#alliance marines

[1000sunnygo]

The Rocky Port incident...

...turned out to be another instance of Law meticulously crafting a plan only to shoot himself in the foot, then forming an emergency alliance and somehow turning the tide in his favor. That's incredibly consistent 😭

But now everything makes more sense. It seems Law's intended bargaining chip for becoming a Shichibukai was to hand over a Poneglyph/rubbings to the World Government, and he was accepted not because he submitted 100 hearts of random pirates, but primarily because he played a key role in taking down Ochoku and saving some VIP royalties (also for securing the Poneglyph, I suppose).

According to the translation we have in hand rn, the name of the vessel Law hijacked was "Rocky Port". We know there's a port in Hachinosu with the same name. Maybe it was named after the ship after this incident? (edit: it seems it'd always been a ship and not a port, so, nevermind lol)

But what "important" Poneglyph was there, anyway?

I don't think it's the missing Road Poneglyph. Probably a Rio Poneglyph protected by the resident pirates. I wonder if Law was originally looking for the Road Poneglyph possessed by the man marked by flame, but then changed his target. Curious that he didn't know two of the Road Poneglyphs are possessed by pirates, let alone Kaidou and Linlin..

The chaos that broke out was not part of Law's plan, he was lucky that Blackbeard arrived to join the fun, and they could come to an agreement. Koby, on the other hand, was probably the only marine who agreed to work with the pirates, and thus was able to save the most number of innocent 'Rocky Port' passengers.

I'm pretty sure it was Law who proposed the alliance. Scoring cookie points aside, his conscience surely kicked in. It wasn't his style to drag a ship of innocent civilians to a devil's nest, so he offered to form a pact with the marines to reduce casualty. Without his presence that buffered both sides, a three way alliance wouldn't have been possible.

I had a hunch that Blackbeard and Law might have worked together for some time. But why did Blackbeard need to work with Law? Was Ochoku that strong?

It seems Law didn't know Blackbeard could use two fruits at once (during their flight at Winner island), so Blackbeard likely didn't go all out. Possibly it was of Blackbeard's best interest to secure his victory without greatly damaging the island that he was soon going to rule, so he decided to follow Law's plan. He likely invited Law to his crew too, similar to Kuzan.

In retrospect, it makes sense as to why the alliance with the Straw hats puzzled Law so much, it wasn't because he didn't expect the chaos but because it was entirely different from his previous experience.

I didn't expect the main story the dive deep into Rocky Port incident, it was only a matter of time until we got a short summary. There's enough meat to it to extend it into a short comic, and there's plenty of time in future.

For now, I'm looking forward to the Japanese fanworks flood on Monday 🍿

[jeiyuuen]

Punk Hazard proposal redraw

[chiropteracupola]

while I do not think that this article has a particularly good understanding of the various internal workings of stephen maturin, I do think it very much understands one very important thing about him, which is:

he will be observing some mariners.

[cdr2002]

Mirror Universe Concepts: Lower Decks main cast

Season 5 is here, might as well share this

Beckett Mariner

Daughter of Carol and Alonzo Freeman, Mariner was born in an Alliance slave camp on Earth. Though her parents did their best to try and keep her out of trouble, Mariner was rebellious by nature and often clashed with Alliance overseers, resulting in harsh punishments including solitary confinement and torture. Prone to using her voice as a weapon, Mariner would mock and belittle her oppressors throughout these punishments, only kept alive because the Klingon overseers found her spirit admirable and the Cardassians were amused by her wit. Mariner never succumbed to any attempt to break her, and even wore her scars proudly, much as her behavior deeply worried her mother and resulted in several arguments.

