RPG ORION PIRATES
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Prime Directive RPG: NEW EMPIRE BOOKS:
RPG ORION PIRATES
Probably to be done after Tholians, which means 2012 at the earliest. John Sickels will host.
Outline:
Chapter 1. Table of contents page.
Chapter 2. A story by John Sickels (although i guess we could consider stories by others.
Chapter 3: History and culture of the Orion Pirates. Profiles of pirate cartels, and famous pirates. Slave girls.
Chapter 4: Planetary surveys, perhaps of remote or pilot worlds, certainly of Mad Jack's Hole and Circle Trigon, and so forth.
Chapter 5: Military. differences in the military cultures of cartels and freelancers. Differences between cartels. rank insignia, medals, and so forth.
Chapter 6: Starships, Steve Cole will do this from existing materials.
Chapter 7: Visions of Treasure, adventure seeds, and list of contraband (critters and equipment).
Input is welcome and will be considered, but do not expect answers in real time. Jean and John will answer as they can and will, and SVC will drop by when dragged here by Jean. Do not assume that something neither approved nor rejected is or is not approved or rejected.
One aspect of this book that I wanted to ask about is how it will handle the Orion presence in Inter-Stellar Concordium space.
(I'm not asking this to be looked at right away, but I wanted to mention it here for future consideration.)
In the "modern" era, three known Cartels (Omega - no, I'm not talking about that Omega this time - Kublai and Cirentus-Ta) are known to infest the ISC Trusteeship Territory.
But given the very late arrival of the Orions in ISC space, and the presence of pre-ISC pirates in the region (which are referred to in passing in Module Y2, and which would presumably be more fully detailed in Prime Directive Inter-Stellar Concordium), how much of an overlap would there need to be between the immediate pre- and post-Y160 eras in that region of space?
I'd be worried that the kind of detail here might risk pre-empting some of the information that may end up in an ISC sourcebook. But, on the other hand, it could be an opportunity to formally work out how this era of transition took place, in order to help provide a further resource when the time comes to delve into the Concordium's history of dealing with both "home-grown" and "foreign" pirates in their home space.
(I would certainly like to see more about the pre-ISC pirates, and if any of them merged with Orion arrivals to morph into modern-day Cartels, or if they were simply absorbed or supplanted by the new arrivals, or if the story was different for each of the three "modern" Cartels.)
I imagine that Pre-Orion ISC Pirates (POISCPs) were basically the same as the Pre-Orion Rest Of The Alpha Octant Pirates (POROTAOPs). That is, they operated normal civilian ships, not dedicated pirate designs. You broadcast a fake distress signal, when someone shows up to help you hijack their ship. Once the cartels show up, any non-Cartel criminals are quickly killed or co-opted.
Module Y2 states that a limited number of purpose-built hulls existed, but that most of the pirate ships were civilian ships as you say.
The main difference is how long these pre-Orions would have been in operation, relative to what happened in the rest of the Alpha Octant. With so much time to build up their own cells or bands prior to Y160, I would wonder if at least some of these criminal organizations might have been in a position to enter the modern era on something akin to their own terms.
I'm sure that, in some areas, the Orions would come in and brush the locals aside (or absorb them outright). But it would seem like a missed opportunity to do something different in this region of space if that was the only narrative at play here.
It would be both interesting and reasonable for Kublai, whose home territory is the ISC, to have started as a local pirate organization that "bought in" into the cartel system and Orion tech/doctrine.
Cirentus-Ta seems to be more likely a direct offshoot of the pirate kingdoms in Romulan space that then extended itself into the ISC; locals were probably given the chance to join it, retire, or die. Some may have instead moved over and joined Kublai.
Omega itself may have originally been local Gorn pirates that were "naturalized" as a Cartel and then expanded into ISC space (with the same brush/absorb approach to locals in ISC space as Cirentus-Ta). (Stardust, the other Gorn-based cartel, would make a plausible kingdoms-descended organization that moved into Gorn space, drove non-cooperating locals to Omega.)
I don't know if ADB were planning on putting an expanded version of it into a future Captain's Log (as they did with the Gorn and Kzinti writeups there), but there is a "new" background article for the Orion Pirates in the core rulebook for A Call to Arms: Star Fleet.
It has a limited amount of information for Omega, Kublai, and Cirentus-Ta, including a note that Kublai only emerged as a separate Cartel in Y172.
For what (little) it's worth, I had once submitted an article which would have suggested that Cirentus-Ta was a merger between a rogue Romulan House (Cirentus) and the largest pre-Orion pirate band in ISC space (which I somewhat euphemistically referred to as the "Trade Association"). The part about the disgraced former Great House has surfaced in the ACtA:SF article, but not the pre-Orion ISC part.
I still hope that the "-Ta" part can one day be shown as due to a link with a pre-Orion ISC pirate group, but we'll see.
What advantages do the local pirates have over the international conglomerate?
They know the territory, territory, territory; the shipping routes, where to hide and get supplies, and how to get rid of the loot quickly.
They've had time to worm their way into the corruptible parts of local business, law, and the military. Just the fact that they are local means they can mingle with planetary populations without cheesy makeup and costumes. 
Weapons? The push from Orion into Romulan space occurred before the development of plasma torpedoes and the cloak, so I imagine they had local operatives within the "corruptibles" by then. (Is this what Cirentus is? A corrupted House?) I'm not sure I see the PPD as a major ace for the POISCP, either in battle or barter. (The Pirate Echelon! )