Such characters typically operate as pirates in the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet or moon, and travel by aircraft, as opposed to the more traditional pirates on the high seas, who travel by ship. However, just as traditional seafaring pirates target sailing ships, air pirates serve a similar role in science fiction and fantasy media: they capture and plunder aircraft and other targets for cargo, loot and occasionally steal an entire aircraft, sometimes killing the crew members in the process.
Their dress and speech may vary; it may correspond to the particular author's vision of the story's setting, rather than their seafaring counterparts, or they may be modeled after stereotypical sea pirates. Some air pirates are depicted using airborne aircraft carriers as mobile bases from which to conduct raids.[1][2][3]
This game, based on the backstory of the band Abney Park, is set in the post-apocalyptic world after their album, The End Of Days, a future world with a disrupted timeline, featuring steampunk themes and Victorian-era style. Players are air pirates in command of their own steam-powered airships, who seek to pillage the skies and plunder history, possibly causing even greater disruption to the past. Meanwhile, the world below struggles in Victorian-style squalor under an oppressive government that maintains control through clockwork policemen.[11] In December 2011, the RPG game won Diehard GameFAN's "Best Core Rulebook of 2011" award.[12]
Barney Baxter was an "adventure strip" involving heroic exploits centering on aviation.[13][14] Baxter was often accompanied by his sidekick Gopher Gus, who (unlike the rest of the characters) was drawn with the exaggerated facial features of a "humour strip" character.[14] Other characters were Barney's mother, his rival love interests, Patricia and Maura, and his buddy Hap Walters. [13]
Younger brother of Kitty, who Emerald Goldenbraid, one of the story's protagonists, developed a crush on. He gave her a bracelet which was revealed to be a tracking device to follow the Mysticons. He later appears to have second thoughts about taking advantage of Em's feelings for him, and catches her, after which the two have a serious romance.[17] In the comics, he debuts in Volume 2.
Captain of the Pink Skulls, female pirate, and Zarya's childhood friend.[17] She takes advantage of this relationship to incapacitate the Mysticons and obtain the Dragon Disk, which she sells to Dreadbane. She later fights alongside the Mysticons, and on a third occasion gives Zarya inspiration to thwart Necrafa's plans. She is later revealed to be Zarya's romantic love interest as confirmed by the show's creator, Sean Jara, and supported by show director Matt Ferguson.[18][19][20] In the comic books, she debuts in Volume 2.
This 2009 novel by Cherie Priest features air pirates like captain Cly, who commands a ship called the Naamah Darling and later appears in novels like Ganymede, where he loves a woman in the Seattle Underground.[21]
A “bold, plump old lady named Dola leads a gang of air pirates in this 1986 Japanese anime film as they try to steal the crystal necklace of Sheeta.”[22]
Karnage leads a gang of air pirates in this Disney animated series (and later in Ducktales).[25] According to series creator Jymn Magon, he is a wolf,[26] but has orangish-brown fur reminiscent of a fox.
LeRoi is a sky pirate who is flamboyant and demands that he be proclaimed master of the city, or else he will burn it to the ground.[27] He leaps out the window before he can be arrested, and Tolliver insists that the fair proceed.
