I forgot the implications about space pirates in Strongest Spaceship. I think MC speculated that they have homebases where abducted citizens are bred and cloned in deep frontier space, and that some nobles as well as rogue kingdoms have a hand in supplying them. Also frontier pirates are far more organized and powerful than ones you find in Empire heartland. I think on several occasions Hiro blasted fancy ships escaping from pirate bases to smithereens, never bothering to answer their hails or confirm their allegiance.

Could pirates at least partially be proxy force reared by neighboring nations or undiscovered rogue kingdoms? From history of Earth, "privateering" was extensively used to get advantage over competing colonial empires.