A Hidden Pirate Base.....
- Thread starter DickNervous
- Start date
This feels like a variation on the old "Piracy can't exist" argument. Stolen car parts get sold all the time. I don't see lots of SWAT or USMC raids targeting the sale of stolen parts.
You paint a picture of an Imperium that is LL 11 across the board.
I suspect that on worlds that are LL 11, either a palm will be greased to obtain official paperwork, or a no-questions-asked black market will spring up like happens in some real world places with quasi-police states.
Beyond that, I suspect that the Class B/C starport on a TL 10 world with a LL 4 is a more likely market ... and they will be glad to get it.
Or across the border in Vargr space.
*chuckle* You obviously need to hang out with some 1%'s...
The easiest answer would be because they can't buy one someplace else. Also, by virtue of the it's existence, it argues against a huge amount of law-enforcement attention - plus who says that building the starship is illegal? Or that the setting itself is illegal? Or that it is really that much of a hassle?
Bribe the right officials, fly the right flag, cruise and operate in frontier or border areas (where, presumably, pirate activity is more prevalent anyways because of a lack or complication of navy resources) and things could very well be relatively smooth in operation.
More simply, as long as there are people doing illegal things with starships, there will be a market for building and maintaining starships where those people don't have to interact with the legal authorities.
D.
Could that be because stole car parts aren't worth several million dollars each? The biggest problem I see for pirates (once they've gotten away with a ship) is that it's worth while tracking them down just for the sake of being able to confiscate the loot. Combine that with another seven tech levels worth of forensic ability and your seller of dodgy spare parts really need to avoid being suspected at all. Because once you are suspected, an ultratech forensic examination will tell which one of which batch of drives or power plants or hull plates a given component came from. "Can you tell me why your jump drive came from the Unlucky Prey, a ship that was captured by pirates two years ago?"
And that's not even taking ultratech methods of labeling ship parts into account.
Hans
So could this be the place where anyone conducting illegal activities within 15 parsecs comes to get their ship worked on (and fence their stolen goods)? I can see that as a profitable business, perhaps worth the investment of 5B Cr. No need to build starships, and all of the boats they build are custom jobs.
For immediate release to all starports within the sector:
"Be on the lookout for a Strephon class merchant cruiser with heavy battle damage from an encounter with IN Kinunir class colonial cruiser Urshu. Suspected of piracy. ENDTRANS."
Cheers,
Baron Ovka
For immediate release to all starports within the sector:
"Be on the lookout for a Strephon class merchant cruiser with heavy battle damage from an encounter with IN Kinunir class colonial cruiser Urshu. Suspected of piracy. ENDTRANS."
Cheers,
Baron Ovka
Mongoose & GT use different definitions than the othereditions of Traveller do.
The boatyard is no slips over 99 Td and at least one over 9 Td capacity, as 10 -99 Td is the definition of small craft.
A shipyard is at least one of at least 100 Td. Amajor yard is at least one of 5000 Td or more.
Borrowing from wet naval tradition, a yard has drydocks with cranes, while a repair station has only cranes quayside... so replacing drives and major hull repairs would seem to be the equivalent. But note... in a pinch, wet repair stations have done engine replacements quayside. (USS Storres had an engine swapped quayside in Kodiak once.) So it is muddy water.
The OTU Starports are LL 3 (IIRC), so the chance of having your used computers inspected passing through a starport is only 1 in 36 (roll snake-eyes). Thus I can sell 35 stolen computers for every one that get's caught. If caught, then I plead guilty to possession of stolen property and pay the fine. "I thought that deal seemed a little too good to be true. Sorry."
After the first sale, who knows how many hands it will pass through before it gets to an actual shipyard to be installed. Eventually you will trace the computer back to "I bought it from some guy at a class D starport ... but that was almost a year ago, I don't remember his name." Or a 53 year old local Starport master at a class E starport who says "Lots of ships come through selling lots of stuff. I work here alone and part time, we don't keep records on every transaction. Here, check the log yourself ... John Doe of the None-of-Your-Business and Jane Smith of some Vilanni scratching that I can't make out ... were both in port that week. If you want SPA paperwork, then send an SPA Starport Administrator to run the place. We got no slavers, no nukes, and no Psions within the fence. That's what they said my job was. Enforce Imperial Law within the Starport. I've done that."
