The council of Reddit convened on Oct. 10, and it has been decided that a certain Crimson Fleet Member is everybody’s collective absolute least favorite NPC in Starfield.
No Bethesda game would be complete without a character that everybody immediately murders in every playthrough, but the criteria for becoming that NPC is tricky and needs a perfect balance of being annoying without being a villain. One Redditor made a post yesterday with their personal pick, and other fans flocked to the comment section to support the notion.
In Skyrim, it was Nazeem, a citizen of Whiterun who makes a pretentious little comment to the Dragonborn upon first meeting. In Oblivion, it was the Adoring Fan, who was…the Adoring Fan. If you don’t know what we mean by that, consider yourself lucky.
Despite the Adoring Fan being in Starfield, he is not the Chosen One who receives all the hatred from players. That would be too obvious. Instead, it is a Crimson Fleet Pirate onboard the key who commits the cardinal sin of Bethesda NPCs: making a pretty annoying, rude comment.
In the post from u/Fit_Flow, they asked if anybody else was sick to death of hearing, “Wanna start something? Cause I’ll finish it.” Every single time they dock their ship and enter The Key, the base of the Crimson Fleet in Starfield.
We immediately knew what the Redditor was talking about—there is an unnamed Crimson Fleet member who hits the Captain with this question every single time you dock at The Key. We recall having an, “Excuse me, WHAT?” moment the first time we heard it, and by the time we were returning to The Key after quite literally saving the Crimson Fleet and ensuring them decades of financial freedom, that was one time too many. I’ve just made the biggest contribution to the Crimson Fleet in Crimson Fleet history, and THAT is really the first thing you have to say to me.
As you can see, we feel strongly about this NPC—but we’re not alone. Judging by the comments on the Reddit post, people have just been waiting for a platform to vent their frustration with this pirate among like minds.
One commenter shared their method for secretly murdering the pirate without being caught, while another shared a story about how one time the pirate happened to be walking toward them when the line was spoken, causing the player to get their hopes up and think that they’d finally get to kill this pirate in self-defense.
In the post, OP included a photo of their character smugly standing over the body of the pirate with the caption, “I finished it.” This perhaps could be the first occurrence of a pirate killing trend, where players come up with increasingly creative ways to kill this Crimson Fleet Pirate. That may sound like a ridiculous assumption, but over a decade after Skyrim’s release, people are still finding new ways to kill Nazeem.