Eventually, Mariner started a small rebellion in the slave camp, intent on killing or incapacitating the overseers and escaping on a freighter owned by a Ferengi trader that Mariner had gotten into contact with made some deals with, typically using money pickpocketed from overseers or from privileged Alliance-collaborating Terrans. The slave riot that kicked off Mariner’s rebellion would also be its end. Many of her fellow slaves were less equipped for combat than her, and nearly all of them were killed by the overseers during the struggle. Though Mariner successfully killed dozens of her oppressors during the fight, the constant death of friends and even her own father around her finally broke her like no amount of torture ever could. In the end she was fighting just to fight, and would only be saved from death, a death she practically wanted by this point, by two things: the intervention of a Klingon warrior named K’orin, who found her cause and spirit honorable, and the timely arrival of Quimp, her Ferengi contact, aboard a cloaked ship. Contacting her over the communicator she had smuggled into the camp, Quimp urged Mariner that it was time to go, and her surviving allies: K’orin, her then-girlfriend Amina Ramsey, and her mother, saw his wisdom in the matter. Quimp successfully beamed Mariner and the other survivors aboard and then fled Alliance space as quickly as possible.

Though managing to escape, Mariner fell into depression. She grew to loathe the universe around her and rarely offered her trust to anyone for fear of putting them in danger. After years of being forced to hide from the Alliance’s attempts to find them and in particular prosecute K’orin for his betrayal, Mariner eventually set out into the universe as a free woman.

Through Quimp’s connections, she managed to acquire a ship: the SS Cerritos. The Cerritos was far from impressive; a run-down, patched together hulk made from dated technology salvaged after the fall of the Terran Empire. While the Alliance allowed the use of a few such ships as freighters, Terran-style configurations typically invited hostility. Exactly what Mariner wanted: a middle finger to their dominance over the Alpha Quadrant and a ship fast and sturdy enough to pull herself and her crew out of scraps, if necessary.

Her crew was small at first. Not able to handle any more violence or death and simply wanting to escape the Alliance, Carol elected to stay in a small Terran sanctuary city on Ferenginar, which the Alliance ignored due to their lucrative dealings with the Ferengi Coalition. K’orin, having sworn a blood oath to Mariner, readily joined her, as did Quimp, worried about his new friend and hoping they would find some business dealings along the way. Ramsey stayed on the Cerritos for a few months, but ultimately decided to leave once she heard word of a large-scale rebellion organizing against the Alliance.

With her ship, Mariner became an infamous troublemaker throughout the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. The mission of the Cerritos was simple: raise as much hell as they could get away with. Antagonizing Alliance patrols, robbing their installations blind, breaking open slave camps and transferring the slaves to safe worlds, simple acts of vandalism. Mariner was known as a pirate, a hero, a terrorist, and a maverick, respected by some and friend to few.

Over time, her crew grew in size, though not without earning her a death mark from the Orion Syndicate. Mariner reveled in her outlaw status, never staying in one place for long and gaining a reputation for fearless abandon. Per a vouching from Ramsey, and even her mother, who found it in herself to fight, the Terran Rebellion became interested in recruiting Mariner as they took to the task of establishing communication within their cells and growing into a larger organization. Afraid of the commitment and the responsibility for more than a small group, Mariner turned them several times and continued to go her own way.

However, the Rebellion has picked up steam recently, performing daring operations like the taking of Terok Nor, and even capturing Regent Worf. With only her own fears holding her back, Mariner could find a cause worth fighting for, an inspiration like that of Starfleet to her prime universe counterpart. But healing such wounds is far from easy.

Bradward Boimler

Born in Modesto California, Boimler’s family had been simple vineyard owners during the time of the Terran Empire. Little ones for violence, they had been supporters of Spock’s reforms and admired him in the waning days of the Empire. When Earth was conquered by the Alliance, the Klingons and Cardassians, fanciers of good drink themselves, contracted the owners of any vineyards who had survived the assault with with producing Kenar, Bloodwine, and any Terran beverages Alliance members had taken a liking to, in exchange for their lives.

Born into this environment, Boimler found the work painfully dull and longed for something more with his life. However, a universe in the fire grip of the Alliance granted him few options. Nonetheless, Boimler had a yearning to explore the galaxy and see what was out there. This desire became so strong that one night, Boimler stole a Cardassian shuttlecraft and set course for the next closest solar system. However, a failure to input the proper verification codes upon reaching orbit and the fear of death forced Boimler to immediately surrender. In the interrogation that followed, his obvious panic meant that there was little need to torture him and he was quickly assessed as a minimal threat. His captors made the decision to transfer Boimler to a labor facility on Vulcan.

