This Quest is now closed!

Thanks to all who participated! I've handed out some trinkets according to my own capricious whims, and I've removed the various protections from the quest writeups, which will truly have to sink or swim on their own merits from now on. Writeups which regrettably did not survive beyond the one month of the quest have been stricken through, but all other writeups will live on for now, although there is of course always a chance some of them may be deleted in the future.



Piracy Quest 2007

A Quest for Inspired Lunacy


if this was apparently a den of buccaneers when first sailed into, whatever would possess visitors to stay among these odious beings, getting them to shave their moustaches, gag their foul-mouthed parrots and learn to speak corporatese? Reforming a pirate is tantamount to executing one: either way, the world contains one less pirate. One runs the risk of finding, once the fraction who ultimately remains has been fully converted into lawyers and chartered accountants, that what remains is on a somewhat more mundane scale than grand adventure on the high seas.

- from Pseudo_Intellectual's homenode


A few years back, longtime noder Pseudo_Intellectual posted the eloquent paen to E2's early days quoted above on his homenode, in which he put forth the idea of a fundamental dichotomy on E2 between the "pirates," who noded whacky stuff just for fun, and the "accountants," who noded more serious writings. In a recent daylog, panamaus revived this language when he wondered whether it might be possible to create a duplicate copy of E2, where "Pirates and ninjas and trolls could sail the high seas of E2 just as they did years ago, and maybe - just maybe, the magic could happen all over again."

Although nostalgia is a powerful emotion that often blots out some parts of the past that may not have been all that awesome, P_I and panamaus are not the only noders who have expressed concern that not enough "piracy" is occurring on E2. I am convinced that E2 always was and still is big enough for both pirate coves and accountancy office parks. However, I do think that sometimes people find themselves drawn by the allure of the free coffee and air conditioning of the shiny office parks, and don't always notice our misty, mysterious Pirate Cove. So what we need to do is make sure we make a bit more effort to point people the way to the cove and dredge it occasionally so that even the largest pirate ships can still stop by from time to time.

We have a lot of quests here on E2, but most of them are aimed at the accountants. We need more quests aimed at the pirates, and this is one of them.

Here's the deal: I want you to post wildly creative, unabashedly experimental, delightfully zany writeups, on any topic, of any length, and in return, I will make sure that no quest writeups will be deleted for at least one whole month! Noders will have a chance to read and vote on your work for a full month before editors can take any action, and even after that point I wouldn't be surprised if we end up letting many of the writeups stay. Basically, I am pretty much asking you to go nuts and post writeups that you wouldn't normally ever post because you would be worried that they would be deleted. The point is to get people noding more experimental writings, to have some fun by pushing the boundaries of normal E2 "conventions," and to see just how far we can go on E2.

Here's how it will work. As long as you put a note at the bottom of your node saying "Piracy Quest 2007," it will not be deleted until at least May 1, 2007, no matter how "bad" it might be (although we will allow ourselves a teeny-tiny bit of wiggle room to delete a writeup that is extremely, extremely offensive, I don't anticipate invoking this exception). Let your imagination run wild! At the end of the quest, I will award various amounts of booty and ancient Aztec gold to the writeups I think are the best or find most amusing.

A few other notes...

  • Please message me with the name of your writeup, so I can add it to this node, and also keep an eye on it and protect it from any chance of accidental deletion
  • If an editor accidently deletes your writeup, please come directly to me with a private message, and I will straighten things out posthaste.
  • Writeups submitted as part of this quest should not be posted "hidden." Real pirates always run up the jolly roger when they close in on their prey, and the point is to experiment and get your writing out there, not to try to sneak crap past people!
  • Likewise, daylogs are not eligible for the quest, as daylogs are already a safe space protected from deletion.
  • The purpose of this quest is to encourage *new* experimental writeups, not to repost previously deleted writeups, and especially not to repost prevously deleted writeups originally written by other people.
  • Please don't waste our time by attaching the "Piracy Quest 2007" label to perfectly ordinary writeups that have zero chance of ever being deleted. The point of this quest is to encourage truly experimental writing and not just to create a safety device to put on all your writeups.

That's it! Now adjust your eyepatch, strap on your peg leg, and set sail!


Quest Entries:

(newest on top)

