Pirate Storyline

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2. Current Events
3. Real pirates were apparently living the plot of a pirate movie.

AlisLandale 8 hours ago#1 Reading a book on historical pirates. Even taking into account that any documents recording these events would probably be biased or inaccurate, this stuff is basically an HBO drama that actually happened. Let's start with Henry Avery. He joined the Royal Navy but got treated like s***, as did most every other member of the Royal Navy at the time. He found a better-paying job in the form of a bunch of wealthy merchants who were assembling a fleet. The plan was "Go to the Caribbean, trade with the Spanish and BTFO the French." Things ended poorly when the actual plan turned out to be "Sell a fleet of ships manned by a bunch of suckers to the Spanish, lol" Avery wouldn't have none of that s***, though, and organized a mutiny. They suffered a minor setback when one of the crewmates told a guard they were organizing a mutiny, after that guard failed to understand the codeword that was supposed to prevent this very thing from happening. But still managed to commandeer the ship, escape the Caribbean, and basically invented the Democratic Pirate culture that's famous today.  While Avery was a hero to the English commoners and famous for how diplomatic and reasonable he was, he was actually a racist ass. One of his marks was a treasure fleet en route to Madagascar. He and his crew killed the men and raped/abused the women so horribly that many straight up killed themselves to spare themselves the torment. Made a metric dick-ton of money, though. After bouncing from port to port, bribing and trading his way out of range of any authority, Avery basically disappeared. Legend had it that he sailed back to Madagascar where he became the King of a Pirate Kingdom but the most accurate account we have today is that he tried to unload his s*** and retire, only to get swindled and die a beggar in his own hometown. And that was just the first chapter. If anyone is interested, the book is called "The Republic of Pirates", or, if you don't feel like reading a book, I'll be continuing to give the highlights in this topic. Yar har flibbity gee, mateys. Life is demanding, without understanding http://i.imgtc.com/YQId2Bz.png (edited 8 hours ago)reportquote

AlisLandale (Topic Creator)6 hours ago#2 So apparently 18th Century England was a s***ty place. Literally. People were throwing crap out of their windows into crap-crusted streets where it was washed by the rain into the Thames River of Crap. Capitalist Pigs were buying farms out from under peasants, and in the city, babies that didn't die within one year of birth were often dropped at the church with such regularity that the church leased children out as slaves where they could die in their youth of lung cancer as a chimney sweep. Sailors were basically subhuman, and were either cheated into unfair contracts by merchant vessels or physically beaten into submission by the Royal Navy. In order to keep sailors dependent on their ships, captains would regularly withhold sailor's earnings or just refuse to pay outright. On the ship, sailors were routinely abused by their captains, lived in conditions comparable to prisons, and suffered comparable mortality rates to the slaves they would sometimes carry as cargo. Important people that were growing up during this time were Charles Vane, Sam Bellamy, and Edward Teach. Also important was a Captain Rogers, who had been a part of the fleet that Avery mutinied. Captain Rogers was an exceedingly progressive man compared to his contemporaries and a humanitarian, possibly inspired from his experience as part of the same fleet (but different ship) that Avery had mutinied. Though he was an honest merchant, he never scuffled with pirates much, and in one instance even signed on a former member of Avery's crew to one of his merchant ships. Woodes Rogers, his son, was set to inherit the business at his death. Tbh, given the quality of living in the 18th century, I'm not surprised so many people nope'd out and resorted to piracy. Life is demanding, without understanding http://i.imgtc.com/YQId2Bz.png