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Proof of idenity in the OTU?

S

strycat

SOC-1
In the OTU, how does one go about proving they are who they say they are? For example a guy shows up and tells the port authorities, "I'm the real Capt. Kirk and that's my spaceship and those people on it are all imposters."

More specifics if you need, we started a new campaign with Flatlined. Amazingly all of the players survived. Now they want to go and reclaim their ship, but they will find that when they were kidnapped another crew took over the ship and has been using their identities and they're now wanted in 3 different systems. They'll need to convince the authorities they are the real crew and have been in stasis or battling creepers on Neon for the last several months.

Thanks in advance and apologies if this is the wrong place to post this kind of question.
 
With an Imperial approved passport.

It contains demographic and biometric information in an easy to read, but difficult to duplicate form.

It could be an electronic chip signed by a trusted authority.

The beauty of Traveller is information travels as fast as people do, but there's nothing that says that when you go to apply for a passport, any authoritative information isn't sent out first. A contrived example is that they need to send out the signing keys and give them a couple weeks head start to propagate among the nearby systems before they hand the artifact over to you.

The point is that, of course there can always be state level forgeries. But that's a key point, it would need state level effort to do the work. The Imperium is motivated to take efforts to prevent that from happening.

Always ways folks to slip through. But it more works than doesn't. It's more than just theater.
 
I'd think it's a more high-tech version of the Middle Ages or somewhere like the Roman Empire. ID is more about how you present yourself than having some piece of 'paper' that says who you are.

Since few, if any, systems / worlds would have the means to collect and use data on someone's identity, particularly those from off world, what they do is focus on what you do and what you possess locally.

The result is a mix of documentation and appearance. You show up at some starport on planet Umptidysquat in a derelict ship while wearing the equivalent of a Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, and flipflops with three days stubble, and don't have two credits to rub together, the local authorities aren't buying you're some rich, eccentric, Imperial noble, documentation or not.

On the other hand, you show up with a ship registered to a megacorp, in a pressed uniform, with all the right paperwork, and want to open a temporary local account with a pile of cash in your briefcase, the locals are going to take you seriously.

A military officer doesn't show up normally without a uniform and subordinates. Nobles have the trappings of nobility or their status gets ignored as irrelevant because they don't have any juice as nobles. Celebrities and well-known individuals would simply be known by their appearance and ability. They too are likely to have an entourage.

There would also likely be the equivalent of embassies, government offices, etc., where you as a citizen can go to get your ID verified. Other systems might include tattoos, embedded chips, and the like that some societies use to tell who's who.

In the case of persons (like above) using false identities, the first, obvious thing would be biometric data any world above about TL 4 would have with increasing amounts of accuracy. From the old, wild West wanted poster, to facial recognition, and beyond, you show up and find somebody's been using your identity and is wanted, the authorities could look and see you don't match the data they have and that's that. Same name, or whatever, but not the same person. If that's not enough, then you go to documentation and appearance as I outlined. You are who you say you are and are locally held accountable by your actions.
 
I would think A & B starports would have most accoutrement for handling ID and financials, just by virtue of being a de facto trading/support hub.

Maybe you have to go to subsector capitals for things like identity theft fix or starship repo, essentially the justice/courthouse hub?

Inconvenient, but intentionally so to weed out the casual conmen and center of local intel/police work anyway.

Imperial embassies outside the Imperium. Good luck getting your ship through the legal system though if they got to another polity. Of course therein lies adventuring…
 
Enoki said:
I'd think it's a more high-tech version of the Middle Ages or somewhere like the Roman Empire. ID is more about how you present yourself than having some piece of 'paper' that says who you are.

Since few, if any, systems / worlds would have the means to collect and use data on someone's identity, particularly those from off world, what they do is focus on what you do and what you possess locally.
Click to expand...
Not true at all. How do countries do it today for electronic IDs? Gov't A sends data to Gov't B so it can verify and allow its citizens to travel to the other. The ID data is sent out on the X-Boat N/W for anyone who wants to travel to other systems. It is SUPER simple and fast. Why would it be at all difficult?
 
Bartleby said:
I am not sure there is an official OTU answer. Certainly in CT and MT these answers are up to the referee.
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No, I gave the super duper, official traveler (misspelled on purpose) answer. Seriously though it is a technical answer not a campaign "flavor" answer. It's roughly how it would be done given today's TL. One can only imagine thousands of years from now.
 
Marcatlas said:
Not true at all. How do countries do it today for electronic IDs? Gov't A sends data to Gov't B so it can verify and allow its citizens to travel to the other. The ID data is sent out on the X-Boat N/W for anyone who wants to travel to other systems. It is SUPER simple and fast. Why would it be at all difficult?
Click to expand...
But that's because they can do it virtually instantaneously here. That isn't so in Traveller. X-boat data takes as much as two + weeks to transfer between two systems that are on the X-boat route. If the system isn't on the X-boat route, it'll take longer. If the system isn't part of the 3rd Imperium, they might not get it at all. Then there's the problem there are trillions of sentient beings not all of which are even human.

What happens if a ship takes a passenger in system A that isn't on the X-boat route with say a class C or D starport (no customs, even no real starport) and then goes to a system that isn't on an X-boat route that has a class A starport? There's no incoming anything from the previous government.

It's far more like I said, a case of the locals being more concerned with how you act and appearances than some government verified data that could be badly out-of-date. If you are a big enough POS criminal or something, it gets around over time and the local government does something like wanted posters (low tech) or various electronic ID biometric measures.

For example, Japan today checks your passport, and you fill out like a half-dozen forms. They photograph you, then paste an immigration stamp with electronic coding on it in your passport. On the other hand, France sees a US passport and the immigration guy waves you past. You have to ask for a stamp...

The British give college age kids on vacation the 5th degree along with anyone who is from the Third World and not on a commonwealth passport. Older guys like me with a US military ID to boot get stamped and sent on our way without question. Appearances are a big part of that.

 
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MT:HT has an scenario where this comes to importance, as some group claims the player's ship to be out of payment, and so open to repossession...
 
Every citizen of an Imperial world is a citizen of the Imperium - except when they are not.

The Imperium doesn't give two hoots for the repressive dictatorship or religious autocracies that govern its worlds. The citizens of such planets may be Imperial Citizens in name, but not in practice.

Does every Imperial world scan the biometric data of every citizen and transmit that data to every Imperial world via the xboat system. Nope.

The only people who get an Imperial ID documents are those that need it. Anyone travelling offworld will have their data put into their personal ID and a copy will be put into the xnet.
 
coliver988 said:
I had various Imperial ID cards, based off the cards from the wrappers around the original JTAS magazines. For players, the back had their skill lists, so it was basically a mini character card
Click to expand...
Do you have a scan of one of those wrappers? I don't think I've seen one of those?
 
And now the nature of the ID "card"
Is it a biometric passport book come credit history?
Is is a digital file easily ported between personal comm devices?
Is it an implant?
Yes to all the above, depending on what you want.

It could also be tied into wafer reincarnation insurance...
 
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