Miles Lydecker
Black Condor Vol 1 #2
1992
Comics
Lyndecker is another DC Comics air pirate who fought against Black Condor in the 1992 comic Black Condor Vol 1 #2.[28]
Mamma Aiuto Gang, among the air pirates in this anime film,[29] who also appeared in the 1989 manga Hikōtei Jidai on which the film was based.[citation needed]
The German pulp magazineThe Air Pirate and His Steerable Airship from 1908 to 1911, followed the adventures of Captain Mors, the "Air pirate".[30][31][32]
Phoenix leads a gang of space pirates,[35] like Danger Sexy Pirate,[36] in massive ships who battle the protagonists[37][38][39][40] while having a flying airbase known as Phoenix.[41]
The film's protagonist has a secret identity and is known to the world as Filibus and has an airship. Some called the film "an odd and funny forerunner of science-fiction movies,"[46] with Filibus described as a lesbian character,[47][48] and an "elegant and elusive woman pirate" who can pass between male and female identities, making her "a champion of transgenderism before that term had been coined."[49][50]
Unnamed
The Sky Police
1910
Short story
This short story by John A. Heffernan features an air pirate.[51]
Unnamed
Pirates of 1920
1911
Silent film
Air pirates appeared in the 1911 silent film Pirates of 1920.[52][53]
Unnamed
The Pirates of the Sky: A Tale of Modern Adventure
1915
Novel
Sky pirates appear in Stephen Gaillard's 1915 novel, The Pirates of the Sky: A Tale of Modern Adventure.[54][55]
The series is set within an alternate history of the 1930s invented by Weisman and McCoy. Within this divergent timeline, the United States has collapsed, and air travel has become the most popular mode of transportation in North America; as a result, air pirates thrive in the world of Crimson Skies. In describing the concept of Crimson Skies, Jordan Weisman stated he wanted to "take the idea of 16th century Caribbean piracy and translate into a 1930s American setting".[58]
Mandrake, along with the Phantom Magician in Mel Graff's The Adventures of Patsy, is regarded by comics historians as the first superhero of comics, such as comics historian Don Markstein, who writes, "Some people say Mandrake the Magician, who started in 1934, was comics' first superhero."[14][60][61][62] A story arc in the Mandrake the Magician comic strip involved a pirate airplane that would latch on to the outside of a passenger jet and then threaten to punch holes through the fuselage (with remote-controlled hammers) if the victims did not follow orders and land at an airstrip where the pirates could loot their prey.[citation needed]
The sky pirates of the Final Fantasy media franchise include Vaan and Balthier. For Balthier, he eventually decided to cut his ties with his father and his role as a judge, becoming a sky pirate under a new name, abandoning his old name.[64] For Vaan, he ends the game, Final Fantasy XII, as a sky pirate, traveling the world along with Penelo. He also reprises his role from Final Fantasy XII in the manga adaptation by Gin Amou.[65]
In this video game, Vyse is a young and dashing sky pirate who is part of the Blue Rogues clan and soon become entangled in a race to find the Moon Stones that control these powerful Gigas.[66][67][68][69] Other sky pirates include Gilder and Enrique.[70]
In reality
In real-life use, the phrase "air piracy" more often refers to the hijacking and illegal seizure of an aircraft. However, there has been at least one occasion of an act of nautical-type ship capture being conducted from the air. This occurred in 1917, when the civilian Norwegian schooner Royal was boarded and captured by a boarding party from the German ZeppelinL23.[71] However, the Royal was carrying contraband material in violation of neutrality, thus her capture and confiscation was legal.
There have also been a handful of instances where interceptor aircraft have threatened an airliner or cargo plane, forcing it to land, including cases like Ryanair Flight 4978 where the flight of the airliner was legal and approved; Irish prime minister Micheál Martin referred to the Ryanair incident as "piracy in the skies."[72] In the notorious Airstan incident, an Ilyushin Il-76 shipping weapons to the besieged government of Afghanistan was attacked and forced to land by a Taliban-flown jet fighter. The cargo plane's crew spent a year in captivity before escaping.[73]
Space pirate – Science fiction character trope of space, rather than seafaring pirate
List of space pirates – Science fiction character trope of space, rather than seafaring pirate
References
^Mullen, Micheal (October 20, 1999). "Crimson Skies Creator Speaks Out". GameSpot. Retrieved July 9, 2015. Lastly (and most importantly), are the air pirates in their zeppelin-based aircraft carriers that hunt the airborne prey and the rich cargoes they carry.
