Note: Becomes Duke's Tempest if the Player sides with the Buccaneer's in the Paranid Civil War Plot

Race Description

The physically imposing Paranid are often regarded as arrogant by several races which usually stems from their exceptional mathematic skills and religious fervour. Allied with the Split and distrusting of the Argon, the Paranid have been in several conflicts where they use their technological prowess and multilevel thinking to gain tactical advantages.

Faction Description

At the time of its inception, the Duke's Buccaneers was outwardly an officially sanctioned, non-governmental security outfit that operated within the New Duchy systems of the Paranid Empire. Behind this facade, a corrupt organisation began to form, determined to undermine the authority of the very government that had originally permitted its rise. The Buccaneers were led by the shadowy and cunning Pirate Duke who unified smugglers, pirates and other discontent denizens of this largely unexplored and unstable region under his rule. During the Terran Conflict, which forcefully distracted the Paranid Pontifex's attention, Duke's Haven was established as the faction headquarters in a newly discovered border system. That system was later grandiosely renamed Lasting Vengeance, presumably in honour of one of the Duke's driving motivations in the subsequent escalation.

The Duke's Buccaneers were infamous for requiring absolute commitment from their members, demanding that they cut all former ties, and sending them on dangerous infiltration and assassination missions against their former affiliates to prove their allegiance. For most of the faction's supporters, this made maintaining good standings with major political powers, or even pirate organisations, nigh on impossible, and over time resulting in them serving only the Buccaneers. Eventually, political tensions rose and the Buccaneers became hunted by their Paranid neighbours, leading to attacks on their headquarters itself. Regardless of the meticulous planning and seeming precision of those strikes, they never managed to corner or kill the pirate leader himself. The Duke always seemed to stay one step ahead of his pursuers, all the while giving his loyal subjects ample opportunity to make a profit in the ensuing chaos.

According to the sparse pre-shutdown records, during a wave of warp instabilities between 780 and 782 NT, the Pirate Duke was on the verge of achieving his grandest scheme yet, when suddenly, the Buccaneers headquarters in Lasting Vengeance, and with it a large part of the admiralty, was cut off from the rest of the network. The faction as a whole, like many others at the time, dispersed quickly, with only a handful of small pirate bands continuing to vie for control of the now-isolated systems of the New Duchy. After the realignment of the Jump Gates, the Buccaneers were at first thought extinct. Though there were occasional supposed sightings in Paranid territory, these reports weren't given much attention, especially considering the much more pressing issue of the Paranid Civil War.

Duke's Tempest Description

When the war reached its climax, the machinations of one Gride Orrian, veteran of the Terran Conflict and acting commander of the local cell of the Buccaneers in the Duke's absence, finally came to fruition. Together with a notorious political analyst and a hired special operative, she sabotaged the peace negotiations at their most crucial moment, turning the faction representatives against one another, manipulating her Pirate Duke into returning to his warlike former self and abandoning his foolish notions of peace for good. In the wake of this diplomatic disaster, military economies across the network received a welcome boost, as the newly forged Duke's Tempest plunged the Paranid systems into a three-way holy war. Despite the strategy of careful schemes layered on top of political intrigue and piratical destabilisation that led to its formation, this faction cares little about collateral damage and only aims to rip all of Paranid territory from the unjust rule of the weak and unworthy Pontifices.

Guild(s)

Allies

Enemies

• Holy Order of the Pontifex
• Kha'ak
• Xenon
• Vigour Syndicate
• Yaki

Sectors

Duke's Buccaneers only get sectors if the player sides with Duke's Buccaneers (by this point known as Duke's Tempest) during the Paranid civil war plot. If the player sides with the Buccaneer's they will receive Nopileos Fortune IV / Duke's Awakening IV (Duke's Haven Shipyard). Nopileos Fortune II will be similarly renamed but the Duke's Buccaneers will not have a defense station in the sector and hence do not control it initially.

Ships

Duke's Buccaneers (as Duke's Tempest) will produce both vanguard and sentinel variants of Paranid and Argon ships as well as the Minotaur Raider gunship at their Duke's Haven Shipyard which is the only factional shipyard capable of producing ships of all size classes. Critically, while the Duke's Haven shipyard can field trade ships they will not construct them or use them and will only build and maintain combat fleets. Ultimately, this means that all trading with Duke's must be undertaken by the player or the factions that Duke's is friendly with.

Duke's Buccaneer's Destroyer as seen halfway through the Paranid Civil War Plot