You're playing a pirate, Veeky Forums.
While a boarding action, the Captain gave the order to "Kill every man on board." So in the midst of this, you go below decks and find the ship's doctor in the middle of delivering a baby. Before you can kill him, he informs you that without him, the mother and child would both die. What do?
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Why am I working for such an incompetent captain in the first place?
Press-ganged and unable to leave until your actions have contributed to sufficient profit.
I aint risking kid to became a hero that would kill me 20 years later
Move on to actual armed targets that might actually fucking kill me. Then double back to the doctor and capture him for the captain. An actual officially trained doctor who knows their shit is worth their weight in diamonds
Make the decision to either kill or capture the doctor based on how much of a lunatic the captain is. If he's a reasonable enough guy, I'll risk disobeying to present him with a valuable prisoner that he can either execute himself or enslave. If he's a madman, I'm killing everyone in the room, including the mother and child so that if the captain is pissed later on that the doctor is dead, there are no witnesses pinning it on me.
...Weren't actual pirates much more egalitarian than the English navy, frequently making decisions by vote? I could have sworn I read that somewhere reputable.
This. The doctor is worth far more alive than dead, and the rest of the crew will agree with me on that. Besides, I'll take any excuse to avoid killing someone.
There's nothing like some good long-term planning. Of course, if you were any good at evading multidecadal threats, you probably wouldn't have wound up becoming a pirate, but hey, que sera, sera.
>Weren't actual pirates much more egalitarian than the English navy, frequently making decisions by vote?
That was a thing, though it was less because of high minded ideals (although that played a part to an extent) but more a result of the life path that leads one to piracy. Rejecting civilized conduct and committing theft and murder for profit on the high seas isn't something people get into because they like following orders or a rigid command structure.
Am I lawful evil or chaotic evil?
You could be any alignment. After all, you were press-ganged.
>...Weren't actual pirates much more egalitarian than the English navy, frequently making decisions by vote? I could have sworn I read that somewhere reputable.
Believe it or not, pirates codes were a real thing.
The captain said kill every man. The woman isn't a man, and the child isn't a man yet either way. The doctor's needed to save the mother and child, and like the other anons said, doctors are valuable as hell.
oi who kers,do wat da boss sayz,kill em all
>No person to game at cards or dice for money
you fucking what
That kid will one day become a man,and he would want to avenge his dead father.So I kill him first,and her mother too.Also I take the doc as a slave to cure my wounded men,and then throw him to the sea
Maybe it caused too many arguments?
You're on the fucking job, look like it
You want to screw around when the ship's in port go ahead, but at sea you should be doing something, not sitting about trying to fleece your crewmates
Wait until the birth is complete and the patients stabilized, then kill the doctor.
That is stupid,you would get bored,specially when there is no wind.Only the 10% of the crew are necessary to manage a ship,the rest are for combat
This is a pirate ship, not a Man-o-War. I'm allowed some fucking deviation from given orders and initiative. Piracy doesn't work if everyone's just slaving for the captain.
So I slay the woman and the child (saving them from rape) and press the doctor into the crew service cause you can never have enough of those.
You could play for fun, but not for money. Not that you'd have a lot of time, a tallship needed constant work to keep in good order. Wind and sea wear hard on sail and rigging and fittings and everything else. Everyone aboard earned their keep.
That's the other half of why they had the "no women, no twinks" rules (besides the obvious).
>Kill every man on board
Is the captain a man? if yes, kill him and take his place how none said this yet?
Even if she is a woman, the term man include all the human beings so woman fits in the term, just kill her and take her place.
If the captain isnt human well, in that case depdens on the setting but... probably kill it and take his place
No, doctors are valuable and usually captured and pressed ganged. Doctors, good cooks and musicians are usually classified as loot, not men.
Instruct the doctor to save the mother, but not the child.
Do not kill either. Doctors and women can both be of use to the crew and should be preserved for the benefit of all.
A child would be an unnecessary drain on resources and would most likely die soon anyways.
>be npc
>"yarharharhar i be the main antagonist and also the captain, kill every man on board and leave none alive!"
