I was playing Starfield and if you join the Crimson Fleet, (SPOILERS ahead for Starfield), at the end, there's a massive space battle between the Crimson Fleet and the UC (the galactic Government). To me, that was perhaps one of the best space battles in fiction, the banter between the pirates is great (I never joined the UC so I don't know about their side), the stakes are high for both sides and you chose who to join.

This had me thinking about how wasted the pirates in Star Wars are. You had a few important ones and most of them are Jedi/Republic lackeys, Hondo does whatever he is told by the Jedi, Maz Kanata (apparently she's called a "pirate queen") even safeguards lightsabers as a favor to the Jedi, and Gorian, introduced in The Mandalorian, is just pathetic, easily defeated despite being called a "pirate king".

Anyway, imagine if Star Wars had a Pirate Nation, not working for the Republic nor The Empire yet powerful enough for the Empire and Republic to avoid them. Sure, we got the Nihil from the High Republic era but I was reading about them and there is not one interesting character in their whole group, compare that to the Crimson Fleet in Starfield, whose characters are so great that it makes you want to side with them despite knowing they are the "bad guys" and you know Disney lack decent writers.

Anyway, just a bit of a rant after playing a space game made me see... again, how much wasted potential Star Wars has. What do you think about the pirates in Star Wars? do you like them? are they interesting to you?