Outlaws are common topics of popular fiction. Pictured is a (rather fanciful) telling of the life of Gene Starwind, one of many famous outlaws.

Saint and sinner. Hero and villain. Space cowboy and rustler. Knight-errant and mercenary. Smuggler and liberator.

If there is anything that might be said to epitomize the Violanian culture, it is the outlaw. Though often viewed as heroic figures within the Voluntarist Lands, strictly speaking an outlaw is one who rejects the legitimacy of all laws besides the Void Law and acts to flaunt them. This can be as heroic as an outlaw freeing slaves from tyrannical nations and bringing them to freedom or as villainous as a sleazy drug-lord taking advantage of Violan's lack of drug laws to sell dangerous drugs on the black markets of other civilizations--or anywhere in-between. Their ethos is that of their own liberty and their only orders by their own dreams. Needless to say, they are interminable nuisances to just about every other star civilization with any degree of authoritarianism and have been the cause of more than one attempted (and foiled) invasion of Violanian space. After all, while a pirate will find no more sanctuary within Violan than he will elsewhere, an outlaw is free to cause his mischief and return to Violan in safety. Indeed, he is often seen as a culture hero and someone to be admired.

Worth particular note is the bond many outlaws share with AI due to the peculiarities of Violanian spacefaring technology (discussed later). Any nation that has strict AI laws is bound to see much activity from outlaws, who will act as smugglers and protectors for what they view as "kin" to their own AI comrades. This tendency was what sparked the most recent attempted incursion by outsiders into Violanian territory: the Drukos War or, more colloquially, Anne Kathaway's War.

A thousand other legends and battles stem from these figures, many of whom have passed into cultural legend. The average Violanian consumes their exploits with glee, glad that foreign "kings" (for all politicians are labeled "kings" by Violanians--a relic of their republican days) are made to feel the bite of a free man. There is, needless to say, no shortage of movies, books, games, etc. based on them as well. Though an outsider might meet a thousand Violanians and never see an outlaw in his life, he will likely always associate them with their rebellious adventurers.