Someone please explain Lominsa's Piracy policy

[Transient_Shadow]

Ok so I made an alt to have some fun as an old pirate yarr. When I get confronted with lominsa apparently banning piracy in ARR. So I'm confused. I thought Piracy was allowed so long as it happened outside of Eorzian waters. IE the spice pirates you join up with in SB to take you to the ruby sea.

So if anyone knows the particulars of Limsa's Piracy Policy please tell me. I'm sure there's some stuff I've missed thats in the rogue quest line or the marauders quest line.

[ObsidianFire]

It used to be that piracy against anyone was legal in Limsa (so long as pirates didn't steal from each other). Now with Garlamald being a threat, piracy against the rest of the Eorzean powers is illegal. However, piracy against Garlamald is all but encouraged as the so-called "spice trade" as part of the war effort. So long as any Garlean technology is turned over to the Maelstrom that is. The pirate we go with to Hignashi is skating around this a bit by having what is most likely a Garlean cerulum engine in his ship for emergencies...

[Anonymoose]

I have a feeling that there's a vocabulary word that could help a lot here:

Pirate
A criminal who plunders at sea; commonly attacking merchant vessels, though often pillaging port towns.

Privateer
An officer or any other member of the crew of a privately owned warship with an official sanction to attack enemy ships and take possession of their cargo.

The Galadion Accord sets out some ...exceptions... to essentially outlawing the foundations of Limsa Lominsa's entire way of life. Many low-to-middling power pirates will have easier, more profitable options that they may at least attempt exploring, but those who still want to be pirates and accept these ...conditions... can operate similarly to how they always have.

It brings them under the yoke of the Maelstrom and limits their targets in exchange for a massive umbrella of legal protections, which is why Carvallain goes out of his way to remind you how much of what he does is perfectly legal.

Limsa Lominsa may have reformed into a proper city able to be taken seriously in an international alliance, but short on "enemies of the thalassocracy" the nation is not, especially considering the Garlean Empire's reach.

[SannaR]

Basically there are two groups you don't want to get in trouble with. You don't want to steal another ship's haul or you'll get the rogue's guild if it makes onto the shore. Then there is the arcanist guild that act like the coast guard/boarder patrol where they do cargo inspections at sea or when you've docked. Also there is the yellow jackets who work with both even if some of them might not like the rogue's guild.

[Enkidoh]

Sanna has it mostly right, but some further points need to be touched on here. The ROG's Guild is basically Limsa's secret security force, they're the ones who deal with pirates who are too powerful or dangerous for Limsa's regular forces to deal with. The ACN Guild is in fact Limsa's customs service, but the reason for the cargo inspections is not so much based on whether it was legitimate goods being carried on a cargo ship or loot stolen by a pirate vessel, the Thalassocracy has actually banned the sale and carriage of certain goods within Limsa's borders, so they're actually looking for contraband (specifically, things that are regarded as criminal in our world, namely illicit drugs (an early Limsa quest mentions certain substances like somnus is illegal), human trafficking (numerous sources but especially the ACN and ROG class quests), and, amusingly, pornography (the FATE the 'Iron Contra Affair' reveals porn as being illegal in Limsa).

As for the Yellowjackets, that is the more common name given to the Knights of the Barracuda, the Thalassocratic Navy whom Merlwyb serves as it's supreme commander-in-chief (why else do you think her title is Admiral?). Apart from their usual defence role on the seas, the Yellowjackets also act as Limsa's police force and patrol the environs of Vlybrand as well. Hence this is the reason for their.... prickly relationship with the ROG's Guild, it's pretty much just inter-agency rivalry going on.

Piracy itself seems to be increasingly becoming legitimatized within Limsa - the Thalassocracy itself seems to be more and more casting off it's cloak as a barely organized pirate nation in favour of a legitimate 'nation of the seas' under Merlwyb's orders (the very meaning of the word 'thalassocracy' itself), and former piratical customs and organizations are being cleaned up or replaced as part of this (such as the MRD's Guild moving out of the pirate ship the Astalica where it formerly was based in 1.0 and being moved to the headquarters of the Knights of the Barracuda, aka the Coral Tower in an effort to shear it of it's pirate origins).

As a general rule, most of the pirates in Limsa seem to be accepting of this, only the really bloodthirsty and rebellious of the lot flaunt the Admiral's laws, and as mentioned above they can expect a visit from the Yellowjackets or the ROG's Guild for their trouble if they dare anchor in Limsan waters or set foot on the Thalassocracy's soil.

[ObsidianFire]

It also should be mentioned that this is specifically Merlwyb's idea for how Limsa should "modernize". Once she's not Admiral (which probably won't happen in the game's lifetime), the Admiral who replaces her could just as easily decided to go back to how it was previously. That would probably be a bad idea, but it's not like there's anything stopping that kind of thing from happening in the future.

[Random0]

According to the Encyclopedia Eorzea, in the year 963 Agatzahr Roehmerlsyn became Admiral and got all of Limsa's major pirate crews to stop fighting each other and swear to a simple code of conduct:

1. No crew would cheat another of its plunder.

2. No crew would rob a fellow Lominsan.

3. No crew would sell fellow men into slavery.

These codes served to (loosely) unify and strengthen the Lominsan people by ensuring that Lominsan crews turned their piratical efforts towards outsiders and not on themselves. The slavery bit was important because the original founders of Limsa Lominsa were themselves seeking freedom from an oppressive regime in the far north.

Admiral Agatzahr then assembled a special crew from the best of the pirate crews to become the Upright Thieves, serving as code enforcement to keep everyone in line. Pirate captains would be wary of breaking the Code when they didn't know who among their own crews could be an Upright Thief ready to knife them for their transgressions as soon as they went below decks.

When Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn became Admiral in 1563 she extended the protections of the Code to all members of the Eorzean Alliance in an effort to strengthen relations with the nations of the Eorzean mainland, since it's hard to be friends with other governments when your people prey on theirs. This was initially unpopular with the pirate crews since this meant much of the merchant traffic they'd pirated from previously was now off limits, but some more resourceful crews were able to adapt by becoming "spice traders" or switching to raiding Garlean shipping.

Furthermore, the pirate crews who signed onto the Galadion Accord were officially recognized as Privateers and gained protections under Lominsan laws in exchange for upholding Admiral Merlwyb’s revised Code and submitting themselves to her command under the Maelstrom as auxiliaries to the Crimson Fleet during times of war.

Admiral Merlwyb recognizes the Upright Thieves as the Rogues’ Guild and charges them with the continued enforcement of the Code among the pirate crews, likely including those that haven’t signed onto the Galadion Accord but still consider themselves Lominsan. This leaves the Crimson Fleet free to continue protecting Lominsan ships and settlements, the Yellowjackets to focus on land-based peacekeeping duties, and the Arcanists of Mealvaan’s Gate to handle customs inspections and seizure of contraband goods.