i am sparticus: The Attempt To Become Rich Beyond Their Wildest Dreams

The Attempt To Become Rich Beyond Their Wildest Dreams

HMS The Lord Sunderance was a British frigate that sailed the oceans from April 1490 to June 1512. Mostly its cargo was rum, tobacco, bananas, botanists and drunk soldiers but on the fateful day of 12th June 1512, The Lord Sunderance happened to be carrying large amounts of gold home following a rather fortunate encounter^* with some native South Americans.

The captain's log entry for the 12th June reads as follows "12th June the 1512th year of our lord, headed 12 degrees North North East on fair easterly winds for four hours, estimate travelled 16nm. Turned due east on fair easterly winds for six hours, estimate travelled 48nm". This is because captain's logs are in actual fact quite dull. If captain's logs weren't so dull and had a sense of occasion they might have read something more like this: "Set sail for merry England today with a cargo hold full of gold, we hope to be home before the Autumn festivities and personally I hope to be able to be home for Elizabeth's third birthday. The men are in good spirit with the thought of seeing their wives again and the King's reward for gold. We've been out here far too long and I miss dear Nancy. The navigator has just said that he's seen an odd ship on the horizon directly ahead of us, I suppose I had better go have a look."

Due to a freak weather front combined with the movements of a passing school of whales, the Lord Sunderance was being pulled inexorably into the path of the peculiar ship. As the two ships got closer, the British crew realised that something was wrong with the other ship. For a start, the ship was a completely unfamiliar design but the oddest thing was that the ship seemed to have no crew. If the crew had known that the ship was the attempted ninja ship and that the reason they could not see the other crew was because they were all hiding with their ninja-like skills then they might have been more cautious, but alas.

As the Lord Sunderance got closer there was still no sign of a crew and the British strained ever closer to the edge of the deck, looking for some evidence of life. Then, at the last minute, a sole figure appeared on the bow of the ship, dressed in faded, salt dyed clothes and clutching a bottle of Grog in his hand, the figure turned to face the crew and swaggered. For a minute, no-one said anything, and then, slowly, a snigger spread through the group.

Taking slight umberance at this, the Ninja's killed every person onboard.

To cut a long story short, on finding the vast amounts of gold in the hold of the ship the Ninjas decided honour be damned, they'd much rather get drunk, kill people and spend accumulate hoards of gold. In diagrammatic form:

Attempted Ninja + Grog + Excessive Time at Sea + Gold = Pirate!

Footnotes

* :The story behind this encounter would take some time telling to do it real justice, however for sake of sating curiosity here is a brief synopsis. British land and enter jungle, get significantly lost, stumble across ancient gold-rich civilisation who helpfully point out the path back to the British ships. The British take gold and head back to the sea without any protest. The fortunate part was that a) the British stumbled across and ancient gold-rich civilisation, b) the ancient gold-rich civilisation were friendly and c) the ancient gold-rich civilisation hadn't come across gunpowder yet.

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