips’s articles, the articles of Edward Low and George Lowther and the articles of John Gow.
So… Do I have proposals for fixing such things? Well. In short, no, I don’t… Yet. But I feel like it’s more than just the status of nation and pirate crews that needs fixing. A simple observation suggests that crews which identify as neither pirate nor nation crews are becoming more and more common on this server. Do these not need to be addressed, too?
In terms of nation crews, numbers are not a satisfactory way of measuring simply by themselves. I am sure that you all have heard of the Vatican City. This is a nation with the world’s lowest population… 451. But the history of the country is rich and vast. Does this means in constitutes an empire? Absolutely not! An empire should be in charge of multiple other crews and/or countries. As such, I don’t think it is appropriate for any crew on the server in its current state to call itself an empire. You will often hear the BE and the EE boasting about their number of cities and how that definitely helps constitute them becoming an empire. No, it does not. At best, it makes them a country, at worst, a state. I will do some more thinking over the coming days/weeks and see if I can come up with more research and guidelines as to how to differentiate between crews.
TL;DR – Do some research before making posts like this, please! Also, if you’re going to complain about something, come up with an alternative solution that you feel to be better! I hate people who complain without suggesting alternatives…
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