Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
How hard would it be for one person ti hijack a ship?
Hijacking
- Thread starter Timerover51
- Start date
One person probably stands the best chance of "hijacking" a ship by hacking its software.
Before you send one person off to hijack anything you need to define goals and target to figure out the optimum method. Only then will you be able to forecast chance of success.
So.
Target:
How big is the ship?
How many crew/passengers?
What anti-hijacking measures are in place?
Methods:
Physical takeover, Hacking the ship's systems, tacking control of a major system or coercion (threats to the crew or passengers or their dependents or loved ones).
Chance of success:
Ultimately success is about "getting away with it" so the end scenario of your hijacking needs to have an exist strategy.
Before you send one person off to hijack anything you need to define goals and target to figure out the optimum method. Only then will you be able to forecast chance of success.
So.
Target:
How big is the ship?
How many crew/passengers?
What anti-hijacking measures are in place?
Methods:
Physical takeover, Hacking the ship's systems, tacking control of a major system or coercion (threats to the crew or passengers or their dependents or loved ones).
Chance of success:
Ultimately success is about "getting away with it" so the end scenario of your hijacking needs to have an exist strategy.
Vladika
SOC-14 1K
Well as hijacking isn't exactly a moral thing to start with, it probably depends on how immoral the hijacker was willing to be.
Become a crew member, stand a bridge watch, vent the ships atmosphere. Gas the whole ship and lock up (though why bother?) the crew, or space them.
An engineer could cause a J1 (on a J2 ship) to deep space, call it misjump and coerce the crew or wait them out...
"Steward" could poison a crew.
A passenger should have a harder time of it as they are locked out of the bridge and engineering.
Drakon
SOC-14 1K
One person, I would say very difficult. Even a scout has a crew of two. And with cockpit and engineering separated, it is too easy for any surviving crew to disrupt a hijacking.
You would have to incapcitate or kill the crew, and have a ship with sufficient automation to run the engines and flight. Actually with autopilot, that should not be too much of a hassle.
If the ship has an AI, SI or even an OI, consider it part of the crew you need to incapacitate. Most electronics have off switches.
You would have to incapcitate or kill the crew, and have a ship with sufficient automation to run the engines and flight. Actually with autopilot, that should not be too much of a hassle.
If the ship has an AI, SI or even an OI, consider it part of the crew you need to incapacitate. Most electronics have off switches.
I would think this would be more the astrogator than the engineer, but, yeah, it's a great motif. Tho' if the engineer has a particular jump tape and a portable jump computer...
As far as violent passenger hijacking, even more interesting options present - but require more suitable casing of the ship prior. The smuggling of weapons aboard, especially biological ones. A hijacker prize crew with an engineered virus that they've been immunized against is going to be the hardest to protect against - but it needs to have a 3-5 day incubation period, and be totally incapacitating once it presents, yet innocuous until then, and to be contagious before symptomatology is evident.
A particularly diabolical method of getting a virus aboard is to kidnap a loved one of the dupe, and then use that as leverage to coerce them aboard a specific flight. You even buy them the ticket, and promise not to harm their child if they go on the flight. You give them some item to "smuggle" - an innocuous false bit of blackmail data, or forged credits, for example, with a person to meet at the far end. Infect them at the packet handoff. Then you meet the ship at the far end... with your immunized prize crew claiming right of surviving passenger self-salvage.
CosmicGamer
SOC-14 1K
This can vary based on ones definition of hijacking. This also can vary quite a bit depending on a GMs universe.
For my universe it's more like the following
Systems routinely ask for codes. If you don't have the codes or can't coerce the crew into providing them then you need to start hacking or engineering alternative solutions. So as Vladika says
having the codes would be a big plus.
One could take a single crew member hostage and hope the crew is tight enough that they will comply with demands to keep their friend alive.
Claiming you have a bomb hidden somewhere and will detonate if people don't cooperate with your demands? Fake letter of marque? Probably many other ingenious ways.
On Firefly, all it took was one woman with some knockout lipstick.
Some knockout lipstick, and a whole lot of specialized skills. (I'd estimate intrusion 2, Pilot 1, Engineer 1, Computer 2, Seduction 1 in CT/MT terms. And impressive stats.)
Saffron is, as portrayed, a fair match even for River - the programed death machine supergenius.