Part of the idea behind the chop shop is to break it down into pieces too small to be traced. If computers can be traced, then we sell crates of electronic parts so you can repair YOUR starship computer.
No, that's the chance of a random encounter with the law. I'm arguing that the value of starship drives and power plants would up those percentages considerably from the mere random encounter.
"Ah well, I guess all we can do is fine you for buying stolen property. And confiscate your drive, of course. And put you on the list of ships that get inspected at every starport."
If that is something that's a real possibility, the actual value of stolen drives are going to go way down.
And my argument is that with ultra-tech labeling and forensics, there is no such thing for any component of any reasonable size.
Hans
heh. try selling pieces of a stolen destroyer or hijacked super freighter or vanished passenger liner.
and that brings up another issue. "the imperium rules the space between the stars." space piracy, particularly interstellar space piracy, is a direct and material challenge to the imperium's very reason for existence. there will be a response, and it will be overbearing. tracking down and squashing space pirates is not law level 11, it's just good practice that any ruler from the beginning of time until the year 3900AD would recognize.
the goal of piracy is wealth. if they can afford to buy and maintain starships then they already have wealth. for them to engage in piracy would be like a millionaire robbing kiddies in the park for their lunch money.
the setting.
Where does it say that?
Clearly not in the encounter tables.
[Not a challenge of fact, I am just not much of an OTU canonista.]
:rofl: Touche.
I think the other thing to keep in mind is that just because there is the capability to embed TLX tracking and identification widgets or specific traces of handwavium in alloys doesn't mean that everyone has the ability to read them.
Also, even if they theoretically do, this doesn't mean that it's economically feasible.
Also, even if it is, it doesn't mean that every Non-Aligned or Non-Imperial (or pick your polity) system has agreed to use them - or has agreed to use them Get enough manufacturing facilities that don't use them, and this system quickly starts to fall apart.
All of that assumes that whatever the system is, it isn't susceptible to spoofing of some sort - and truthfully, while there is talk in the OTU about transponders, there isn't much talk about tracking ship components (or, frankly, even high value cargo). This *suggests* that the primary way that startships are tracked is by the transponder/registry (not by the bits). In fact, IIRC, I think that is basically what the old "Give Banks A Fighting Chance" article functionally says.
D.
Also, even if they theoretically do, this doesn't mean that it's economically feasible.
Also, even if it is, it doesn't mean that every Non-Aligned or Non-Imperial (or pick your polity) system has agreed to use them - or has agreed to use them Get enough manufacturing facilities that don't use them, and this system quickly starts to fall apart.
All of that assumes that whatever the system is, it isn't susceptible to spoofing of some sort - and truthfully, while there is talk in the OTU about transponders, there isn't much talk about tracking ship components (or, frankly, even high value cargo). This *suggests* that the primary way that startships are tracked is by the transponder/registry (not by the bits). In fact, IIRC, I think that is basically what the old "Give Banks A Fighting Chance" article functionally says.
D.
probably assumed.
will anti-piracy operations be foolproof? not at all. it's a big imperium and there's lots of space and lots of lootable wealth flying around. but if a pirate 1) engages in a piratical act 1/month and 2) has a .95 chance of getting away with it (pretty good odds if we're talking 20Mcr a pop) then he has a .45 chance of getting caught that year. that's really bad. so law enforcement only has to make the chances of getting caught high enough, and there goes piracy.
Under what circumstances is eliminating piracy a desirable goal?
Clearly, you would not want core rules in which piracy was impossible since there is a lot of golden era space opera literature about piracy that a referee might want to use in their Traveller universe.
Is it a desirable goal for the OTU?
If eliminating the possibility of piracy is not a desirable goal, then the collective energy would be better spent figuring out how and why it does exist.
In some ways, it is like FTL travel. NO FTL travel is more realistic, but less fun in a game. Realism is a 1 year trip to Mars. Fun is Star Wars.
hardly. ftl is scifi, a vision of a possible future. widespread piracy in the postulated otu, however, is a contradiction of the conditions of the existence of the postulated otu. it is a departure from the setting, from the milieu itself. one may easily envision limited or one-off piracy in the otu, but not widescale piracy sufficient to support a "class b" port.
of course it's game, and the referee may decree "let there be pirates!" and lo, there are pirates. but to make everything else fit into that he'll then have to decree that planetary law enforcement and the imperial navy are inept, or shorthanded, or ... something, who knows what, that will then cripple the otu as the otu.
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