The harsh environment ill-suited Boimler. He was easily frightened, not especially strong, and talkative. Exactly the kind of slave the overseers were liable to simply kill and be done with. What saved Boimler’s life was a transporter malfunction that occurred during one of his shifts, duplicating Boimler and creating his twin, William. The accident fascinated Boimler’s overseers, who believed that their transporters could be modified in order to create an infinite supply of slave labor for the Alliance, an accomplishment which would surely greatly advance their careers. More opportunistic and ambitious than his progenitor due to some small variation in their brain chemistry, William offered to assist the research in exchange for being granted the privileged life of an Alliance collaborator for being the cause of this discovery.

In order to prove his sincerity, William goads the overseers to go ahead and shoot Brad. Brad would only be narrowly saved by the intervention of a Vulcan named T’Lyn, a seeming fellow slave to Brad who was in fact an undercover operative for the resistance cell on Vulcan. She short-circuited the transporter remotely with a device she had implanted hours before, leaped into the room, and killed the slave overseers by vaporizing them with a phaser. She attempted to shoot William for being a collaborator, but he managed to grab a Disruptor and fire back, escaping the room. Intuiting that William had no real knowledge on how to recreate the transporter glitch, T’Lyn grabbed Brad and had him beamed to a secure location underground with her, where she explained herself and her mission. Though naturally taking some time to regain his bearings, Brad eventually accepted the situation, and asked to join the Rebellion.

Their higher calling of liberating Terrans, Vulcans, and other races enslaved by the Alliance gave Boimler the worthwhile pursuit he had been searching for all his life. Though the members of the rebel cell on Vulcan were skeptical at first, T’Lyn vouched for Boimler and he was accepted into their ranks, given the training he would need to carry out operations against the Alliance. Now skilled with a phaser, as well as various tactics of infiltration, Boimler became a freedom fighter in earnest, undermining the Alliance regime in conjunction with his allies and learning to overcome some of his own fears. Though Boimler never became one for hand-to-hand combat, he was still nonetheless an effective soldier, and T’Lyn taught him the Vulcan Nerve Pinch in order to make up for that shortcoming.

While fighting as a Rebel, Boimler became an avid follower of the exploits of Captain Beckett Mariner and the SS Cerritos, an outlaw famed for giving the Alliance a bloody nose on more than one occasion.

As the disparate rebel cells began to coalesce after Tuvok managed to get Miles O’Brien’s rebel cell on Terok Nor in contact with the rebels on Vulcan, Boimler personally volunteered for the mission to locate the Cerritos and extend an offer to Captain Mariner.

With T’Lyn offering to accompany him, the mission was approved and the two managed to get themselves onto the ship. Unfortunately, Mariner quickly began causing trouble in the system of their meeting right as they began attempting to make their proposal, forcing Boimler and T’Lyn to become members of her ship’s crew in order to assist in preserving the lives of everyone on board. Braving skirmishes with the Orion Syndicate, the Gorn, and Alliance warships far more powerful than the Cerritos, Boimler is still determined to convince Mariner to take part in the wider rebellion, regardless of the walls she puts up around herself. With time, he may succeed.

D’Vana Tendi

“Mistress of the Winter Constellations”, Tendi comes from a powerful family in the Orion Syndicate. She is the granddaughter of the previous holder of her title, Astrea Tendi, who famously stole an ancient artifact from Terran captain Christopher Pike in the 23rd century, among other accomplishments.

Growing up with immense pressure to fulfill her role as heir to family’s wealth an influence, Tendi chafed against these demands as well as the standards of Orion society as a whole, feeling that her people needlessly limited themselves by pouring their entire cultural resources into their vast criminal empire rather than allowing individuals to pursue other interests. Tendi herself developed a fascination with the sciences at a young age, and dreamt of a life of discovery, exploration, and adventure. These values closely matched that of the Federation Starfleet, but were seldom respected in the Orion Syndicate or elsewhere in the mirror universe. As she reluctantly carried out the family business alongside her sister D’Erika, Tendi would take exceptionally well to the training and various skills her family provided her.