Patron Zero
SOC-13
Actually if well thought out and with equal preparation, a hijack could be done 'remotely' from a ship's cargo bay where an 'innocent' looking bit of consigned freight is a sleeper agent of sorts.
Mind speaking solely of a 'wireless' intrusion into the ship's internal operational network, of course a more hands-on approach involving a drone-droid could be considered too.
Mind speaking solely of a 'wireless' intrusion into the ship's internal operational network, of course a more hands-on approach involving a drone-droid could be considered too.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
While a fortnight odd might seem a long time, but the bridge crew for a liner might be physically isolated from the rest of the ship for security reasons.
Xerxeskingofking
SOC-13
The easeist way to do that would be to have the bridge, and the bridge crew statrooms, be located withing a seperate hull space, with the primary fuel tanks in between them and the passengers. the only way between the two sections is via spacewalk, or maybe a inflatable tunnel along the outer hull, one that was deflated before jump. that way, the bridge crew is isolated for the duration of the jump, as the only way to reach them would be to suit up and crawl along the outside of the hull and hope you don't touch the edge of the jump field, then try and hack the door under those same conditions.
if you pull that off, the crew would just give you the damm ship in recognition that they are far outclassed.
or try and cut though the fuel tanks, which i don't think would end well, ethier.
of coruse, that would mean that your bridge crew was cut off form the passengers as well, and couldn't stop them form, say, trying to hack the control runs during jump.
this gives me some ideas for that prison ship i was thinking about......
Vladika
SOC-14 1K
Isolate engineering the same way. Passengers and Stewards are unable to get to either. That does pose problems if someone needs the medic. An "Elevator" controlled from the bridge, and a double security lock, might work.
Xerxeskingofking
SOC-13
doable, but still subvertable ("medical emergency" or some such). it would be safer to have a duplicate med bay and passenger doctor in the passenger section.
you've still got the danger of a hostage situtation, but assuming you built the ship so that the passenger spaces were as isolated form the rest of the ship as possible (and if we're being paranoid enough to design a ship like this in the first place, why wouldn't you?), you could minimise the ability of the passgners to forcfully take control away form the crew.
that would leave coercion and subversion, but their isn't much you can do about that, ship design wise. The counters would be operating procedures, good crew screening, and so on.
you've still got the danger of a hostage situtation, but assuming you built the ship so that the passenger spaces were as isolated form the rest of the ship as possible (and if we're being paranoid enough to design a ship like this in the first place, why wouldn't you?), you could minimise the ability of the passgners to forcfully take control away form the crew.
that would leave coercion and subversion, but their isn't much you can do about that, ship design wise. The counters would be operating procedures, good crew screening, and so on.
CosmicGamer
SOC-14 1K
A thought I've had in the past based on a customized high performance street car I once owned.
While in jump or landed/docked, there is no need for the maneuver drive to be operational. The paranoid could have custom cutoffs and locks installed in fuel lines (keyed fuel cut off switch) electric lines (switch on battery cable) and so on. Access to certain machinery can be locked. (hood lock) There could also be a component that is removed that is needed for the drive to operate. (removable steering wheel). If tampered with, a distress or other transponder emergency code could be sent. (alarm system)
Or you could have a mad max booby trap that blows up the ship.
While in jump or landed/docked, there is no need for the maneuver drive to be operational. The paranoid could have custom cutoffs and locks installed in fuel lines (keyed fuel cut off switch) electric lines (switch on battery cable) and so on. Access to certain machinery can be locked. (hood lock) There could also be a component that is removed that is needed for the drive to operate. (removable steering wheel). If tampered with, a distress or other transponder emergency code could be sent. (alarm system)
Or you could have a mad max booby trap that blows up the ship.
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Travellerspud
SOC-12
Getting on board as freight at a "low tech" space port that is poor would seem the best bet (where they cannot afford all the fancy scanners)...but I would think any decent cargo ship would have scanners of their own
The Neural Activity Scanner would seem to be able to prevent sneaking aboard as freight (unless the freight can be "ray shielded" or some-such). Hooked to the ship's computer running anti-hijack, it would not let anyone approach the ship it did not recognize, or "trojan freight" to be loaded. And a scan for penetration (to see if it is shielded) could also be done (say try to scan the shipping label from the back side of the container)
A Medical Scanner would seem a prudent precaution prior to boarding, and would pickup bio agents, etc. (although the scenario described might slip through as an unknown tailored virus if it has not yet activated...)
