Harpy Piracy and the Law of the Sky
For the Lanzian Harpies, piracy and small-scale raiding of otherwise neutral starships is not merely a profit-seeking enterprise or power play but also a form of spiritualism. Driven by the pre-spacefaring pirate worship of Trideste, the kraken goddess of sea, storm and strength, the modern Lanzian adventurer follows a code (or guidelines) that promotes acts of courage, but also enforce displays of violence between armed vessels as proof of that courage.
Tenets of Faith
There are 7 generally accepted tenets of the Law of the Sea -
1 - The open ocean is governed not by rules of mortals but by law of Trideste
2 - Any who bear arms in her domain must strive to be warriors
3 - To be a warrior is to claim honour against others
4 - Honour is found through glory in victory or tenacity in defeat
5 - The Test of honour is a sacred act beyond any writ of peace or war
6 - The reward of a just victory is the spoils, and the reward of worthy defeat is protection
7 - Those with honour are friends of the faithful, those without may be judged by the sea
in other words... 1 - Out of sight of dry land (or unauded visual range of planet/station), there are no laws and no rules of engagement except the below.
2 - If you or your vessel carries weapons, you are claiming to be a valid combatant.
3 - Valid combatants (including armed transports and Q-ships) can be treated as free to engage as if hostile warships, since by carrying weapons they have made the claim that they are warships and seekers of courage.
4 - How a victim/combatant is treated depends on how hard they try to fight. Win or lose, they earn the right to be treated as peers if they show bravery enough to impress the attacker or Tester.
5 - Conflict between single ships should be treated as a private, ritual matter between the crews. Other peoples might complain about "unprovoked attacks" upon "noncombatants", but once battle is joined the rest of the galaxy's concerns are irrelevant.
6 - Defeating an enemy earns the right to steal their ship and any shinies within. If the crew fought bravely, however, the enemy also earn the right to be well treated and ransomed or returned peacefully to their peoples' territories.
7 - Poor treatment of prisoners is frowned upon. Prisoners who fought bravely should be engaged with and treated respectfully, as if members of one's own crew. Cowards should be left in their lifeboats and pods - Trideste will either spare them and send rescue, or... not. A final, unwruitten rule is followed by religious traditionalists, moral idealists and enlightened pragmatists alike - 8 - Trying to Test anyone who isnt claiming to be a warrior is an honourless act, and robs the tester of their honour and courage. Of course, charging a toll or a modest protection fee is nothing to do with the test and is simply good business.
2 - Any who bear arms in her domain must strive to be warriors
3 - To be a warrior is to claim honour against others
4 - Honour is found through glory in victory or tenacity in defeat
5 - The Test of honour is a sacred act beyond any writ of peace or war
6 - The reward of a just victory is the spoils, and the reward of worthy defeat is protection
7 - Those with honour are friends of the faithful, those without may be judged by the sea
in other words... 1 - Out of sight of dry land (or unauded visual range of planet/station), there are no laws and no rules of engagement except the below.
2 - If you or your vessel carries weapons, you are claiming to be a valid combatant.
3 - Valid combatants (including armed transports and Q-ships) can be treated as free to engage as if hostile warships, since by carrying weapons they have made the claim that they are warships and seekers of courage.
4 - How a victim/combatant is treated depends on how hard they try to fight. Win or lose, they earn the right to be treated as peers if they show bravery enough to impress the attacker or Tester.
5 - Conflict between single ships should be treated as a private, ritual matter between the crews. Other peoples might complain about "unprovoked attacks" upon "noncombatants", but once battle is joined the rest of the galaxy's concerns are irrelevant.
6 - Defeating an enemy earns the right to steal their ship and any shinies within. If the crew fought bravely, however, the enemy also earn the right to be well treated and ransomed or returned peacefully to their peoples' territories.
7 - Poor treatment of prisoners is frowned upon. Prisoners who fought bravely should be engaged with and treated respectfully, as if members of one's own crew. Cowards should be left in their lifeboats and pods - Trideste will either spare them and send rescue, or... not. A final, unwruitten rule is followed by religious traditionalists, moral idealists and enlightened pragmatists alike - 8 - Trying to Test anyone who isnt claiming to be a warrior is an honourless act, and robs the tester of their honour and courage. Of course, charging a toll or a modest protection fee is nothing to do with the test and is simply good business.
Ethics
A special quandry facs Lanzians trying to pursue honour and riches - the mission of mercy. An armed ship that broadcasts its intention to rescue innocents, offer aid or soothe a crisis is undoubtedly still armed, and therefore has the responsibility to be Tested in single combat by a harpy vessel. However by being waylaid and engaged, or even crippled and taken as a prize, that ship's mission is interrupted and the deaths of concombatants may follow.
This division tends to seperate harpy raiders not by how well they adhere to their religion but by how they interpret it, and becomes a question of sctarian difference and personal faith. Typically those who would spare such missions are driven by either personal duty or a desire to maintain their standing with other factions, while those who would attack are motivated by either reverece for the Test and its honour or a desire to seek additional loot.
A common workaround for more cosmopolitan warbands is to ritually designate a foreign peacekeeping fleet as friends and honourable in their mutual loyalty. This exempts the fleet's vessels from Testing and the social awkwardness it entails and also opens up the warband for lucrative mercenary or escort work - hardly the deeds of great adventurers, and disgraceful to some, but similar alliances are often built upon both a selfless interpretation of courage (the objective of worship) and a personal debt between the warband's leaders and the foreign fleet.
Such an alliance is far from permanent. Placing barriers before that base of personal friendship, rotating out or replacing the officers responsible, especially or acts unbecoming of soldiers in the field by the allied fleet, can all end in a broken agreement and business as usual...
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