Terse Period

The Terse Period is a name given to a roughly 20-30 year era following the end of the Kamian Succession Wars, categorized by lawlessness and a dramatic rise in space piracy. The era is sometimes romantized as "The Golden Age of Space Piracy".

Background

Following the end of the war, a very large quantity of weapons, particularly high-endurance warships, made it's way onto the black market. Previously, such items were few and far between, with very tight controls being kept especially on weapons, and the rarity of military-grade spacecraft keeping such things in check.

Most of the material came from the Alliance and the larger member worlds, who were quick to disarm once the fighting had ceased. Smaller ships, such as frigates, corvettes, and cutters, were the first to go. Such vessels had been built in huge numbers during the war for scouting and patrol duties, and were comparatively not much needed in peace time.

Ship Acquisitions

Spacecraft came into the hands of pirates ine one of three ways:

Legitimate Sales

Following the war, many ships were stripped of their armaments and resold on the secondary market. This was a fully legitimate and legal system to dispose of surplus war materials, an indeed small numbers of vehicles had always trickled into the civilian sector this way. Ships were intended to be repossessed as liners, tramp traders, and mail ships. Any number of roles existed whereby a combination of speed, high endurance, or just especially well-made ships were highly sought after for wholly legitimate reasons.

Often times, only very summary efforts had been made to "de-militarize" the warships before sale. This typically consisted of unloading any remaining munitions, and removal of the high-power components used in energy weapons. Railguns(legal for civilian ownership and use) were left fully intact and operational, along with the myriad of support systems. The directed energy weapons, which should have been removed entirely, were only stripped of those components considered valuable for resale--often being sold in lots alongside the ships themselves.

Vessels were typically sold at auction, but aside from registration with the Alliance Space Commission, not much effort was being made to track them after sale. This is how most of the smaller ships came into pirate hands.

Salvage

While a great many surplus warships were disarmed and resold, quite a few were simply set adrift.