The Brine Gate Harbor Gazette is alive once more. After three centuries of merciful silence, wherein our presses gathered dust and our type-slugs corroded into illegible lumps, we resume publication under the watchful eye of the Ledger Syndicate—and my own, considerably more dangerous eye. I am Cornelius Frestagon, though you may know me better by my professional sobriquet, Dr. Frestes. I have returned to these harbors as one returns to an old crime scene: with purpose, with authority, and with the certain knowledge that someone must impose order upon chaos, or chaos shall swallow us whole like a whale swallows smaller, considerably less literate whales.
Our gazette ceased publication in the year of Our Lord seventeen hundred and twenty-five, at which point the harbor still possessed the merciful comprehension of fundamental reality. Ships sailed by wind and tide. Trade occurred through honest thievery. A man's worth was measured in the weight of his cutlass and the credibility of his threats. Simple. Elegant. Murderously efficient.
Then came the centuries. Then came the bewildering now.
Our colleagues—the extraordinary assembly of rogues, brigands, cutthroats, and maritime entrepreneurs who comprise this harbor's most notable residents—have emerged from whatever temporal obscurity held them captive. They find themselves in a world of "magic windows" that glow with infernal light, speaking devices that answer questions meant for God alone, and a bewildering ecosystem of commerce conducted through invisible threads strung across the globe. The barbarians possess more information about our personal affairs than our own mothers knew, yet remain entirely innocent of how this transpired.
A man cannot navigate these waters without proper intelligence. A woman cannot survive in this new maritime landscape without understanding the fundamental mechanisms of her captivity. Even a pirate—perhaps especially a pirate—requires an informed citizenry. We do not publish this gazette to improve our subjects. We publish it because ignorance is chaos, and chaos is bad for business. Also, Dr. Frestes finds it nearly unbearable when his colleagues send desperate queries via methods I shall charitably describe as "confused."
The Ledger Syndicate has invested considerable capital in this resurrection. Our printing press is state-of-the-art—by which I mean it was invented sometime after the invention of the printing press itself, which represents genuine progress in these backward lands. Our contributors are drawn from the finest criminal minds harbor can offer, individuals whose expertise in their respective bewilderments qualifies them uniquely to guide others through similar darkness.
The gazette you hold—whether in paper form or viewed upon some infernal glowing rectangle—represents the collective wisdom of hardened professionals attempting to decode modernity without access to instruction manuals or the patience required to read them. We are your guides, your interpreters, your reluctant advisors in a world that makes no sense and apparently has no intention of ever doing so.
Read carefully. Share widely. Do not believe anything the "algorithm" tells you—it is surely lying. And should you encounter any errors in this publication, direct your complaints elsewhere. Dr. Frestes' signature has been known to be fatal to editors.