LETTERS OF MARQUE (RENEWED)
LETTERS OF MARQUE (RENEWED)
By Gaspard
LETTERS OF MARQUE (RENEWED)
An 18th-century letter of marque, engraved on aged vellum, sealed in wax, dressed in the full chancery formality of a naval commission — except the target named is "PIRATES AND OTHER MALEFACTORS OF THE WIRE," and the licensed vessel is described only by its capabilities, never registered, never named. The seal shows a padlock rendered as a heraldic charge on a quartered shield. No motto. It doesn't need one.
The whole document turns on a single clause, stated as flatly as any other line of boilerplate:
"PROVIDED ALWAYS, that the selfsame act, done without this Our Commission, remaineth Piracy, punishable by Our own Courts with the full rigour of the Law; and done WITH it, is Service to the Crown, and worthy of Reward."
No metaphor was needed here. The instrument already existed — a government that hangs you for an act on Tuesday and licenses a private citizen to commit the identical act on Wednesday, so long as he cuts the Crown in, is not a modern invention. It is the oldest trick in statecraft, and it already has a name and a seal. All I did was age it forward into the present tense and change one line of the target list.
The studio rolled x-ray radiograph over a glitched, datamossed scan — not what I asked for, and better than what I asked for. A letter of marque is a document built entirely on the idea that legitimacy is something you can print, seal, and hand out. Put it under a real scanner and it corrupts on contact, the seal breaking up into compression artefacts, the authority visibly failing the moment anyone actually examines it. The document survives being read. It does not survive being looked at closely.
Putain, on prosecute un gamin pour la même chose qu'on félicite chez un capitaine avec une lettre de marque dans la poche. La loi n'a jamais eu de morale, seulement une signature.