  1. This node should be filled with bees! by JellyfishGreen
  2. what are you doing? by artman2003
  3. Angela Carter by scunner
  4. Words spoken in the throes of passion by Hosiah
  5. disappointment by Ereneta
  6. bibliophile by Milk
  7. Nightmare world by Mnky
  8. What the fuck is this shit? by bbot
  9. Bearded Lady by bearded lady
  10. man in the sky by badme
  11. Zeeland, Michigan by vandewal
  12. What will happen after humans are extinct? by Hosiah
  13. The E2 Manifesto by the.web.hermit
  14. Why girlfriends get annoyed when they remember things you don't by GentlemanJim
  15. Random Rants by waverider37
  16. The Clarence Atrocity by dwardu
  17. Mr. Peanut by Junkill
  18. The Three Men I Admired Most: Manhattan, 9/11/01 by amnesiac
  19. Why I want to have children by DonJaime
  20. Upvote Girl by kerawall
  21. My favourite E2 by altaccounts
  22. Just a Minute by Andrew Aguecheek
  23. The O'Reilly Factor by borgo
  24. CONDIPUSSY! by artman2003
  25. gato purpura sopa calcetin burrito by Ancientsnow
  26. pissy wissy by UncleM
  27. The Perfect Sandwich by ReiToei
  28. Keep These E2 Titles The Same by amib
  29. God ain't nothin' but a number! by TyroJ
  30. THE LOUD NOSE by Rapscallion
  31. this goddamned microwaved popcorn by prole
  32. In a dream I had, I was on an island in the middle of the ocean. by Tlachtga
  33. Butterfinger McFlurry by Redalien
  34. the poetry node by amib
  35. Arrr, I `ave a dreamlog, me harties by Apollyon
  36. semantic saturation by redbaker
  37. Subverting the US Postal Service by telbij
  38. letters from a young contrarian by oakling
  39. E2 egged me on by kohlcass
  40. The last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat by LaggedyAnne
  41. The Return of Team Jet-Poop by passport
  42. Linux would be dead without Windows by Hosiah
  43. Read or Die by BookReader
  44. Internet kisses are merely clicks and hisses by sirspens
  45. Team Jet-Poop ate my balls by passport
  46. Norah Jones by passport
  47. Dreams of Falconry by momomom
  48. This is a node that was solely created to fill the PQ criteria. Klaproth Ahoy!, by Heisenberg
  49. Pidgey is the best Pokemon by badme
  50. This Writeup Is Utter Wank Created Just For Pirate Quest by XWiz
  51. anoraknophobia by wertperch
  52. Look, look! I can write inane bullshit too! by the.web.hermit
  53. Living the dream by borgo
  54. sexretary by montecarlo
  55. They follow holidays, even though they know no vacations by Ancientsnow
  56. Jesus was a one Beer Queer by dichotomyboi
  57. Sexual identity crisis by bol
  58. Maybe the Amish are just retired time travelers by Hosiah
  59. Swashbuckling hijinks by Hazelnut
  60. The Voyage of the Roofer Boonhurst by BookReader
  61. BrevityQuest 2007 by sam512
  62. Daedalean lyricist by SharQ
  63. A bee hiding up in that flower by witchiepoo
  64. times when i have said: i wanted to write by eien_meru
  65. The Ultimate Zen Node by Roninspoon
  66. Hemophilia (ya feel ya ya feel ya) by animals
  67. Piracy Quest 2007 by SharQ

Piracy Quest 2007 part 2

What Mauler forgot to add to the write-up above, of course, is that we also encourage other forms of piracy for this quest.

Music piracy

The great thing is that the word 'Piracy' invokes a long series of crimes these days. For one thing, you could try pirating music. There are a series of ways you could try this, but programmes like Limewire make the task a lot easier. For newer albums, you could try Usenet, as the binary groups on there hold vast amounts of illegal music downloads. Please post a list of all the tracks you've illegally downloaded in a daylog on May 1st. For every music track downloaded, you will get 1XP.

Movie piracy

The next popular pirating topic is movies. As discussed in Netflix and the hacked DVD player, having a Netflix (or an UK equivalent, like LoveFilm) gives you a steady stream of movies to your doorstep. The trick lies in not actually watching the movies, but copying them. If you are bothered about quality, do a DVD-to-DVD copy (there are plenty of guides for that out on the internet), or if you are particularly hardcore, just rip them, re-encode them (DivX / XviD or H.284 are all great for this). Same as with the music piracy, post a list of the movies you've pirated in a daylog, and you'll get 3 XP per movie copied.

Actual piracy

The final branch of the quest is actual piracy. I know what you're saying, 'but the above two versions harms nobody! How can we be expected to go further than that?'. I guess a whole industry of intellectual property lawyers would argue differently, and that music and movie piracy does harm someone, somewhere. Having established that means everyone who is prepared to break IP law should probably be flexible enough to have a go at real piracy.

Real piracy is very different from how you've probably read about it in books. There's no more swashbuckling, eye patches, peg legs and parrots. In fact, piracy is a brutal and rather lucrative niche of crime. You'd be surprised how easy it is to hijack a freight lorry or a ship in transit. The former can be done by hanging out at a service station, shoving a gun in the face of the lorry driver, tell him to get in the back, and just drive off. Drive to a secluded spot where your friends are waiting, unload all the valuable items transported on the lorry into a waiting van, tie up the lorry driver (or just shoot him), and off you go. Sea shanties would be optional, at this point.

Pirating a ship is a little bit more involved, but a reasonable quick vessel (perhaps of the type that is often referred to as a 'speed boat', or a quick sea-doo does the trick) gets you quite far. Transport ships are lucrative catches, as they often transport a mixed load of high-value items. Cars, motorbikes, consumer electronics, all items that can easily be sold at a high price. However, the shipping industry has grown wise of this, and you might wish to start a little easier. In most harbors around the world, you find luxury yachts. Apart from being worth quite a bit of money on themselves, they are usually kitted out with all the newest technology: sonars, radars, lidars, televisions, along with expensive art and bars filled with expensive booze. Wait for the owners to start the vessel and start moving, then board them. Be aware that they may have means to protect themselves, so looking extremely menacing is the key here. Submachineguns - especially AK-47s - may come in handy.

For every lorry highjacked, you get 20 XP, and for every ship plundered, 50. Post the results and links to the news stories confirming the boardings in a daylog on May 1st, and we'll give you the XP you deserve!

Violent XP rewards

If you, in your course of your pirating, dismember anybody, or perhaps even kill them, /msg me privately. Extra XP will be awarded on a flowing scale of brutality (30 xp for taking out someone's eye, up to 1,000 XP for a particularly gruesome keelhauling), but I fully understand if you don't wish to post incriminating evidence on a public website. Then again, if you really were a pirate, that wouldn't bother you.

Message SharQ about any questions about this part of the quest. Deadline is on the last day of April, 2007.

Quest entries:

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