How To: World Domination for Pirates

Congratulations on your interest in world domination! You are reading a thoroughly exhaustive manual on the art of total global control. This particular guide is for the unruly and unlawful pirates of the world.

Before you read any further, it’s best to determine what kind of pirate you are. Do you identify with the Tom Hanks’ movie “Captain Phillips” or have you ever used automatic weapons to hijack cargo ships? If so, then this guide is not for you. This guide is for the pegleg, swash-buckling and skull & crossbones waving variety pirates. A dangerous endeavour for any thrill seeker, but one that could acquire the skills for potential world domination.

The first major issue with piracy and taking over the world is simple: Geography. Sure, you can sail ⅔ of the planet and bring terror to the shores of lands, but how does a pirate gain the advantage on the dirt of his foes? Simple. You don’t. You need to lure those inner “land folk” to the shore, where you can lay waste to them with cannonballs. Your best bet for getting people out of their homes and onto the beach is even simpler, and it’s something you have been doing for hundreds of years: Treasure maps.

With a handheld guide to buried treasure, containing gold and other infinite wealth, you’ll find millions of luxury seekers flocking to the shores, where stacks of people can be annihilated with a single cannonball. Please note: You will not have unlimited cannonballs and you will need to do a little preparation before these people arrive to die. Using the same principal as a modern bowling alley, with some ingenuity and sweat, you can build massive ball returns on the beaches. Lead your foes there and fire away! These people will be ignoring the booming of cannons, since they will have their metal detector headphones in and will just be staring at the ground.

Additional note: If you cannot afford to build a giant cannonball return on several beaches around the world, a simple solution would be bears or lions. Release them on the beach for the same effect.

Third note: Choose bears OR lions. Bears AND lions will be counter productive and you will find yourself needing more bears or lions.

Fourth note: Handling wild animals may not be your cup of tea. Simple explosives in the treasure chests should work. If you notice that not enough people are perishing, just increase the amount of explosives. You can do it!

You will notice after a couple weeks of leading people to certain doom on your death beaches, that they will become distrustful of your treasure maps. This is to be expected! The news outlets will start reporting that your treasure maps aren’t real, and if they head out to the sands, they’ll lose their head to an aggressive cannonball. The solution is simple, but requires some faith on your end.

You will need to take some of your gold, place it in various treasure chests and bury it. Follow that up by printing up some more treasure maps, showing where that treasure is buried. Now before you get upset and throw this book overboard, let me tell you this: That gold will be yours again. Your natural instinct will be to set out a sentry to watch that burial plot for you, and ram a sword through his heart when he pulls that chest out of the Earth. That will be a mistake. The necessity of this plan relies on your mark taking the gold home and telling all his friends, family, coworkers and strangers on Twitter about the treasure map that actually had gold on it, and not death by cannonballs that the media has been reporting. It will spark a newfound hysteria for your fake treasure maps, leading people to their inevitable doom on cannonball beaches.

There will be an issue in the world population to number of cannonballs you have ratio, where you will not be able to do enough damage in your lifetime to make a dent in persuading the world’s leaders to listen to you. There is a certain level to murder that turns the act from law enforcement hunting you down (typically 1-1000 murders) to a level where the world takes notice (typically 10,000 or more). If you can knock down a million beach goers, the rest of the planet will tremble at just the mention of your name.

Some additional ideas to consider:

• Invest in some high quality motors for your ships. The wind can be unreliable and you will find that outracing modern day torpedos to be extremely difficult.

• Any extra gold or cash that you have lying around should be invested in a factory that manufactures cannonballs.

• Teach your parrots to lie. Spies that infiltrate your home base may hear your parrot repeating things that you have previously said. For example, “Squawk! The combination to my safe is 23-47-16! Squawk!” This would be a disaster for a spy to hear. What you should do is create a trap, like a closet that has a big mallet that swings down when the door opens. Then teach your parrot to say, “Squawk! There’s a button that disables the entire pirate technical infrastructure in the closet! Squawk!”

• Children are the future of maintaining your hold on the planet and there is one simple thing you can do to insure that they respect you as they grow up in a world of piracy: Be nice to them at parades.

• If you have to wear an eyepatch, that is the perfect place to keep something of extraordinary value. For example, if you have acquired a large diamond, shove that thing in your eye hole and cover it with the patch. Not only will you have it with you at all times, but nobody ever looks behind an eyepatch.

• Challenge nation leaders to a duel, where, if you win, you get to run their country. The moment he turns around, stab him in the back with your sword. This is normal pirate behavior and the people of that country will respect that.

• Add spikes to your peg leg. There’s no advantage to this, I just think it would look cool. If you do decide to do this, don’t put spikes on your inside peg leg. Constantly stabbing yourself in the side of the other leg would be awful.

 

You are now an informed pirate! Don’t share this wealth of knowledge with other pirates, that will make things more difficult for you in the future.

As the author of these guides, I ask if you do take the steps towards world domination, that you give me, my family and friends, a pass on any sort of torture or humiliation that may occur during your reign. All I want is a nice house and a plot of land. Maybe a pool with a water slide. Feel free to put my family and friends in some nice condos though, that’s fine with me.