Banking the Break

[kilmore]

You are a free trader with over fifteen years left on your ship's mortgage. Unfortunately, you've been getting the butt end of the stick when it comes to trade in the Spinward Marches. You've busted your ass trying to make an honest credit, but for the last seven months, you've only been able to send 50K out of the 100K credits that you owe the bank each month. You've been rushing along off the beaten path trying to avoid paying the piper, but one fine day in startown on Heroni a business dressed man with a large briefcase approaches your table and identifies himself as Agent Krueger of the First Imperial Bank of Mora and he is here to discuss the state of your mortgage.

He immediately explains that he is not trying to take the ship back; "We already have twelve ships just like yours rotting in a parking orbit, putting another up there isn't going to turn any red ink black." He wants to keep the ship operating, but he is going to have to review the captain's logbook and account ledger. The agent having legal authority to repossess the ship, the captain has little choice but to comply.

After asking a few sharp questions about some investments that failed, the agent agrees that times have been tough and commends the captain for dealing as fair as circumstances have allowed. Then he offers the captain a deal.

1.) Bring the ship in to Mora and have that overdue maintenance taken care of... on the bank.

2.) Several operational changes will be necessary, like either making that gunner start helping with the passengers or firing him.

3.) The ship will be running jobs for the bank for the next 12 months.

4.) The crew will keep all incidental profits, and the bank will forgo payment for those 12 months as well as forgive the past due.

5.) One stateroom will be available for bank agents at all times, free of charge.

What are the jobs that the captain and crew have to take?

The first thing that comes to mind is looking for other defaulting / skipping ships and at least reporting their whereabouts and doings, but this is distasteful work for a free trader. But the bank has other investments other than in free traders. The bank loans to planets, schools, nobles, it even loans to subsectors. These investments require travel and cargo room, and sometimes they require adventure.

 

[dean]

Nice seed! Thanks for sharing.

 

[kilmore]

Some ideas:

1.) Transporting ten billion hard credits to Hexos along with security guards and bank agents double stacked in every stateroom, with a Gazelle keeping 1000 yards off of the trader's 6 at all times.

2.) Baiting a corsair that has been preying on the bank's investments (traders), hoping that Gazelle that never left your ass last month shows up now.

3.) For NPC ships, transporting the posse of PC's whom the bank has made arrangements with for services rendered to a backwater world.

4.) Bringing a branch office module to the asteroid system of Gitosi, arriving after a collision smashes two big asteroids into a gravelstorm.

 

[Spinward Scout]

What are the jobs that the captain and crew have to take?

The first thing that comes to mind is looking for other defaulting / skipping ships and at least reporting their whereabouts and doings, but this is distasteful work for a free trader. But the bank has other investments other than in free traders. The bank loans to planets, schools, nobles, it even loans to subsectors. These investments require travel and cargo room, and sometimes they require adventure.

That's a great idea! The bank wouldn't want them to default on the loan unless the bank had an easy way to auction off the ship and recover some losses.

Here's a couple:

Delivering repossessed or recovered (from being stolen) cargo

Government subsidy shipping - agriculture or tech shipments to colonies

 

[shield]

don't forget shipping bankers around on their expensive junkets

 

[Rigel Stardin]

1. It's not the bank agent but an underworld connection who has bought the loan from the bank and is now going to use your ship to launder ill gotten gains...
2. Same as above but it is Megacorporation agent who is using your ship for some shady dealing with the underworld.
3. If you accept the overhaul at Mora, a Government agency plants recording devices in the ship for use in a sting operation.
4. It's all a con job....

 

[kilmore]

3. If you accept the overhaul at Mora, a Government agency plants recording devices in the ship for use in a sting operation.

Even going with the bank route, you should suspect the bank of putting recorders and bugs throughout the ship. The bank can hang a lampshade on it by making it a big honkin' obvious recorder painted orange on the bridge with a clause in the contract that prohibits the crew from intentionally damaging "upgrades" made during the overhaul.

 

[Andrew M]

1. The ship gets used as a breakable toy, to train up young executives. The party are lumbered with a succession of ambitious, inexperienced but not necesssarily stupid owner's aboard. Each of them uses the opportunity to show what they can do.

2. The investors have long term plans to set up their own fledgeling line to take over a number of free-trader routes. They have been active in undercutting the free-traders locally, which is why the PCs' own ship got into difficulty in the first place. Now the players find they are being used to do this to other free-traders.

 

[rancke]

The banker is actually trying very hard to avoid repossessing the ship, since that would reveal to his bosses that he has made a multi-million credit loan to someone with no collateral and the business plan "I'm going to jump around and see if I can pick up enough bits and pieces the regular freighters missed to keep in the black".


Hans

 

[FreeTrav]

Please send a copy of this (for reference) and your real name (for credit) to Freelance Traveller at editor@freelancetraveller.com - this will be a great item for 'Getting Off The Ground'...

