Space Pirates
Space Piracy was thought to have been consigned to the history books by the infamous Dordellis Wars. When Dordellis, a world of idyllic desert islands with few actual resources, opened itself as a tax haven for stolen pirate booty, it triggered one of the bloodiest and most violent conflicts in Galactic History.
Offering up long leaseholds for desert island allotments, the Dordellian government thought it was creating a market opportunity for pirates to visit their world and bury their treasure in secure under-beach vaults accessible only by he who has the right map, code and/or key.
This arrangement worked well at first, but the pirates became so numerous that there wasn't enough beach-front property to go around. Pirate captains started to train as Estate Agents, and a terrible spate of lease-challenges, land-grabs, property frauds and megazumping followed, until one frustrated pirate fleet turned its star-cannons upon another frustrated pirate fleet and the entire industry collapsed into conflict.
Thousands of years later, the former Betelgeusian Trading Scout Captain Yooden Vranx decided to vent his own frustrations with galactic law, turning to space-piracy whilst accompanied by a dazzlingly attractive Tri-D Reporter whose regular broadcasts of his blossoming career captured the hearts and minds of the galaxy.
Within a few short years the galaxy was full of outlaw bands once more, roaming the space lanes in search of rape, pillage, plunder and - above all - a bloody good time.
Vranx, meanwhile, had amassed great treasures and acquired celebrity status, making more money from talkshows than he had ever made from raiding space frigates. Eventually, Vranx was offered a pardon by a desperate Galactic Government, in return for hunting down the very wannabes who had decided to follow in his footsteps. Earning a bounty for each pirate captured, Governor Vranx amassed an even bigger fortune until he could afford to run the biggest election campaign in history, easily dwarfing that of his main rival for the Galactic Presidency, Humma Kavula.
Retiring from his swashbuckling lifestyle to settle down into his Presidential career, Vranx was personally responsible for downgrading piracy, turning it from a capital offence into a mere misdemeanour.
Whilst piracy itself has become a minor crime now dealt with by local byelaws, most pirates have earned their notoriety by avoiding the payment of Capital Transfer Tax on the hoards of loot they have acquired. In their efforts to avoid the attention of the Imperial Galactic Revenue Service, the space pirates have been forced to take increasingly desperate measures. It has become common practice for them to seek out obscure and inhospitable fringe worlds to bury their ill-gotten gains without paying ground rent.
It is interesting to note that the highest casualty rate amongst Tax Inspectors involves a ritual known as "walking the plank", in which the victims are ejected into the cold hard vacuum of space without the aid of a spacesuit.