In Another World with Truck-kun (Yet Another Damn Isekai Story)

[Black Aeronaut]

I would complain that it's not fair to expose members of a pre-Information Age society to material designed and polished with modern marketing techniques to appeal to and persuade a far more jaded audience, but it's for space travel and to (lets be honest) a person pretty much chosen both in and out of character to be the most receptive and suitable subject, so I'll allow it

Heh.  Just an example of how I don't play fair. 

(Come on, a "mere merchant" who is a self-exiled foreign princess already bit by the travel bug and falling notably into MC's strike zone as an attractive mate is NOT just a coincidence, especially when the god of travel and commerce is specifically who arranged for the time and place of his arrival.)

And he don't play fair, either! 

Without going into too much detail on biology, I will note that a snake's tail is actually very short in most species, so depending on just how the two sets of physiology were smooshed together by whatever god or wizard decided to have half-snake people MC may be lookin' for luv in the wrong places, or or may have his fascinated stare at the cute little flicks as she talks about something drastically misunderstood Or for that matter, she might despair at how he doesn't even notice the cute little flicks she tries to attract his interest with, steadfastly keeping a neutral eye on her boring old abdomen and lower back, not even the part where her scales have the most intricate pattern!

I'm still working those aspects out myself.  Part and parcel with the so-called "fun" in this.

That said, she is very cute...

Oh man, is she ever.  Here's the artwork that's inspired her character design.

...and the descriptions of how her body language is different are worth a note on their own, do try to keep that up as the cast inevitably grows. With twenty feet of length she should be able to loom quite effectively when she wants to, for one thing, and possibly even when she doesn't mean to but feels threatened or outraged. For another, though her coloration is more in line with a venomous snake than a constrictor as such, she may still be a little too good at hugs for the well being of anyone with less extreme variations from the human standard...

No worries.  That part will actually be fun.

---

Now, I did promise pirates and thus I shall deliver.

You remember Pirates of the Caribbean?  Same attitude, cleaner looking.

While women have taken over the world, more or less, this doesn't mean they've given up on looking "pretty".  And the ladies that crew these pirate ships... they're not ugly, but they're not hard to look at, either.

Part of this is attributed to rigorous hygiene standards which help keep disease at bay.  That, and a lot of women just plain hate feeling grimy at the end of the day.

And as one might imagine, the nationalities here run the gamut.  There are even a few dispossessed Imperial dragons and Jungle Elves.

What has made their existence tolerable to Freeland is that they have an organized leadership known as the Council of Admirals.  And this organization has made it a point to ensure their continued survival and way of life by moderating activities.  They do this by keeping a very simple set of rules, along with the explanation for said rules to remind others of why they're there.

1. Take the booty, leave the crew.  Piracy is all well and good, but murdering crews tends to gain unwanted attention, as crews be expensive to replace.
   
2. Don't take too much booty.  What we's be wanting is a toll to pass through our waters.  Taking too much discourages the merchantmen from passing through, and we don't be wanting that now, do we?
   
3. No taking ships unless ye absolutely must!  Ships be hard things to be replacing, as we all well know.
   
4. If ye must take thar ship, then for the love of the gods, leave thar crew someplace with food and water that they can be found!  Murderin' crews don't make us many friends.
   
5. No pirating if they wants to be trading in one of our ports!  We can get what we be wanting in port fees, and the local markets do be benefiting grandly from these visits.
   
6. If ye wants to be murderin', pillagin' pirates of old, then take it out on thar Jungle Elf's fleet.  The fine folks o'Freeland done gave us Letters of Marquis to keep them heathens away from the fishin' fleets, and that suits us just fine.
   
7. No slaves.  Not unless yous be wantin' to test thy sword against paladins.  Ye shall not be havin' any tender mercies from the rest of us!
   

The only other form of organized governance are the dockworkers unions, who ensure the smooth operations of ports.  Otherwise, it's pure anarchy.  People build what they want wherever they buy property, and if someone's fowling the air or water, then there's nothing to protecting them from angry locals except their own force of arms... and usually, the locals are just as well armed.  These people would very much ascribe to Heinlein's maxim of, "An armed society is a polite society."

Oddly enough, Objectivists would be happy here as it is most emphatically a capitalist system where only the most competitive survive.  Having a monopoly in order to abuse the system is a rare thing, and trusts where market prices are set by agreement between competitors are severely discouraged in the "two burly people take you away in the night and have a 'conversation' with you" sense.

This has actually been very beneficial as it has forced a sort of sliding scale of cost-versus-quality.  If you need a hole in your hull patched, but don't have much funds, then there's bound to be someone who can do a "good enough until the next port call" job.

This is a place where the downtrodden and dispossessed go.  The misfits, trouble makers, wild yahoos, and folks who just generally can't handle being in an "overly structured" society.  They're a very bawdy and fun-loving bunch, though they do have their squabbles and life can be pretty cheap (in both senses of the word).

Strangely enough, this place probably has the greatest freedom of movement for males anywhere in the world.  Your gender doesn't really matter.  If you wish to be a kept man, then you simply need to gain favor with one of the captains.  But if you want to live your own life?  This is the place to do it.  One person among the Council of Admirals is a man named Cummerbund.  Such was his cunning that he now lives like Hugh Hefner in his own seaside castle with its resort-like amenities.

And his sons are not to be underestimated, either.