She would also come to despise the Syndicate’s dealings with the Alliance. While the Orions were certainly exploiters, assassins, and thieves, careers Tendi had no taste for, they had long abandoned outright slavering, an act the Alliance almost seemed to specialize in. Though her family tried to explain to her that appeasing the Alliance was simply part of life due to their dominance over the Alpha Quadrant, this was the last straw and Tendi knew she had to leave this life behind.

She would find her escape in the form of outlaw captain Beckett Mariner, who docked her ship at a repair station owned by Tendi’s family after a battle with Alliance forces. Her scientific personal studies having led her to studying various technologies, including those of the fallen Terran Empire, Tendi took a personal interest in repairing the ship. Her skill at optimizing the outdated technology and even fusing it with some contemporary Orion equipment impressed Mariner, and she offered to find some way of repaying her personally. Tendi’s price was escape from the Orion Syndicate, who were already maneuvering to capture the Cerritos and its crew to collect a bounty from the Alliance. Using her inside knowledge to thwart the trap, Tendi quickly earned herself a spot as Second Officer of the Cerritos and the respect and trust of Mariner and the crew. Mariner reacted surprisingly positively to the death mark from the Syndicate, believing it advanced her reputation.

In gratitude for her invaluable contributions, Tendi was allowed the sway to suggest possible sites of scientific observation for the ship, pursuing her passion as much as she could without leaving the ship in one place for too long. This would remain more or less status quo until the arrival of resistance fighters T’Lyn and Boimler, who sought to recruit the Cerritos crew into the growing Rebellion. Tendi was sympathetic to them and was in favor of joining, but Mariner’s reluctance put that idea at the very least on pause. Nonetheless, Tendi has befriended the two Rebellion representatives and is hopeful that the races under Alliance rule can achieve the same freedom of choice she herself sought in breaking away from the Syndicate.

Samanthan Rutherford

Thrill-seeking, rambunctious, and only respectful of authority when it suited his own ends, Rutherford was practically born a rebel. Once he was old enough to be suitable for labor, he was stationed on an Alliance shipyard, where he immersed himself in the study of engines, general starship design, program design, and most especially, speed. Rutherford took in as much knowledge as he could, much impressing his overseers. He became one of the most productive slaves at the facility, refitting dozens of Alliance warships and making improvements to their overall performance. The overseers were so impressed with Rutherford that they failed to keep a close enough eye on him to realize two things: that every Alliance ship he worked on had been outfitted with a sabotage code designed to go off the moment said ship locked their weapons on any Terran life signs, and that Rutherford had been building his own personal ship using parts he gradually stole for himself while working the yard.

After seven months, the small ship was complete, and outfitted with one of the fastest and most compact warp drives in the Quadrant. One night, Rutherford took his ship, the Sampaguita, and made a rush for the Romulan Neutral Zone, which he knew the Alliance vessels wouldn’t pursue him into even if they caught up to him. Skillfully evading the Romulan detection grid, Rutherford took off for parts unknown and began his new life as a free man.

Engaging in illicit ship racing, gambling, and becoming a mercenary engineer, selling his skills at ship repair and enhancement to the highest bidder in the underworld of the Galaxy.

Eventually, another rogue would contact Rutherford: Captain Beckett Mariner, in need of his services to repair the SS Cerritos after another round of damages suffered antagonizing the Alliance. Rutherford would impress the crew, particularly Mariner’s technically skilled Second Officer D’Vana Tendi, with his repairs, optimizing the ship’s systems, further bringing them up to spec with modern technology despite the Cerritos’s century-old Terran frame, and enhancing the capabilities of its shield and warp drive.

Tendi suggested hiring Rutherford onto the crew due to his capabilities, but Mariner was reluctant to give herself the responsibility for another life, and respected Rutherford’s free-spirited nature too much to attempt to pin him down. Ultimately however, Rutherford would be forced to join the crew after Alliance agents caught up with him, seeking to interrogate Rutherford to determine the extent his sabotage work as a slave engineer had affected their fleet.

