The Golden Age of inter-stellar travel has brought great riches and wondrous discoveries into the world, but at a price. The lure of plunder has reduced many former upstanding citizens to petty thievery and piracy. Strong freighter escort in the outer region has saved many from pirate ambushes, yet more and more fall pray to these dregs of society every month.
As new, advanced equipment enters the market it is only to be expected for this trend to continue in the foreseeable future, as CONCORD seems incapable of mounting strong enough resistance to these pests feeding on the hard work of others. Fortunately, the low moral fiber of the pirates keep them constantly at odds with each other in their petty territorial squabbles. One can only hope they do us all a great big favor in the near future and annihilate each other completely, leaving the rest of us to conduct our business in peace.