A Chem Sniffer would pick up explosives (new type?)
A Densitometer would find the hidden weapons, ammo & batteries (unless they were hidden inside innocuous cargo of the same general density / size / shape)
Covert Software, inside an innocuous looking civilian appliance (I-phone), capable of taking down the ship's computer, might be one option (takes time to inspect the memory of every device, and High Passengers demand their toys...and News/Entertainment) - but taking over a ship vs. running a ship takes a fair size crew with special skills, so very hard/impossible for 1 person to do.
now if they were also travelling High Class with several "valet" & "protocol" bots.....and had skills in Dagger (made from plastic or a "shiv" found aboard) and Zero-G Combat...
The Neural Activity Scanner would seem to be able to prevent sneaking aboard as freight (unless the freight can be "ray shielded" or some-such). Hooked to the ship's computer running anti-hijack, it would not let anyone approach the ship it did not recognize, or "trojan freight" to be loaded. And a scan for penetration (to see if it is shielded) could also be done (say try to scan the shipping label from the back side of the container)
A Medical Scanner would seem a prudent precaution prior to boarding, and would pickup bio agents, etc. (although the scenario described might slip through as an unknown tailored virus if it has not yet activated...)
A Chem Sniffer would pick up explosives (new type?)
A Densitometer would find the hidden weapons, ammo & batteries (unless they were hidden inside innocuous cargo of the same general density / size / shape)
Covert Software, inside an innocuous looking civilian appliance (I-phone), capable of taking down the ship's computer, might be one option (takes time to inspect the memory of every device, and High Passengers demand their toys...and News/Entertainment) - but taking over a ship vs. running a ship takes a fair size crew with special skills, so very hard/impossible for 1 person to do.
now if they were also travelling High Class with several "valet" & "protocol" bots.....and had skills in Dagger (made from plastic or a "shiv" found aboard) and Zero-G Combat...
"Port authorities today are investigating the discovery of several dead bodies inside a freight container. The discovery was made during routine customs scan of the off-loading trader, Cornucopia.
"'Judging from the construction of the container and the fact that the deceased were armed,' Portmaster Rawls said, 'I'd say this is likely a hijack gone wrong. The container was at the back of the ship, and it looks like there were other containers butted up to it. There was a hidden hatch on top, too, but there wasn't enough clearance for them to get out that way.'
"Initial reports suggest the victims died of dehydration, but one body appeared to have been badly beaten."
salochin999
SOC-13
If it's for money then one hijacker with computer skills among the crew (maybe a hologram face with the real crew member stuck in a low berth) and allies in a second ship to provide the replacement crew.
If they're desperate for some reason they could have a bomb or some other way to coerce the original crew to work the ship.
If they're desperate for some reason they could have a bomb or some other way to coerce the original crew to work the ship.
Patron Zero
SOC-13
I would tend to think that as a matter of export protocols, some shipping containers would need be 'certified' as either sterile or not capable of carrying-transmitting biological contaminants, said status achieved through various potential means of decontamination.
That said, I've yet to see a live spider in any bunch of bananas I've ever purchased.
Ah but with humanity comes corruption! Of course, when the system and the procedures and the protocols are followed, it would be downright dangerous to smuggle oneself in a fruit container (and that not's even discussing the spiders hitching along with you).
But money talks and... whoops, that sterilization beam was just not full strength (sure looked genuine) and that checklist from the inspector that the densimeter, chem sniffer and so on detectors were run by it... not quite true.
Even RFID gets hacked. Switch one frequency with another remotely and your crate of M4's becomes bananas or potatoes. Who's going to open it up?
Crime always finds a way.
As for hijacking, in the future/TravUniverse, I think it would require either awesome tradecraft and techno resources by a moral team... or a steak knife held by an immoral hijacker.
The "weak" link (arguable as to whether it's actual weakness) in any scenario are the people involved.
But money talks and... whoops, that sterilization beam was just not full strength (sure looked genuine) and that checklist from the inspector that the densimeter, chem sniffer and so on detectors were run by it... not quite true.
Even RFID gets hacked. Switch one frequency with another remotely and your crate of M4's becomes bananas or potatoes. Who's going to open it up?
Crime always finds a way.
