Guild Wars 2

the wiki says its SKY pirates ^^

what do you think?

Pirates are bottom feeding scum regardless of their flag. I wish we get the opportunity to flatten Lion’s Arch and all of its crime-loving inhabitants (past and present) along side all the other privateers out there. Kinda irks me that ANet decided to make that place the main hub of the continent (there shouldn’t be a main hub), but hey – it’s their game so whatever.

I think that due to inondations, some people could have moved to sky cities or so.

Maybe sky pirates because they roam the lands in airships, and not the seas by normal ships…?

The wiki has been growing increasingly unreliable as a source for lore since nobody in power over there cares to keep speculation and actual lore distinguished, which means there’s a lot of speculation masquerading as proven fact. Anything in the wiki that isn’t copied directly from the game, official article, or some other controlled source should be taken with a truckload of salt.

“Sky pirate” is definitely a case of speculation being presented as fact – I’m inclined to think it’s likely to prove to be accurate speculation, but it’s still speculation.

All we really know about the Aetherblades at the moment is what we see in Memorials on the Pyre.

well the next patch is called “Sky Pirates of Tyria” (Source)

Joseph Skyrim.2470:

Pirates are bottom feeding scum regardless of their flag. I wish we get the opportunity to flatten Lion’s Arch and all of its crime-loving inhabitants (past and present) along side all the other privateers out there. Kinda irks me that ANet decided to make that place the main hub of the continent (there shouldn’t be a main hub), but hey – it’s their game so whatever.

You know that Lion’s Arch is not run by pirates? It’s run by ex-pirates.

They don’t pillage and destroy anymore. They trade.

And apparently diffuse longstanding racial biases.

Gibson.4036:

Joseph Skyrim.2470:

Pirates are bottom feeding scum regardless of their flag. I wish we get the opportunity to flatten Lion’s Arch and all of its crime-loving inhabitants (past and present) along side all the other privateers out there. Kinda irks me that ANet decided to make that place the main hub of the continent (there shouldn’t be a main hub), but hey – it’s their game so whatever.

You know that Lion’s Arch is not run by pirates? It’s run by ex-pirates.

They don’t pillage and destroy anymore. They trade.

And apparently diffuse longstanding racial biases.

Thanks Gibson, I had the charr/asura voice over of that going in my head as I read that. :P

Still, I’m not comfy that all these ex thieves, murderers and rapists basically are off the hook simply because they decided to no longer persue those activities. Forgive and forget you say? Yeah right. Tell that to their victims/family of their victims.

Maybe they did it so long ago that it’s no longer worth chasing them for their crimes? Well, there’s a truly messed up view of things. I’m still inclined to destroy every single last one of them, unless ANet specifically says they were all captured at one stage and imprisoned for prolonged periods of time, suffering horrible karmic consequences for what they did in their “previous” life.

Meanwhile, IRL…
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/18/19018168-98-year-old-charged-with-unlawful-execution-torture-of-jews-during-world-war-ii?lite

There’s an interesting discussion over in the Lore thread about Pirates and their role in Lion’s Arch you should read.

Personally, I think that most of the “pirates” we see in Lion’s Arch, like the Captain’s Council, aren’t really pirates at all. Rather, they were more like privateers, “pirates” who were authorised by a government to go out and raid the merchant shipping of their rivals as a kind of covert warfare. Some of these privateers could be fairly honorable, would offer surrender first, took captives instead of just making everyone walk the plank etc. Perhaps the Captain’s Council and most “settled” pirates belong to this category. The truly irredeemable bunch, like the Jackdaws, the Covingtons etc. committed acts that repulse even the Council (and indeed, we often see the Lionguard duking it out with pirates in the open world), but as Lion’s Arch is a neutral city, individual members are still welcome in the city so long as they obey the city’s laws while within the city limits.

The privateer theory is pretty good, but which government did they serve given that they were the “first(?)” to “diffuse longstanding racial biases”… and why do they cling on to their “Pirate” title?

These questions and more, but I’ll go look over at the lore thread first in case they already have been answered. Thanks for that Zaxares.

The real question I’ve always asked about the pirates is just who are they committing piracy on - since the rise of Orr, the Sea of Sorrows hasn’t had many ports to ship to and from. There’s Lion’s Arch, and the little village of Garrenhoff, and maybe the Grove if there’s some hidden port nearby that we don’t see, and there’s not much worth shipping to or from down the eastern side of the Sea of Sorrows… that’s not enough to sustain piracy even on the scale we see with the Covingtons and jackdaws and so on.

To be honest, I’d expect pretty much every ship on the Sea of Sorrows since the rise of Orr to be sailing to or from Lion’s Arch – in which case, why would LA put up with it when the Lionguard is going to significant effort to attempt to guard the land trade routes – or it’s sailing to or from Arah, and I’m sure anyone living would agree that one of Zhaitan’s ships is fair game. Thus, it’s possible that most ‘pirates’ in Lion’s Arch were actually the Lion’s Arch navy in fighting against Zhaitan, and they’ve just been using the term for tradition – while the truly criminal pirates have been pushed onto land and are effectively bandits with a liking for hideouts around water rather than true pirates.

skullmount.1758:

well the next patch is called “Sky Pirates of Tyria” (Source)

I’m pretty sure that article wasn’t up when I posted (the reason I’m not 100% sure is that I don’t know exactly where Massively is based – if it’s in Eastern Europe, then 9Am June 20th their time might actually be around the time I posted… but I don’t think they are). Like I said, I felt the speculation was probably accurate (as it has proven to be), but the wiki had still jumped the gun (unless the person who put that up had insider information).