In the fight ensued, Rutherford docked the Sampaguita, damaged from battle, in the Cerritos’s shuttle bay, before the ship managed to take out two Alliance warships and escape into Ferengi space, where trade agreements forbid pursuit. From then on, Rutherford accepted the position of Chief Engineer aboard the Cerritos, and took part in much of the ship’s troublemaking misadventures from then on.

Due to their respective natures, Rutherford and Mariner would often butt heads and argue, forcing Tendi to be a peacemaker between them. Fortunately, their underlying respect for one another led them to always eventually see reason. Though he hated the Alliance, Rutherford was among the crewmembers skeptical of joining the Terran Rebellion. However upon suffering a nearly fatal injury and being given a cybernetic implant which saved him by Vulcan surgeons, Rutherford would find in his gratitude that he could do nothing less than give his commitment to the cause.

T’Lyn

Born into slavery on Qo’Nos, T’Lyn was the daughter of two house servants owned by a Klingon regent. Her parents raised her in the Vulcan way, as allowed by the Alliance because of the belief that Vulcan logic produced more disciplined servants. However, the strong emotions of the Klingons around her did leave an impression.

When T’Lyn was in her mid teens, her master took her and her family on a trip to Vulcan to meet with a Cardassian gul to whom he was a political ally.

The two were scheming the elimination of a rival and their plan involved the implementation of explosive devices inside the bodies of T’Lyn’s parents to hide their bombs in plain. T’Lyn was horrified and objected, but was knocked unconscious and unable to prevent the procedure. She was kept alive because her master needed a house servant, but he threatened to kill her if she spoke up again.

The two powerful men organized a meeting with their rival and offered him T’Lyn’s parents as a supposed sign of goodwill.

Before things could go further, the meeting was attacked by the Vulcan Resistance, who were seeking to take out high ranking Alliance officials while they were gathered in one place.

During the chaos, T’Lyn managed to grab a Disruptor from a dead Klingon guard and joined forces with the rebels in order to save her parents and achieve freedom. Unfortunately, the explosive devices embedded in them were activated, and T’Lyn was forced to watch her parents die.

After that, she made sure that every Alliance member at the meeting was killed with quick and savant-like marksmanship. She had learned a fair amount just from observation in all these years. Were she not Vulcan, the display might appear as rage. Once the battle was over, she was counseled by the leader of the rebel attack, Sokel. He suggested that it would be logical to channel her feelings towards the liberation of the oppressed throughout the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.

T’Lyn accepted and began training in various aspects of combat, infiltration, espionage, and assassination by the Vulcan underground. She would also be trained in various forms of Vulcan meditation to assist in coping with her trauma, though she remained with an underlying passion that fueled her as a fighter. She became an efficient and deadly fighter, but also a compassionate field medic and liberator, doing her best to free Alliance slaves and help their own recoveries as best she could.

Eventually however, T’Lyn would suffer another loss when Sokel was killed in a skirmish with Alliance forces, driving her into a depression for a number of weeks.

After finding it in herself to begin actively fighting again, T’Lyn succeeded in the liberation of Brad Boimler from an Alliance facility, preventing the Alliance from exploiting transporter duplicates as a source of labor. She assisted in his training and eventually accompanied him to the raider ship SS Cerritos in order to recruit Captain Mariner into the growing Rebellion. T’Lyn’s patience has proven to be her most valuable asset in this endeavor.

[elimaybeafish]

WELCOME BACK TO EVEN MORE CRACK POT ONE PIECE THEORIES WITH ME ELI

(I know now it’s Been a minute)

The 4 yonkos and marines are gonna have a free for all on a government island (crews included not just the emperors)

Black beards going to wano for Uranus

But buggy(‘s crew) is gonna scare him off

Luffy is going to (in power passing prime garps) drop A POINT BLANK galaxy impact on black beard (black beard is gonna die from this)

“Destroying” the government island Turing into a archipelago in the shape of a sun

Luffy and buggy are joing together to make the GREATEST PIRATE ALLIANCE

Buggy gonna get the credit for defeating (or killing) shanks

Luffy gonna get captured

Cue marine ford and impel down 2 (started by the grand fleet and Mr. (GOAT) 2

[azmenka]

wild concept tho: Theon comes home to sell the alliance to Robb and Balon turns it down but Maron supports it . . .

