Pirates

What makes pirates cool? They were the non-conformists of non-conformists. Many of them were taken against their will to the sea. Imagine the arms race during the cold war with immense stockpiling of nuclear arms. Now imagine the same thing done, only with immense armadas of Ships of the Line, each one built slightly larger, slightly more powerful, slightly more destructive than the last. First they needed two decks of guns, then three, then four and more. Each ship needed more and more people to operate, more and more sailors to wage a global war at sea. Living at sea with long, hard days, no amenities, no women, crappy food, sometimes overly harsh captains, away from your home and loved ones, for months and months at a time, is not a job many people volunteered for. So they were kidnapped (a.k.a. shanghaied) and taken aboard vessels and forced to work the sea. Now imagine that after having served months, years, in the Royal Navy you were told to go home and find another job. Imagine that you were kidnapped before you could learn a tradeskill, or your apprenticeship was rudely interrupted by the call to sea. So now you are expected to earn a living but you've been given no chance to learn any set of marketable skills... except the skills learned at sea. What are you to do? What can you do? You take your skills to sea and fight back against the oppresive monarchy, you give them a taste of the medicine they gave you. So you band with others who feel equally disenfranchised and you plunder merchant vessels for a living. You have no homeland, except your ship, and the sea. You are an equal amongst your crew. The Captain was elected by popular vote, and even as Captain his only power is to make executive decisions in combat (i.e. time-intensive) situations. Most decision making is done by vote, a democracy at sea. Racial discrimination is non-existant as all are equally handy at sea. This vision of pirates is slightly romanticized, but I like it.