Fatal error when $TERM is not set

[meithecatte]

I am trying to use pwntools in a SageMath script. This works great interactively, but when I run my script with sage foo.sage, it fails somewhere in terminal code. I have traced this back to sage unsetting $TERM in non-interactive calls due to https://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/12263. Thus, issue can be easily reproduced without SageMath:

~$ docker run -it pwntools/pwntools:stable
pwntools@bce19e99e965:~$ TERM= python -c 'import pwn'
Warning: error: setupterm: could not find terminfo database

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pwn/__init__.py", line 4, in <module>
    from pwn.toplevel import *
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pwn/toplevel.py", line 20, in <module>
    import pwnlib
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pwnlib/__init__.py", line 43, in <module>
    importlib.import_module('.%s' % module, 'pwnlib')
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/importlib/__init__.py", line 37, in import_module
    __import__(name)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pwnlib/args.py", line 62, in <module>
    from pwnlib import term
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pwnlib/term/__init__.py", line 6, in <module>
    from pwnlib.term import completer
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pwnlib/term/completer.py", line 7, in <module>
    from pwnlib.term import readline
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pwnlib/term/readline.py", line 13, in <module>
    from pwnlib.term import text
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pwnlib/term/text.py", line 126, in <module>
    sys.modules[__name__] = Module()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pwnlib/term/text.py", line 49, in __init__
    s = termcap.get(y)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pwnlib/term/unix_termcap.py", line 28, in get
    s = curses.tigetstr(cap)
_curses.error: must call (at least) setupterm() first