[shepcdr]

random thoughts on shepard in his training days in the alliance, pre mass effect 1:

shepard is incredibly touch averse especially in his younger years... and i think the first and only time he ever got a haircut on base, it fucked him up. plus the px barber wasn't used to dealing with biotics either and to dealing with the static shock. so you ended up with one very freaked out barber and one very cut up and slightly shaken shepard

plus, going every week to get his hair cut and leaving nicked and a little mentally disturbed, and having to pay??? no thank u morons.... he modified his omni-tool fabricator so he can just shear it off on his own... it doesn't look Great but he's all right at it :)

and ofc he made credits off of that. he's pretty resourceful and i think decent at modifying omni-tools — by no means professional, and sometimes if he goes too crazy, the result can be dangerous (which was not necessarily a bad thing in days with the reds..... sometimes you Want something to catch on fire or to blow up). but he gets it done.

he's probably done all sorts of modifications for fellow recruits, for a few credits ofc, and has gotten in trouble for it ... probably a handful of times. i'm sure omni-tools are very standard and everyone's bound to have one, but they probably have standards on omni-tools that recruits are allowed to have. or limits on how Much said omni-tools can fabricate... im sure that shepard Will find a way to get fabricators into a regulated omni-tool ... and that one of his fucked up little creations probably sparked and caused a fire in the barracks at some point... maybe multiple points. (where there is yishai shepard. there is going to be a fire. or something that he's fucked up that Will cause a fire.)

in general, he got in a Lot of trouble during training and had to clean his act up big time. he's just got a penchant for causing shit (or rather. he sees an opportunity to make credits or to gain favours. he Will take said opportunity). it was very difficult fresh out of the reds to get clean. he went cold turkey from red sand/minagen, but basically just switched to heavy drinking, though there were times he nearly relapsed. nearly got kicked out for misconduct a few times, and he did not get along well with anyone — being very antisocial, extremely hard to read, coming in with a history like his, and having very powerful biotic abilities honed to destroy. and rumours of his gang affiliation and about what he was doing for the Reds spread around and made things even more difficult. the old tattoos (not things officially affiliated with the reds until years later, because the reds were still kinda small time/covert/regional) didn't help.

for these reasons and others, i think he has a really nasty history with higher ups, NCOs on power trips, people who were wary of him and sought to keep him under control. not all of them sucked, but the ones who did left lasting impressions, and shepard's attitude (aka just. the way he is) did not help. there were definitely people that didn't fuck with him and that wanted to see him fail.

i think that maybe anderson first came across him in these.. very Trying first couple of years in training. he saw a struggling young man (barely a young man tbh, shepard was in a difficult spot where he was forced to grow to survive and deal with Horrors, but that's!! still a kid!!!). someone who needed a little help and a chance to grow. he probably talked with some people and got future opportunities for shepard — so long as shepard got his shit together — and put him in contact with resources and programs for his personal shit. anderson didn't do a lot of this directly, but he did check in on shepard time to time, and of course higher ups giving him counsel would mention anderson's involvement. and when shepard was ready for it, got through advanced & biotic training, anderson recommended him personally for n7 training... cemented himself in shepard's life as a mentor when there were very few people who filled that role for shepard. shepard doesn't know anderson well, but he is deeply loyal to anderson and attributes his career to anderson seeing him and being willing to give a fucked up kid another chance.

[franeridan]

luffy with a reindeer, a cyborg and a skeleton in his crew seeing bepo for the first time and going "why is there a bear here" and "is the bear a pirate too?" is still extremely iconic btw

[wanderingmind867]

I played the marvel ultimate alliance game on my wii years ago, and it's still something i think about often. I still love that game. I remember the Atlantis section vividly. It was my first experience with namor and his supporting cast and his rogues gallery. Both because I've looked the game up before (and because it left such a mark on me), i remember the four villians in that region of the game: Attuma, Warlord Krang and Prince Byrrah and Tiger Shark.

