Nope. It is non sequitur. Thanks anyway.
Financing and repossession
- Thread starter Carlobrand
- Start date
Nope. It is non sequitur. Thanks anyway.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
Try harder. I think you can figure it out.
Which was why I suggested further back to the financing and insurance methods of earlier periods with long communication lags, such as the Age of Sail.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
I don't necessarily disagree, but remember that I was trying to stay within established Traveller canon. In addition, there are technological differences between the Age of Sale and TL10-15 -- modern fiscal policy, advanced contract/commercial law, data storage, encryption, identification tech, etc. -- that would preclude a tight similarity between the two periods.
BUT, I'd expect a Traveller trade finance system to address the same latency problem that plagued Age of Sale financiers/bankers/investors. The question is how advanced tech (including financial and legal systems) would be harnessed in that cause. The FT, and the underlying legal constructs I described are my best guess. (Note that the legal constructs are crucial to making the FT system plausibly effective. I wonder if some of the critics got too carried away trying to play make-believe high tech electrical engineer and didn't bother reading the legal constructs that undergird the system. Without those constructs, the FT probably wouldn't be likely to be effective.)
Last edited:
Personally, I favor Rancke's model, it being more familiar and representative of canon -
Book 2: "Bank financing is available to qualified individuals for the purchase of commercial starships. ... In addition, the bank will insist that the purchaser submit an economic plan detailing the projected activity which will guarantee that monthly payments are made."
- though of course anyone can make anything work within their own TU. Many of the details of how any one system manages to work and make a profit for the banks are not usually details that players will have access to, after all. They'll know how the bank expects to receive and credit them with the payment; they likely don't know most of the details of the bank's - or insurer's, or bounty hunters', or whoever's - systems for putting out alerts and tracking their progress through space.
I agree that Age of Sail time lags make that a fair starting point for comparison, but only to a degree. Far Future data storage tech provides solutions and alternatives not available to the Age of Sail - the much-discussed transponders being just one example.
I imagine data in the Imperium flowing like ripples in a pond. You buy a ship, the ripples go outward from your world of purchase - sometimes faster than your ship unless you buy a ship and/or take a route that can beat the X-boat network (or manage to leave very quickly after the purchase). You make a payment, the ripples go out from wherever you make the payment; how fast depends on where you are when you do it. Some lag is normal, since many worlds receive information only indirectly through the X-boat network and your most recent payment may still be on a ripple behind you, but if you show up someplace and they show you as months in arrears, you'd best plan to stick around while they verify whatever story you hand them.
The data packets carried on the X-boat network can be very detailed, from the characteristics and ident-code of the ship down to physical identification details of the buyer and crew, possibly even locations and durations of their recent stops. Your transponder plays a role there (and might well be just as detailed), but unless you have some method of actually making the transponder change the identity of your ship in a way that would be recognized by customs agents, defeating the transponder is not going to get you much.
Thus, while Age of Sail examples are a good starting point, you're going to have to give careful thought to how future tech will be applied to mitigate the problem.
An interesting gap, in my opinion, is that the skipping rules don't take into account the local starport type or tech level. Admittedly, any A/B/C starport ought to be able to handle the job of receiving data and comparing that to your ship irrespective of the local tech level, and a D arguably might, but it's a bit far-fetched for an E port on a TL5 world to be up to that job, and it's likely that a higher tech world that pays so little attention to space traffic is likewise going to be paying little attention to the arrears status of visiting ships. Frankly, I don't think I'd require a roll at an E port.
Last edited:
Quite likely it does. But how? How do you know that the paradigm shift will affect ship financing and what will it change it to? Saying "it wouldn't work like that" is no use at all unless you can provide a reasoned set of rules that will work. Until then, I'll just stick to the concept that Real Life has demonstrated can work.
Hans
As I envision it, the same ship's trasponder (or other such "tamper-proof" identification ship in the ship itself) receives some kind of updating each time a payment is done, so that the same ship tells anyone in any starport it calls about its payment situation.
Of course, any such information would be latter verified by other means, similar to what Carlo explains in his post, but the ship's records would be taken as good enough world if there is no reason to suspect otherwise in the meanwhile.
Of course, any such information would be latter verified by other means, similar to what Carlo explains in his post, but the ship's records would be taken as good enough world if there is no reason to suspect otherwise in the meanwhile.
Tells who, though? A loan is a private arrangement between a private institution and a private individual. Why should the Imperium care about a skipped ship? Why should the local authorities care? Canon informs us that recovery of skipped ships is in the hand of skip tracers, likewise private individuals. IIRC the article doesn't mention changing transponders (which the authorities WOULD care about).
Hans
Tells the bank if it has a representative in the planet (and I guess most Banks large enough to finance ships have them in most class A and B starports).
And by the same token why should the Imperium care about robbers? or why should local authorities?
Don't forget skipping is a kind of robbing, and so a crime, and I'm sure most large financing Banks looby for it to be seen as a form of piracy (and so Imperial crime)
As I see it, canon does not tell skippers are not sought out by Imperial authorities, just that most financing institution hire repos, but, as I understand them, to give higher priority to their own cases, not because authorities ignore the affair.
IMHO it's akin a disappeared person in RW. As time goes, the case loses priority, and some people hire private eyes to keep the search in higher priority than authorities have, but if authorities find them, they show the case is not fully forgotten.
Because robbing people is a felony. Defaulting on a loan isn't. Nobody forced the bank to make the loan. If it wants its money, it can sue.
Is it? I thought it was a civil offense.