 

[samuelvss]

1. The ship and crew are used to not only spot skipping ships, but to act as a covert platform and agents to facilitate the repo.

2. Repo'd ships are then sold "cheap," and the players can be given a chance to buy in or use their own ship sale to "refinance" their outstanding ship balance over 40 years.

3. As 2, but the original owner bears a blood grudge over the loss of his somewhat tarnished dream to turncoat freetraders, and will use every opportunity to track them down. Being without assets, this ends up as a many month hopscotch of worrking passages for the no-longer-owner to catch up with the characters and their "bargain."

 

[shield]

As the ship has no obvious connections to the bank besides the morgage, the bank uses them for covert transfers of important clients that may be watched by competitors, transfer of sensitive documents etc.

They might also be used to transfer strike breaking teams and management teams going in to make extensive redundancies. Planetary govts or unions may be watching scheduled flights etc.

 

[Enoki]

It doesn't matter who this pos $h1+bag thinks he is he picked the wrong system and planet to ask in.....

Heroni has a nasty atmosphere and no water. The local "government," such as it is, is a third tier mining corporation of no particular note that is more interested in getting ore out of the ground than anything else.
The law pretty much only protects the mining interests and will pick up a body without too many questions in any other situation. Conditions are backwards, medieval might be a better term. If you don't owe the mining corporation money or work for them then they have no interest in you or what you do so long as it doesn't effect them.....

I'd shoot the sob center mass until the gun was empty or he stopped twitching. I'd expect any crew with me to join in for a show of solidarity. [for a description I'd use the Last Chance Bar on Arizona 287 twenty years ago as the example. (Yes, I've really been in this place... in daylight...) There's a drunk lying in the parking lot. Inside there are obvious signs of gunfire including holes in the ceiling. The building looks more like a bunker or styofoam ice chest with a door than anything else. The customer base is mostly a pretty rough (native American actually) bunch with a few others thrown in as it is the only bar for 30 miles. The law won't go in after dark and just waits for the next day to "sort things out." The town of Aguilla is similar. The sherriff shows up 48 to 72 hours after a murder. In the one cafe the waitress, cook and, owner are strapped and ready for 'business' with various firearms. Yes, this is a real place in 2011! Or, there's Bob's Bar in Red Rock. A single-wide with a half dozen or so ranch hands and miners that are 40 miles from the nearest law. I see Heroni as little different.
This meeting never happened and his credits, wallet, and other valuables went to making this a reality and me walking off with not particular concerns.

I get a load of ore for cargo and head somewhere to sell or deliver it, probably the later. The bank wants to negotiate they shouldn't send an idiot to do it....

 

[samuelvss]

If you don't owe the mining corporation money or work for them then they have no interest in you or what you do so long as it doesn't effect them.....

(Assuming Heroni SM 3017 and not Heroni SM 2521, as more sensible to the original post.)

Well, a few million souls on a world controlled by a mining company, which owes money to whom? Hmm. A commercial operation with no financing. Hmmmm. A banker with no concept of security? Hmmmmm.

Or, maybe....a banker in a dive in a company town, of a company owned by the bank, full of people carrying weapons, about 8 of whom are looking at you purposefully and the rest of whom have cleared a nice field of fire; not a necessary interpretation, but neither unreasonable nor more distracting to this thread than the other.

I enjoy playing traveller with my 14 year old, but he has no sense of subtlety. He wants to shoot his way out of every problem.

 

[Enoki]

.

Or, maybe....a banker in a dive in a company town, of a company owned by the bank, full of people carrying weapons, about 8 of whom are looking at you purposefully and the rest of whom have cleared a nice field of fire; not a necessary interpretation, but neither unreasonable nor more distracting to this thread than the other.

I enjoy playing traveller with my 14 year old, but he has no sense of subtlety. He wants to shoot his way out of every problem.

Ever been to Duncan or say, Miami AZ? Nobody likes the corporate suits in the mining corporation..... If this guy didn't show up with obvious security in some dive bar he's so much yesterday's toast.....

I can't see a ship's captain trying hard to avoid the bank and repo men being in a B starport on a pretty decent world. That is why I chose as I did....

I also am describing real places here. Been there seen that so to speak.

 

[samuelvss]

Ever been to Duncan or say, Miami AZ?

Strangely...no. I do not have to have been there, however, to know that there are both more and less dangerous places in our world.

Nobody likes the corporate suits in the mining corporation..

But the miners take the suits' money and do their bidding. Neither the hired gun nor the professional works for reasons of popularity. I myself have born arms for those I detested. A quality of mining towns is that employment opportunities are limited.

If this guy didn't show up with obvious security in some dive bar he's so much yesterday's toast.....

But you are assuming he did: your assumption is possible, not probable, and certainly not necessary.

 

[Jame]

This sounds like what one of my group's campaigns fell into after the guy playing the Captain decided he'd rather make a profit than go adventuring.