>encounter doctor and woman giving birth
>"captain as a reasonable bad guy I think we shrlghrglk"
>"harharhar and so you see what happens to insubordinate nerds, also see how bad I am"
>later, the baby grew up and killed the captain
You didn't think this one through.
Shanghai the doctor and set the woman and her baby adrift on a rowboat. Womenfolk is bad luck on a ship.
Wait, then kill him.
>how none said this yet?
Because you're literally that guy.
>bring the woman on the ship
>she does the same job as your average swabby, but also has to nurse a child and recover from her pregnancy
>now you have to keep a close eye on the crew so that the uneducated thugs among them don't try to have their way with her and ruin morale
>capricious sea goddesses punish you for having a woman on your ship
Don't get caught alive by pirates in the first place, but that's not really an answer.
Spare the doctor, the woman, and the child. If the captain is so stupid that he'd have a doctor killed instead of put to work, the entire ship isn't long for the mortal world. The child can be nursed by the mother and eventually prove a useful crew-mate.
Keeping the mother alive and relatively unharmed would be the most difficult task of these. Maybe I could convince the captain to have her sent off (hopefully with the baby), just to have her spread the word of his deeds. Blackbeard didn't garner his reputation, or the success his reputation brought him, by leaving nothing but corpses. All he would have done by slaughtering everyone was make anybody who saw him fight like cornered rats.
In all likelihood, I just get killed by the captain before I can get a word in.
>Only the 10% of the crew are necessary to manage a ship
I'm no expert, but this seems false.
>...Weren't actual pirates much more egalitarian than the English navy, frequently making decisions by vote?
Yes, though it's not exactly done out of idealism.
While you're out at sea, you can play for fun if you're off-shift, but you don't start shit that'll get the rest of the crew hating you, especially when you'll be relying on them before long. And that's why you don't play for money. Same deal for why you're not allowed to start fights on board, or rob your crewmates.
This. Doctor lives, you can always use one on a pirate ship.
If the Captain doesn't realise that, then he's a bad captain.
You both misread and missed the point of the post entirely.
start killing pirates
I aint gunna kill a mother and child, and I'm going to die anyways.
Hopefully I'll get lucky and blindside one of cap's real crew so I can gert my hands on a real weapon and have a fighting chance
>kill the baby
>press the doctor into service
>kill him if he puts up a fight
>pass the woman around the crew
>kill her if she puts up a fight
Wow that was so hard.
You are the real crew. You have a real weapon. You were shanghai'd into a pirate crew.
>bringing a woman on board a ship at sea
It's like you WANT to get bad luck.
I'll take some potential bad luck over the crew getting randy because it's been half a year since any of them wet their dicks.
Offer them places on our ship.
Doc is useful.
Woman will be our pole-polisher.
Kid will be a gift to the captain, seeing as ever since he lost his adoptive son he has been in a murderous rampage.
A pirate ship wouldn't be at sea for that long user.
I agree, matey! The cap'n's clearly lost his marbles an' he treats us like slaves, or navy men!
I say we leave the doc alive, get the lads together an' see how well the cap'n swims, aye?
awesome possum!
I dunno I just figured since I was basically a slave theyd just entrust me with a pipe with a cutty bit duct taped to the end of it. to prevent mutinees and wut not
but this works out much better
Shows what I know about seafaring.
Is it still bad luck if we keep her on the ship we boarded and leave her on that one once we're done?
Generally you'll spend a few days to a few weeks at a time prowling about the shipping lanes, maybe a month or two for the longer ones (real multi-month trips are rarer, since most pirates did try and work from a base of operations, such as Blackbeard in North Carolina after his technical retirement). The vast majority of pirate ships wouldn't be equipped for longer voyages. Their skill comes from being fast and predatory, which can mean traveling light, so they might even stop off on several pickup runs or similar at a nearby base of operations to restock (if they weren't finding any ships to take) or repair (if they took significant enough damage).
As far as the woman and child are concerned, if the child is male it's actually going to be GOOD luck for you, since it'll be a boy born at sea.
Oh, to add.
