[BBS]

[thatched]

Well since we're breaking away to begin with, why not go all the way and just become pirates? Floating the seven seas, waving our battle flag from the massive white dome. Pillage and plunder and the occasional panty raid. What do you think? Shall we put it to the vote?

Comments

[tiamat_shot]

I hate to say it, but I agree with Espio.

Price-gouging for contracts is one thing, but piracy is gonna make us everyone's enemy.

(I'm okay with the occasional panty raid, though; that's not the same.)

[thatched]

Being unattached mercenaries, what makes you think we won't be considered so anyway? Any potential client that can use our dubious services is also undoubtedly aware we can be used against them.

[tiamat_shot]

A mercenary is as loyal as his pay. Other countries had no problem paying for SeeD when Garden was aligned with Balamb, I don't know why severing ties would make it different. If anything, it'll make them bid higher since it means we could be bought off if they don't make a good enough claim.

Takin' that money without givin' anything in return, though, will completely undermine the idea of being mercenaries and just make us brigands. We'd still be able to be bought off, sure, but there's nothing stopping us from just backstabbing whoever whenever.

[thatched]

Being attached to Balamb means there is a definite target they could hit should we go astray and, in some ways, makes us more accountable. Unattached, well who is to say what we will protect and whom? After all, isn't switching sides for more pay still considered backstabbing?

[tiamat_shot]

Nh. It's still different.

[thatched]

How so?

[tiamat_shot]

I don't know how it is in your old world, but in mine, mercs still had some honor. There was some sort of code in play.

If nothing else, a mercenary earns his keep instead of robbing others for it.

But something tells me you wouldn't understand.

[thatched]

Aye, probably not, mate. I'm a pirate. But it still seems to me that you're saying it's fine to slaughter your old employer so long as your new employer pays more. You are earning your keep and keeping your morals. Fine slice of cake, that.

[tiamat_shot]

Whereas the alternative would be to attack indiscriminately for whatever you can grab?

[thatched]

It's the freedom to fight for who you want, regardless of money. Raiding Marines, aye, but protecting innocent Fishmen from raids by others who were targeted because of their birth. You can choose to be savage or you can choose to rob the robbers and petty thieves. As mercenaries, you choose to do whatever your employer suggests.

[tiamat_shot]

...huh.

I dunno, that's definitely nothing like the pirates we had in Jylland. They fell pretty firmly in the "robbers and petty thieves" category one hundred percent of the time, and since most of them were Seeqwere idiots about it, they basically had to rely on brute force alone to do anything.

[thatched]

There are some pretty brutal pirates where I'm from. Not everyone is as great as my Captain was. Still, no matter where I am, I would rather be pirate than mercenary. The employer says shoot and we shoot. Do we even know the full story? Do we know whose interests we are really serving? And these people, painted in a bad light, are they truly 'bad' or merely 'inconvenient'?

[tiamat_shot]

We're getting dragged into wars that aren't ours because some bitch of a sorceress decided to fuck common causality sideways for laughs. We're outsiders, and by the view of the rest of the world, we're villains no matter what we do.

[thatched]

Well if we're screwed whatever we do. Why not be pirates and do what we want?

[tiamat_shot]

Can't argue with that logic.

[Which means there's probably some glaring flaw in it that he can't actually spot. That's how it always worked in Tiamat. Regardless, he doesn't seem that eager to respond again.]