I was thinking about the Orion cartels, and it occurred to me that there would have been pirates around before the Federation inspired the Orion Navy to follow their entrepreneurial spirits. Their expansion could fill a module of the other pirates absorbed, conquered, and destroyed. It could be filled with various independent operators ship whose Captains could get a GPD write up in a Captains Log, or a GPD module. Such as the historical characters the Dread Captains Roberts,
or maybe a Captain Jack Sparrow , a Captain Blackbeard, or maybe a few smugglers, like a Han Solo. :P well perhaps not these guys, I think most of them are copyrighted. The module could contain other races that were the former pirate families, gilds, and cartels, and where they are today. A plethora of new pirate races, ships and designs. As well as the history of how a few disgruntled members of the Orion Navy became the defacto rulers of the criminal space ways of the alpha sector. Maybe it could contain Orion pirate bases, or the Orion mobile shipyards.
It could spin off into an F&E module: Pirate Wars where the various pirates try to eliminate the competition without bringing down the forces of the Law. Combat with a lot of restrictions, the pirates would have to avoid all bases and capital planets, severely limiting movement.