As for hijacking, in the future/TravUniverse, I think it would require either awesome tradecraft and techno resources by a moral team... or a steak knife held by an immoral hijacker.
The "weak" link (arguable as to whether it's actual weakness) in any scenario are the people involved.
epicenter00
SOC-13
It might be fairly easy for ruthless, skilled, and supremely self-confident person to hijack a smaller ship with a small crew and few passengers. The better question is how many such individuals exist and if they couldn't use that combination of traits to engage in some activity that couldn't make them more money for less risk.
For instance if we assume: 1) Jump Drive (one week in Jump Space). 2) Small Ship (six crew or less). 3) Not a particularly high incidence of hijackings in the area (chances are the single person will find an area which is very safe and boring - I'd imagine almost every subsector has a few of these routes). 4) A "living" Traveller universe (as opposed to a RPG one); a universe where the basis is that it is an "ordinary" universe with people going about their lives and the players are the ones who are doing extraordinary things, as opposed to an RPG universe where people are supremely on-guard, things are made difficult to make it challenging for players, etc.
Within that framework it might be fairly easy for one person to hijack the ship; from what I've read of people using modern merchant ships for cruises, extrapolated into the Traveller universe, that the entire crew (and passengers) sit down to eat meals together seems pretty likely on vessels with less than six crewmembers; crews are small, there's a lot of automation, the social difference between 'officers' and 'crew' and 'captain' may be very little or non-existent, there's no "watches" during the one-week in Jumpspace that are so critical that a crewmember couldn't sit down to eat with the other crew. In that situation (and it's likely that this single-person hijacker has researched this stuff before, in fact might have even taken a few passages on the ship before to become even more familiar and trusted), a single person with a pistol might be able to seize a ship (wait until the last day before emerging from Jumpspace, create a plausible story that if the crew cooperates they'll live and herd them into a room then kill them all, etc.); with a better weapon it might not even require that. A single person might even have a better chance of success because the crew is less likely to believe that a single person is going to try and hijack a ship, and thus let their guard down even more.
Similarly, you might even get into the "Hannibal Lecter" realm - in a universe with a low incidence of shipjacking overall, internal security is likely to be pretty lax (or basically even non-existent), crew become increasingly likely to circumvent obtrusive security measures as they interfere with convenience (the more obtrusive the more likely), the single person might simply go around the ship and kill everyone as the opportunity arises (small crew so if the killer acts swiftly, there's a good chance they might do it before anyone realizes what's going on).
Again, with Jumpspace, there's apparently little in the way of external threats and quite little to do during that week - if that week is as "downtime" as a lot of official material seems to suggest, it's likely that a small ship may not even have standing watches - the entire crew might simply turn in at the same to sleep, wake up around the same time (yes, there's maintenance activities and so on which have to be done, but these are always easier with other crewmembers around) on some ship-time. Even if there are standing watches (perhaps to monitor the reactors or something...?) it might even be easier for this single person to convince the watch person to let him/her into engineering or wherever so they can chit-chat to while away the boring hours, play cards, etc.
I know all of these ideas sound like security is criminally lax (and it is), but in a "routine spaceflight" universe of Traveller (I'm contrasting this with the "shipboard encounters" tables in rulebooks which go by "RPG universe" which is going to be more dramatic/interesting than a "routine spaceflight" universe), I have to imagine that "most" crews of the stereotypical J-1 trading vessel that plies a route between maybe 3-5 worlds on a Main sign on as apprentices, gain seniority, grow old, and retire after decades without ever being the target of a hijacking attempt, nor do they know anyone who was a target of one. Of course they hear about them in starport tales as a 'friend of a friend' stories as well from "Imperial Merchant Marine Safety Board" announcements; they probably watch tridees of hijackings with the other crewmembers over beers and laugh ("oh man, who'd sign on to be a crewmember if space travel were really that dangerous as these shows make it out be! When was the last time you heard about a fusion core failure or a hijacking?!") I should think on a safe route like that, crews would get fairly complacent.
OTOH, if you use the shipboard encounters tables and so on as indicative of Traveller's actual universe (and not just to spice up player lives), then things are going to be a lot more difficult. Hijacking attempts or piracy are a not-insignificant events on those kinds of tables. At a 1% chance of them happening per trip, assuming a ship Jumps every two weeks (so about 25 Jumps a year) that means that within four years (once a service term), something like that is going to happen, in which case I think ship crews are going to be a lot more paranoid and take anti-hijacking measures more seriously. (Of course at this point, I have to wonder if any ship captain would consider the income of carrying passengers worth the potential risks.)
