Ninjas are Better than Pirates

"As will I, and i will assume we are talking about ancient ninjas and colonial pirates (and privateers) of 1300-~1900s." Yep "1. Disagree, First what skill may be to a ninja may not be useful to a pirate on a ship, and vice versa. Espionage skills are completely useless in the pirate setting on the high seas. The skill of a pirate is really indeterminable until you face one. That pirate could of been a former military officer and a trained fencer. What seems what you are doing is pitting a Master Ninja versus some slob out of a bar, which seems unfair." Some pirates are trained and some aren't, but ALL ninjas are trained. True, they're trained to do different things, but all ninjas will be skilled in what they do, except maybe a few exceptions who would be dead pretty quick. A man with no skill or training besides natural strength can be a pirate. The majority of pirates were just thugs who were stronger and more violent then everyone else. Even if some of them were skilled, I'll say again that all ninjas were skilled. "Yet, I dont understand how being moral makes ninjas better than pirates." It makes them better in the same way any of these points do; they're just ways society sometimes measures what's better- in this case morality. "2. Using the same method as you there was a number of bar brawling,brain damaged pirates (due to heavy alcohol use probably) but there was professional pirates. These also called privateers, they worked for not a mere clan or nobleman but they worked for empires of England, France, Spain and others through letters of Marque. Sir Francis Drake for Elizabeth I." True. However, as a collective group I would still argue that ninjas were more moral than pirates. Pirates who were not privateers would cause a lot of useless destruction; they would ravage ports and towns sometimes; killing, stealing, and raping. There were very few ships where prisoners were treated kindly, if they took prisoners at all instead of just killing them. Ninjas on the other hand would only hurt their intended target; any collateral damage was purely collateral and not the result of a desire to kill and pillage further. Of course there are exceptions and special cases on both sides, but this was the general rule, so as a group ninjas were more ethical than pirates. "3.Major disagreement here, Ninjas may beable to sneak around but sneaking aboard a ship is extremely hard." They wouldn't necessarily have to be aboard the ship to kill them "So how about the night strike at port? Well this is probably the only chance the ninja has got a chance and a little one at that because the pirate I would use someone like Robert Morris (millionaire American privateer/pirate) his crew would be well paid (and loyal) and well armed and skilled." A samurai or daimyo isn't just as hard? They are noblemen who are not only skilled in their own right, but also have very loyal followers, and perhaps even their own army, all of whom could certainly match a pirate crew at the very least. These are the people ninjas are trained to kill; taking out a pirate captain at port wouldn't be much different than anything else. "Throwing ninja stars is great but they are quite hard to kill with and very inaccurate; daggers may be the only hope for ranged other than arrows. For throwing daggers or stars a blunderbuss and pistols would easily match them. For bows we have rifles as the equal and little skill needed to operate. Remember also Pirates are trained to kill to and receive lots of hands on training. As for hand to hand/ sword combat many pirates were skilled fencers/swordsman, they would be matches for even the best samurai which were considered much better in sword combat than ninjas." Two points to address here: A) Stars and daggers aren't the only weapons ninjas use. They are trained to use poisons, or even explosives (primitive as those explosives would be...). Being assassins they know a million ways to kill, since throwing a dagger or shooting an arrow isn't always the best way to go about it. And even if the pirate is of the same skill as a samurai, I'll say again that ninjas are trained to assassinate samurai (among others), it's nothing that's above what they normally do. B) You seem to be imagining a ninja rushing in and shouting "I'm going to kill you!" A pistol is a good weapon, but a ninja plans to already have killed, incapacitated, or left their victim before he or she has time to draw a gun. And if a ninja was ever confronted, they would most likely escape before an actual fight could commence, and then go back and finish the job the later. It's sneaky, but it's not cheap; neither the pirate nor the ninja probably has a good reason for killing the other and so the assassin method isn't a low blow; it's just a method. My point isn't that a pirate couldn't kill a ninja, only that a ninja would have an easier time killing a pirate then vice-versa. Ninjas are more skilled than pirates, they are more moral than pirates, and they could kill a pirate easily; therefore they are better.