Are there such things as honorable thieves...

I guess I have never consciously thought about it, but I have more or less divided bad guys to more honorable ones and less honorable ones. In my books the honorable ones have their own code of conduct, if they promise something they keep their word. They have reputation and they consider maintaining it important. Less honorable ones are the scum of the space, don’t particularly have code of conduct of any sort and they don’t have no troubles to lie or eat their word. For example I have always put Verone to first mentioned category. Of course I don’t really know him, but I have an impression he is some sort of Republic loyalist, even VETO pirates Verone keeps the group mostly out of the Republic, I might be also wrong but I have impression that if he promises something he also keeps his word. The fact that Else and Eva seem to respect him would support this image.

It would be interesting to know how “bad guys” themselves see things. Yesterday we ended up with Sonja to go have drinks at The Last Gate again. We met Eva and KJ in company of ex-bad girl Shae Tiann and bad guy Cartel affiliate pilot Caellach Marellus; one could maybe say that they seemed to belong to the “honorable thieves” category. Shae was ex Hellcat and brand new U’K member, Eva was joking that she would try to recruit her if it wouldn’t be bad behavior to recruit from another friendly corporation and unless she wouldn’t expect her to suffocate by the strict NRDS policy. This did lead to discussion that she never though she could become anti-pirate because she would feel unethical stab her ex-comrades even she had left the pirate life behind. These discussions made me curious and wonder what different kind of code of conducts the “more honorable bad guys” have. It’s also interesting philosophical question, can you be honorable if you steal and kill others in order to take their possession or ransom them.

4 years ago I would have seen things very black and white and considered that honorable thief is oxymoron, but being pilot for 3,5 years and seeing how hard place space is, I have started to see several shades of grey. So I am wondering… are there such things as honorable thieves?