For instance if we assume: 1) Jump Drive (one week in Jump Space). 2) Small Ship (six crew or less). 3) Not a particularly high incidence of hijackings in the area (chances are the single person will find an area which is very safe and boring - I'd imagine almost every subsector has a few of these routes). 4) A "living" Traveller universe (as opposed to a RPG one); a universe where the basis is that it is an "ordinary" universe with people going about their lives and the players are the ones who are doing extraordinary things, as opposed to an RPG universe where people are supremely on-guard, things are made difficult to make it challenging for players, etc.
Within that framework it might be fairly easy for one person to hijack the ship; from what I've read of people using modern merchant ships for cruises, extrapolated into the Traveller universe, that the entire crew (and passengers) sit down to eat meals together seems pretty likely on vessels with less than six crewmembers; crews are small, there's a lot of automation, the social difference between 'officers' and 'crew' and 'captain' may be very little or non-existent, there's no "watches" during the one-week in Jumpspace that are so critical that a crewmember couldn't sit down to eat with the other crew. In that situation (and it's likely that this single-person hijacker has researched this stuff before, in fact might have even taken a few passages on the ship before to become even more familiar and trusted), a single person with a pistol might be able to seize a ship (wait until the last day before emerging from Jumpspace, create a plausible story that if the crew cooperates they'll live and herd them into a room then kill them all, etc.); with a better weapon it might not even require that. A single person might even have a better chance of success because the crew is less likely to believe that a single person is going to try and hijack a ship, and thus let their guard down even more.
Similarly, you might even get into the "Hannibal Lecter" realm - in a universe with a low incidence of shipjacking overall, internal security is likely to be pretty lax (or basically even non-existent), crew become increasingly likely to circumvent obtrusive security measures as they interfere with convenience (the more obtrusive the more likely), the single person might simply go around the ship and kill everyone as the opportunity arises (small crew so if the killer acts swiftly, there's a good chance they might do it before anyone realizes what's going on).
Again, with Jumpspace, there's apparently little in the way of external threats and quite little to do during that week - if that week is as "downtime" as a lot of official material seems to suggest, it's likely that a small ship may not even have standing watches - the entire crew might simply turn in at the same to sleep, wake up around the same time (yes, there's maintenance activities and so on which have to be done, but these are always easier with other crewmembers around) on some ship-time. Even if there are standing watches (perhaps to monitor the reactors or something...?) it might even be easier for this single person to convince the watch person to let him/her into engineering or wherever so they can chit-chat to while away the boring hours, play cards, etc.
I know all of these ideas sound like security is criminally lax (and it is), but in a "routine spaceflight" universe of Traveller (I'm contrasting this with the "shipboard encounters" tables in rulebooks which go by "RPG universe" which is going to be more dramatic/interesting than a "routine spaceflight" universe), I have to imagine that "most" crews of the stereotypical J-1 trading vessel that plies a route between maybe 3-5 worlds on a Main sign on as apprentices, gain seniority, grow old, and retire after decades without ever being the target of a hijacking attempt, nor do they know anyone who was a target of one. Of course they hear about them in starport tales as a 'friend of a friend' stories as well from "Imperial Merchant Marine Safety Board" announcements; they probably watch tridees of hijackings with the other crewmembers over beers and laugh ("oh man, who'd sign on to be a crewmember if space travel were really that dangerous as these shows make it out be! When was the last time you heard about a fusion core failure or a hijacking?!") I should think on a safe route like that, crews would get fairly complacent.
OTOH, if you use the shipboard encounters tables and so on as indicative of Traveller's actual universe (and not just to spice up player lives), then things are going to be a lot more difficult. Hijacking attempts or piracy are a not-insignificant events on those kinds of tables. At a 1% chance of them happening per trip, assuming a ship Jumps every two weeks (so about 25 Jumps a year) that means that within four years (once a service term), something like that is going to happen, in which case I think ship crews are going to be a lot more paranoid and take anti-hijacking measures more seriously. (Of course at this point, I have to wonder if any ship captain would consider the income of carrying passengers worth the potential risks.)
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