^Herold, Charles (March 1, 2001). "Game Theory; Fly in a Retro World Under Crimson Skies". The New York Times. Retrieved July 9, 2015. Set in 1937, Crimson Skies concerns itself with a dashing air pirate, Nathan Zachary […] Traveling the globe in an airship, the Pandora, Zachary and his crew make their living plundering cargo zeppelins. As Zachary, you begin each mission by leading a squadron of fighter pilots out of the zeppelin toward your target.
^"Diehard GameFAN's 2011 Tabletop Gaming Awards". Diehard GameFAN. 2011-12-26. In a year in which nostalgia was the dominant theme, Airship Pirates was a breath of fresh helium. From the novel approach to party composition and character creation to the beautiful binding, Abney Park's Airship Pirates was not just a great book, it was the start of a great adventure.
^Chambers, John; Glass, Brian (2009). "Heroes of Hell". The Art of Exalted Second Edition(PDF) (Media notes). Stone Mountain, Georgia: White Wold Publishing. p. 89. Retrieved November 23, 2020. The Scourge Caste Captain Gyrfalcon is a swashbuckling sky pirate preying on Northern air boats and settlements.
^Brian M. Stableford (2004). Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature. Scarecrow Press. p. 134. ISBN0-8108-4938-0.
^Werner G Schmidtke (1980). Das phantastische Abenteuer in 70 Jahren deutscher Heftgeschichte: Ein Serienbericht von damals bis heute (in German). OCLC74562428.
^"STC #276". Sonic the Comic website. 2018. Archived from the original on November 8, 2020. Retrieved November 22, 2020. Cursed by an ancient deity, Captain Plunder managed to find a literal lucky rabbit in the form of Cream, the newest member of his Sky Pirates. However, it seems Cream's good luck charm may be a bit like putting a sticking plaster on a broken arm…
^Hart, Arend (November 24, 2009). "Jak and Daxter Overview". Game Chronicles. Archived from the original on October 19, 2015. Retrieved November 23, 2020.
^"Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier". ESRB. 2020. Archived from the original on November 24, 2020. Retrieved November 23, 2020. The dialogue occasionally ventures into suggestive innuendo with comments like "She's being entertained by the captain . . . if you know what I mean" and "Ahh, not much for small talk are you"—a line delivered by a woman named Danger Sexy Pirate.
^"Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier™". PlayStation. 2020. Retrieved November 23, 2020. Keira is frustrated by her father's protectiveness...When she is kidnapped by Captain Phoenix along with the Eco Seeker, it triggers an adventure that takes our trio to the very edge of their world.
^Ebert, Roger (August 9, 2007). "Dust 'til dawn". Official Roger Ebert website. Archived from the original on September 24, 2020. Retrieved November 23, 2020. It is not a good sign that almost the most entertaining element of "Stardust" is Captain Shakespeare appearing from the skies in his dirigible pirate ship. Shakespeare, played by Robert De Niro as a transvestite swashbuckler (swishbuckler?) is wonderful, but he should be forced to wear a badge saying, "Hi! I'm the deus ex machina!"
^"Filibus", frauenfilmfestival.eu, Dortmund Cologne International Women's Film Festival, 2013, archived from the original on 17 November 2016, retrieved 16 November 2016
^Maynard, Sally; McKenna, Fiona (September 1, 2005). "Mother Goose, Spud Murphy and the Librarian Knights: Representations of librarians and their libraries in modern children's fiction". Journal of Librarianship and Information Science. 37 (3): 119–129. doi:10.1177/0961000605057475. S2CID206596108.
^Square Enix (October 31, 2006). Final Fantasy XII (PlayStation 2). Balthier: I left the Judges ... and him. Cidolfus Demen Bunansa. Draklor Laboratory's very own Doctor Cid. That's when he lost his heart to Nethicite, lost himself. And I suppose that's when I lost my father.
^Robinson, Douglas Hill (1962). The Zeppelin in Combat: A History of the German Naval Airship Division, 1912-1918. London: G.T. Foulis. pp. 220–21. OCLC1302222.