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Column: About Skyfishing
The Sky Pirates have developed many different strategies for "skyfishing", a term used to identify the stealing of battleships. In fact, to prevent the Ades Federation - who is the main target of skyfishing - to put in place adequate countermeasures against a specific stealing method, the Sky Pirates continuously develop new strategies. To accomplish that, the gathering of information has become a key factor for effective skyfishing campaigns.
Information is even regarded as one of the most precious trade articles among the sky pirates since it is useful not only for the capture itself, but also to avoid any reactions from the country of the targeted ship, especially for those of the Ades Federation. Sky Pirates gather information not only from each other, but also from vanship pilots, mechanics, and trade merchants from around the world. Moreover, since many Sky Pirates are refugees who left countries that were conquered by the Ades Federation in the past, they have still connections with relatives and friends who remained in their homeland. However, the most precious source of information is represented by soldiers serving under the local fleets.
Incidentally, to steal information from people involved in the fleets is not such a dangerous thing: for example it is easy to know what naval base a particular ship is heading to or get data from the words of a crewmember who speaks ill of his superiors just by listening to the talks in a tavern. When enough information is obtained on a specific target it is possible to figure out its battle strategies, the skill of the crew, how the crew is organized, the relations among the crewmembers and the general status of a battleship. Hence the information collected in this way is analysed and summarized at a Sky Pirates' base, then the results are circulated among the Sky Pirates using the light signals of the observation posts.
Also, the observation posts can be a source of information since they can monitor the traffic (if a certain ship is leaving for a specific destination or if another one is called back to a naval base), moreover it is possible to use written documents from already captured ships, such as official letters or codes, to learn about basic structure, armaments, equipment, crew composition and strategy of battleships that are now at hand for capture, thus building quite a comprehensive database. Data is also updated with basic information coming from shipyards around the world, specifically on new battleships under construction or old ones under reparation.
Although people who are able to memorize everything, like Giselle, are rare, among the Sky Pirates the navi usually memorizes as much data as possible for a hunt but can ask support from the observation posts at any time if needed. So the Sky Pirates, thanks to this data, can constantly improve their skyfishing strategies. Their main strategies are the following:
1: Forgery of orders
2: Neutralization of crews
3: Simulation of accidents
4: Simulated surrender
5: Exploitation of weaknesses
6: Misinformation
7: Simulation of enemy fleets
8: Theft after simulating a fire
9: etc.
