Once upon a time, there was a player who after building for years, first for efficiency, then for beauty, then for combining the two, he left the server he was on everyday. For reasons I do not personally know. He decided to make his own server.
Because his ships were pure art, because Isanths are actually cringe and because he wanted to show off a bit, he let the Pirates use his smallest blueprints and deleted the Isanths completely. Server owner also let the gate opened for others to do the same. So default setting for the blueprints made on his server was that pirates and trade guild could use them too. After all, the bigger a BP is, the smaller are the chances it will be spawned. They're never 0, but it happens so rarely for a big ship to be chosen...
The first player other than the server owner was a guy who loved to build beautiful ships. He actually joined because he admired the owner's style and ideas. So he came on and built from scratch the best replica ship of his ever. Cramming inside all the interiors that were shown in the show he made his replica after. Even the command deck was like in the show. The hull looked exactly the same, as perfect a reproduction as the game allowed. Of course, in a roughly 50x30x17 hull, very little systems or thrust fit between the interiors, but the ship was a beauty.
Because he loved the ship in the show, he took it to battle the damn pirates, just like in the show. And he did not even knew why he died, it was this fast. Then he tried again, with a much improved blueprint. This time the interiors got shrinked and deformed, some moved around, but this ship had shielding. And at least on the outside the second version looked even more impressive, to make up for its less fancy interiors. And as tested in single player, this version would definitely tear Isanths into pieces. This time, he had enough time to see the pirate ships. And they were NOT Isanths. So he lost, but now at least he knew why and how he lost. His third version of a warship was actually a warship. A vague replica of a totally different ship from the show, with no interiors that would make him proud, but a true warship. He added beautification on the outer hull only after redoing the hull 4 times so he can fit in all the systems he wanted.
And this one was a mammoth, with over 100 meters in length, sound and impressive to the point it kind of dwarfed the station it was docked at. But this ship got victory after victory. (It's not only the ship, but the player also learned to pilot better, trained by the custom pirates.) It razed pirate stations, massacred the NPC fleets. It filled the player's soul with joy. Only after about a week or so the player finally saw the pirates spawning one of his own ships and finally understood what is he up against. But he had his pride and ambition, he did not quit. He just made his fourth ship, a better fighting machine than everything he ever built before. And did not save the blueprint.
When the second and the third player joined, they were beginners, but good friends in real and fascinated about the novelty of this game. The first player offered them good advice, told them not to go fight the pirates, told them the strong and weak points of the pirate ships. And also told them to NEVER save a blueprint on this server. But, you know, they understood pretty fast that he is successful and he did not follow his own advice, so they disregarded it. They also built, first a competent mining ship, then together a big scary (but not very efficient) ship together. A ship to end the pirates terror once and for all. Of course they saved the blueprint without actually looking at the settings, because it was their work and none of them was confident enough to not get even a dent in battle. It took them more than a week of victory after victory (and even some PvP victories in the mean time, too!) before they first met their actual juggernaut in a battle. Spawned as a hostile NPC. They barely won. So they finally understood the good advice they received in the beginning. With renewed vigor, they built an even more powerful monster of a ship. Then another one. And this time, they used tons of shielding to avoid dents and did not save their BPs either.
Then the 4th, the 5th player, then the 6th... I will not detail their stories, they're pretty similar. Some ragequitted, some stayed strong, built bigger and prevailed.
After a year or more of this weapon's race going on faster and faster, the 20th player, confident in his ability as a player and a builder, even if he's not the oldest player of them all, built his first base acording to his plan, built his mining ship, met the server's pirates... And then got to post here. "Why can't I even scratch their shields?"