Now that I'm reading Namor comics (my comics hyperfixation feels like it may be winding down, so i'm only reading a bit of his 60s stuff, so i can save room to end my reading with more humour comics), i can finally say i know who these characters are! Attuma is ruler of a barbarian sect of ocean dwellers. Krang used to be the chief of atlantis's millitary, until he couped Namor. Byrrah is Namor's power hungry brother, who deals in propaganda campaigns. And... I'm still not sure who Tiger Shark is yet. But hopefully I'll get there!

[cuddlytogas]

Fyre sent me an article that made me Lose My Mind, so instead of sending 800 tweets about it, I decided to just write up my thoughts here

so, in re: ET Fox, 'Jacobitism and the Golden Age of Piracy' --

Fox is definitely exaggerating. His logic jumps from 'ship names and alleged toasts', to 'every pirate was one contact away from a confirmed Jacobite', to "a Jacobite maritime community" (296), with little evidence beyond each previous assumption. He does demonstrate a link with popular Jacobitism, but overstates pirates' political commitment by far.

There's one letter to George Camocke, a Jacobite naval officer, suggesting that the pirate fleet should unite under his command and take Bermuda as a Jacobite base, but the source is shaky, and it went nowhere once Woodes Rogers ousted the pirates. (It's I think from 1718 and unsigned? Possibly from Charles Vane and his crew? Fox only says that, "Through these contacts [unspecified, between Vane and English Jacobites] a letter reached George Camocke" (286), which is suspiciously vague, and I can't access the original to check. Either way, it would still only prove the committed politics of one crew.)

Fox also makes a lot of Archibald Hamilton, governor of Jamaica from 1710-16, who commissioned and profited from the anti-Spanish privateers who turned pirate and made up some of the original Bahamas pirates c. 1715. Since "it has been suggested that [Hamilton] was a Jacobite supporter" (283), Fox claims that these establishing pirates were also committed Jacobites, and therefore the whole pirate community that grew around them must have been. (Which leads to Fox then being baffled when there's no direct evidence of Jacobitism among some of them, such as the crews of Anstis, Fenn, or Rackham.) He relies on these assumptions, and then claims that every connection between pirates proves their mutual Jacobite sympathies.

It's much more likely (and in line with the historians I've read so far) that the Jacobite toasts and ship names speak to a broader anti-authoritarianism among pirates, with no evidence of committed Jacobite actions by them, eg, specifically targeting Hanoverian ships, or materially supporting or trying to support Jacobite rebels beyond that one letter. Indeed, the 1710s/20s pirates are generally agreed to be distinct for not adhering to religious/national loyalties like the C17th pirates usually did. (I'm so sorry, I haven't consolidated my notes yet, but I know Marcus Rediker goes through this, as does Kris E Lane, and I think Tim Travers and David Cordingly.)

Fox does identify a correlation between the rise and fall of Jacobitism and piracy over the mid/late 1710s, but attributes a pretty shaky causation: pirates ceased their Jacobite loyalties due to the suppression of Jacobitism in Britain and Europe. A much more obvious explanation is that both anti-authoritarian movements simultaneously flourished in the post-war, post-succession instability, then were both quashed as the new regime established itself and cracked down on rebels.

So, did many pirates espouse Jacobite sympathies? Yes! They named their ships in favour of Jacobite causes and rulers, and there are plenty of reports of them toasting to King James / the Pretender. (Which it must be said, although the sheer volume lends a ring of truth to the trend, individual claims should be taken with a grain of salt, as Jacobitism was a common accusation against criminals at the time, with or without a basis.)

Does that mean that the 1710s Caribbean pirate community was centred around a heart of politically committed Jacobites, as Fox argues, or largely motivated by Jacobite sentiments? Yeah, probably not.

Anyway, I am SO sorry that this article got me riled up XD the whole point of this is to say, I've never read anywhere that "many pirates were Jacobites driven out of Britain", which I KNOW wasn't even your main point, but I am unfortunately Insane. We can and should talk about expressions of pro-Jacobitism and actual political engagement among 'Golden Age' pirates, but what we know of their actual actions and espoused ideals doesn't speak to a trend of committed Jacobite politics beyond a general loyalty to rebellious causes.