Women are bad luck because they distract the sailor and imply he might cheat on the ship, which is female, and the sea, which is also female, and cause everybody to be sunk. Because women can be bitchy like that. Women also however can shame the sea by going topless so when you see a topless mermaid or whatever on the bow of a ship, that's why. So it's a bit contradictory, but if there's a child being born, you can probably take the woman with you to take care of the child, but whatever you do don't fuck up the two of them, because there's some serious superstition going on.
>Women also however can shame the sea by going topless so when you see a topless mermaid or whatever on the bow of a ship, that's why.
Wait, so the ocean is DFC and gets depressed when it sees a woman topless because it will never have glorious titties like that?
Kill mother and child first, then the doctor.
Can't let childbirth claim them, after all.
not everything is doujinishi user
I wish it were though
Well, user, a flat sea with no wind means you're becalmed, which is death. A high sea with massive swells and waves and gale force winds means you're in the teeth of a storm, which is also often death.
Declare an election for a new captain. This one clearly cares only for plunder, not the effective running of his ship, and the wellbeing of the crew therein. We need a new doc anyway. AND WHY THE FUCK IS THERE A WOMAN ON A SHIP!?
Ask if the child is a boy.
>WHY THE FUCK IS THERE A WOMAN ON A SHIP!?
Passenger, possibly an aristocrat or wealthy merchant's wife.
Then fuck her on the other ship.
I really fucking doubt the Captain was aware a mother and child, let alone a doctor skilled enough to successfully deliver a baby on the high seas was on board. So I use my basic decision making skills to take them prisoner, call the boss below decks and show him what I found. Same reason if we were robbing a grain ship or a small undefended merchant vessel and he yelled "Go ahead men, whatever you find is yours" and I found a 200 pound chest of Spanish Gold that really shouldn't be there, I'm going to fucking tell him about this weird new thing I found that would change his orders had he known about it.
The alternative is being a dumb motherfucker and getting keelhauled by either the captain for not using my brain or the more morally inclined members of the ship who don't want to share the booty with a guy who kills babies. I wanna see my bonnie lass again, damn it.
>ordered to kill everyone on the ship
The Navigator, Doctor, and likely rich lady are worth more than the ship because we can actually take them with us. I call the Captain to explain that these individuals are too valuable to kill and would be better served either serving as crew or ransom.
seriously what sort of pirate kills everyone after the ship's surrendered? That just ensures that you get a squadron of Royal Navy chasing you around the high seas instead of a couple of patrol sloops.
>What do?
I sure can think of one way to settle this.
Kill all three.
>rigid command structure
But pirates ran tighter ships than state navies. Even on internal scuff they wait until they are on land to settle it.
Pirates don't fuck around when on the seas. They are almost always fucked when it comes to supply, any small fuck up can kill all of them. Pirate ships are notoriously strict and orderly than actual naval vessels.
playing for money among armed cutthroats that sleep near you. It can only end well.
Most of the time they only have that 10% of the crew. They don't have the luxury of recruiting stations. Combat is to be avoided in most situations, they mostly stole from ports lightly defended merchant ships or hire themselves out as privateers.
That's where they got their fierce notoriety from, when they are hired by one crown to fuck up another crown. A pirate on this side can be a highly decorated naval hero on the other.
Also ensures no one ever surrenders again and instead fights to the death.
You're just making more work for yourself.
such is the fate of fools who allow women on their ships.
"Civilized" is a relative term.
You're an American teen in Boston in the early 19th century, when suddenly you're accosted by British sailors from a ship docked at the harbor. They grab you, beat you, and drag you aboard their ship. You're locked below until the ship is well out to sea and given a choice: sign a piece of paper pledging yourself to serve the British navy, or be thrown overboard to drown.
Now you're subject to navy disciple. You're beaten and occasionally raped by the British sailors. Work is hard, pay is meager/non-existent, and the penalty for disobedience is beatings, being flogged, or much much worse. Punishments are brutal and medieval in their cruelty.
"Civilized" in this context, is obeying orders and not deserting. IE playing by the rules of your foreign kidnappers
In America in the same era, "civilized" meant blacks knowing their place and obeying their captors and not trying to escape. It meant not secretly teaching yourself to read, not secretly marrying or maintaining family ties, and not owning property.