I'm putting forth the possibility that the Imperium does not agree that it is a crime. So many other Imperial features are based on 20th Century Western mores; why not this?
As I see it, canon does not tell that skippers are sought out by the Imperial authorities.
Hans
Banks are institutions of public policy - every government asserts authority over them to some degree or another. Loans, especially capital project loans (including starships) are components of the economic policies. Therefore, governments tend to take an interest, often an active one, in capital project loans.
Further, the 3I has a vested interest in forcing interstellar banks to cooperate and interoperate - it allows the 3I to be more well informed of the interstellar economic situation.
Further still, regulating banks is a commonly sought public policy function by the governed. They don't, as a generality, want government banks, but do want government oversight, since banks going under can create massive social unrest.
Treating a loan as a civil matter rather than a criminal one is not the same thing as not taking any interest at all.
To me, the bottom line is that if the Imperium did take an active interest in tracking down and recovering skipped ships, I think skip tracers would be out of a job. It's just too easy to have a list of skipped ships at the Starport Office and check it against all incoming ships.
Hans
Correct. In modern legal system the bank has to go to CIVIL court against the person holding a loan on something, get a judgement and they hire repo guys if the person doesn't cooperate. The government comes in through the judicial process for court orders for the banks to seize bank acct's and the like. Police don't seize the vehicles. Governments don't board and take freighter ships for delinquent loans...
Defaulting payments to a bank is a civil offense, trying to take the garantee away to avoid paying them voluntarely it's a fraud, and, at least in some countries, a crime.
Because Imperium raison d'être is to protect interstellar trade to keep it toguether, and too many defaulting to the Banks would stop financing and, probably, this same interstellar trade, something the Imperium cannot afford.
CT:LBB2 (FFE reprint), page 6:
(emphasis is mine)
Police may help to reposses a vehicle defaulted by fraud, or to oust someone from their home if they defaulted the mortgage...
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
See, I just *knew* that my law school Secured Transactions course would somehow be useful in gaming. Pity it took 18 years, though.
Under the Uniform Commercial Code (which has been enacted in modified form in every US state and is a model for commercial law throughout the industrialized word), creditors are allowed to use self-help repossession to recover collateral if the debtor defaults. This can happen before suit is filed. The most common limitation is that the repossession must be peaceful.
That is one of the major reasons that creditors like to have collateral. If the repossession is wrongful (there was no default or the loan agreement disallows repossession), then the debtor can sue the creditor for damages for wrongful repossession.
Considering that the base roll to avoid repossession is 12+ (with modifiers for distance and repeat traffic), I'd say it's likely that the starport offices do indeed keep a list of skipped ships. Further, the mention of "formal service of papers through legal injunction ..." in Book 2 implies that Imperial authorities are taking an active roll, at least in response to the legal applications of the injured banks. How active seems to be an issue left up to the game master.
I can only comment on the U.S., where it isn't. Perhaps you have data you'd share about other countries that you know of?
On the vehicles, where is that?
CT Book 2 states that, "Ships which have skipped are subject to repossession attempts if detected by the authorities." It further defines those attempts as, "rang[ing] from the formal service of papers through legal injunctions to armed boarding parties." Odds of being subject to repossession start high - 12+ - and drop a bit for every 5 parsecs away from the ship's home planet (which is oddly centralized) and go up a bit if you stop in at the same world twice in two months.
So, some thoughts:
So, some thoughts:
- I'm going to assume the "authorities" are Imperial: the ship is most likely to land at a starport, and local authorities have no jurisdiction within the starport borders.
- Mention of serving papers and legal injunctions imply a legal process initiated by the bank's legal representatives, ergo there is some arrangement whereby the banks have representatives empowered to take legal action at the many starports - perhaps a bank office, perhaps lawyers on a commission basis, perhaps the bounty hunters, perhaps some combination, I don't know. And, of course, the starports have legal structures for serving papers and issuing injunctions, and probably for enforcing them.
- In some manner those representatives are getting regular information on ship loans and payment statuses (stati?). The farther from the home office, the more difficulty they have reacting to the player's arrival, perhaps because of information lag (which doesn't make sense, but it is what it is).
- Response seems to vary according to the game master's whim, so there's no set rule governing response - depends more on how apathetic or energetic the GM decides that particular representative is going to be.
- For some reason, seeing the ship show up often motivates the local representative to be more likely to act - or perhaps it is that the bureaucracy is slow but, you having been there once, they're more alert or prepared for you the second time you show up.
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Defaulting on a loan isn't a felony. But, grand theft starship is. See, the bank holds the title to that ship - the players don't. If they default on the loan, it's a civil action. However, if they actually skip (not jump about on a known route, still plying their trade, in arrears on their payments, but actually "leaving town") they are stealing the bank's property. Now it's theft.
Yes, the banks are the primary folks concerned about getting their money. I doubt the 3I worries too much (except in passing laws and regulating the whole shebang) about it on a daily basis. I can see them caring if someone actually skips - then a warrant goes out for the crew's/captain's arrest.
Another two bits (it's only one item, but it's worth about "two bits"):
I think there would be a pseudo-Imperial office in better starports, that would be essentially a factor for all the major banks. He would be a private entity in terms of being paid out of a fund from the several banks, but he would be a government entity in terms of having some authority to impound ships or issue arrest warrants, etc. I don't base this on RL, but on my opinion of how the 3I interacts with megacorps and such. There seems to be evidence for mixing private/public duties at times. (No, Hans, I don't have any canon to point to.) This position would probably have other bank regulatory duties, as well.
Similar threads