[hauntingblue]

That was such a cool ending with the reveal of luffy wanting to go after the yonkous...

[deadlymaelstrom]

Ashley Williams

[whimsicorner]

Patch day is tomorrow so odds are FF14 is going to eat my brain again but maintenance tonight so maybe the maint cabin fever will help me be productive (?) (???) (I don't have anything prepared for the ship week going on bc I was like "I'm still catching up and should take my time," but aaaa I also want to play too, haha)

[jeonghanurl]

another question, is law dumb?

[tmarshconnors]

Democracy According to the Left 

In the latest French elections, Marine Le Pen and her National Rally achieved a remarkable victory by winning every single department, except Paris. Garnering the most votes, one would naturally assume that such a resounding success would place them at the forefront of the political landscape. However, despite this overwhelming support, the National Rally found themselves relegated to third place. This raises an important question about the state of democracy as practiced by the Left – is it truly democratic, or is it veering into the realm of tyranny?

The Illusion of Democratic Process

At its core, democracy is supposed to be the embodiment of the people’s will, a system where every vote counts and the majority's voice guides the direction of the nation. Yet, the French electoral system has revealed cracks in this ideal. Despite the National Rally’s sweeping victories across most departments, the complexities of the system allowed for a political maneuver that essentially silenced the voice of millions of French voters.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen such outcomes. The Left often champions democracy, but when the results don’t align with their vision, they find ways to manipulate the system. It’s a pattern that raises concerns about the integrity of democratic processes under left-leaning governance. Is it truly democracy when the clear mandate of the people is overridden by political engineering?

A Tale of Electoral Engineering

The French electoral system’s two-round process allows for alliances and tactical voting that can skew results in favor of the establishment. In this case, traditional parties banded together to keep the National Rally out of power, despite their strong showing in the polls. This isn’t an isolated incident but rather a tactic increasingly employed to maintain the status quo.

Such practices undermine the very essence of democracy. When political elites manipulate electoral outcomes to preserve their dominance, they effectively disenfranchise large segments of the population. This isn’t the rule of the people; it’s the rule of a privileged few who decide what is best for everyone else.

The Double Standard

Imagine if the roles were reversed. If a right-leaning party employed similar tactics to suppress a left-wing victory, there would be an outcry, and rightly so. But when the Left does it, it’s often framed as a necessary measure to protect democracy from ‘extremism.’ This double standard is not only hypocritical but dangerous. It sets a precedent that justifies the erosion of democratic principles in the name of protecting them.

This selective application of democratic norms leads to a slippery slope where the end justifies the means. Today, it’s about keeping Marine Le Pen out of power. Tomorrow, it could be about suppressing any dissenting voices that challenge the prevailing narrative. It’s a path that leads away from true democracy and toward tyranny.

A Warning for the Future

The marginalization of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is a symptom of a broader issue. When democratic processes are subverted, and the will of the people is ignored, it breeds discontent and distrust in the system. People begin to feel that their votes don’t matter, that their voices aren’t heard. This disillusionment can have serious consequences, leading to social unrest and a fracturing of the political landscape.

For democracy to thrive, it must be allowed to function as intended. This means respecting the outcomes of elections, even when they don’t align with the preferences of those in power. It means ensuring that every vote counts and that political engineering doesn’t override the will of the people.

Marine Le Pen and her National Rally’s experience in the recent French elections is a stark reminder of the fragility of democracy. When political elites manipulate systems to maintain control, they undermine the very principles they claim to uphold. This is not democracy; it’s tyranny masquerading as democratic process.

As we move forward, it’s crucial to safeguard our democratic institutions from such subversion. The will of the people must be paramount, and every effort should be made to ensure that democracy is more than just a name – it should be a living, breathing practice that genuinely reflects the voice of the populace. Only then can we truly call ourselves democratic.

[etherealvoidechoes]

Noticing I have an affinity for trios for some character groups of mine. Why do I do this to myself?