Pirate ships were voluntary organizations (usually). They were often governed by elaborate written bylaws agreed to by all aboard. Service was usually at will, and included disability compensation. Loot wasn't shared equally, but it was shared.
The Golden Age of Piracy was kicked off by English entrepreneurs given letters of marque by the Queen to harry the Spanish. The Spaniards were busy with conquest, genocide, and plundering the mesoamerican empires; they were naturally furious that the privateers would take what they had just rightfully stolen. When the war ended, the letters of marque were revoked and suddenly legal privateering became illegal piracy. Including now English ships laden with cargo England's slaves and indentured servants had been forced to produce.
"Civilized" can often be a very self-serving worldview.
It's true. Ships took appalling losses to disease, malnourishment, and combat. With a skeleton crew, you wouldn't be able to fight or sail very well especially in bad weather but you could man the ship and get around.
rape the ship, burn the baby, eat the doctor
Nice essay, shame you're talking out of your arse.
I'm not going to type the three different meanings to civilized or their examples so I will just link a more articulate source.
dictionary.cambridge.org
If someone kidnaps you and you start working for them then you are obedient, whether you are a savage or civilized.
Being a good little negro slave does not make you civilized, in truth a lack of education would probably make you the complete opposite of civilized.
TLDR; Civilized is not a relative term you pseudo-intellectual.
check out these two gay philosophy undergrads
Damn son, for rapacious buccaneers they seem really nice and rational
Especially the 'lights out after dark, drink open deck if you still want tho' rule is pretty nice
Wait until he's done.
Then capture all 3 of them.
If the captain wants the doctor dead, then I'll kill him. But he could be useful.
Not happy with killing a woman and child though.
>orders
they're really more like guidelines
Obviously kill them all, because we're reavers and not pirates. You can't trust a doctor-man for any reason, a woman just given birth is no use as a whore, and a baby is just useless meat.
Pirates rarely killed everyone - it was bad business.
>pirates
>press-ganging
Jesus christ.
(at the most they could be really persuasive about joining the crew, but no, pirates in basically any age would be voted out on bullshit like this)
NOW, it that was a corsair ship... nah, not really, even then. I mean, they had slaves, but those weren't the fighters.
Relatively true in the age of sail. Merchant navy was basically skeleton crewed in comparision to warships.
(it's not only the guns, but the rigging faster, the guys to board the enemy, even the work on the ship proper if needs be, etc)
Today of course it's x100 -a container ship has perhaps 20 people on board, probably 10, and some engeneer checking shit in his office on the other side of the planet, while a light destroyer has 200+ people onboard and a carrier 3000.
Ask why we boarded this obviously non-profitable ship?
If there is a woman on board it's probably not carrying anything expensive, besides maybe people for ransom, and if it is carrying people for ransom why are we killing everyone? Mutiny incoming, captain is a faggot and a psychopath, not fit for being a swashbuckling pirate.
Buccaneers did plenty but funnily enough more on land, when a power paid them.
Basically if you were boarded by pirates and wisely enough didn't make them angry you had three options
1) you're a sailor? Cool, come with us. YOLO.
2) you're a sailor and dont' want? Eh, too bad mate. Gonna leave you on coast. (generally not in the middle of nowhere)
3) Valuable officer/rich civilian? Well, it's time for ransom, boys!
3 wasn't that certain, it mostly depended if you could be left on a "neutral" port for the ransom itself. Still, they mostly didn't kill for evulz - behave, don't anger them and you'd probably be fine.
I wouldn't get my hopes up I was a woman in this case, but I think even then a decent captain would get on the crew's heads that a good ransom is better than a random rape. Some didn't give a fuck, Blackbeard I think in particular was know for that.
>Some didn't give a fuck, Blackbeard I think in particular was know for that.
Ed Lowe, you might be thinking of.
Blackbeard gained a reputation as a hard as nails crazy bastard, but he was still pretty on the nose when it came to keeping order in his crew.
That's what I was thinking, but I wasn't sure. It's the English Navy that's going to press-gang you, not the pirates.