How easy is it to steal a starship in T20?
- Thread starter JohnMarsh
- Start date
So you wanna steal a starship do you? Hmm. Mind you this may or may not have happened in a campaign I ran, but it makes you wonder a wee bit doesn't it?
I'm not saying this is true or not, but if it is, it makes you pause to wonder about human failings in the arena of tramp freighter economics. It seems to me that once upon a time, a frighter pulled into port at a high volume port, but not the busiest port of all. I seem to recall that the ship, trying to scrimp on expenses, took a low cost docking bay, which was in a relatively run down section of the port. Anyhows - I heard it said that the ship's captain refused to pay the local longshoreman's guild their usual "protection" money and even refused to donate money to the local longshoreman's widow and orphan's fund. This set the stage, or so rumors tell it, for a well planned hijacking attempt. What happened next, or so conjecture goes, is that the purser was mugged in broad daylight, by a bunch of criminal types (duh, would a church going law abiding citizen mug another without being a criminal type? Sheesh!). The puser (the only survivor of the affair by the by) said that when he was mugged, he heard said "This is for not donating to the widows and orphans fund" as each of his 10 fingers were broken. Thanks to modern medical science, the injury was not a lasting one, but would take some 4 weeks to heal, and 4 weeks of rehab time to bring the hands back to full effectiveness. The crew of the Tramp Freighter "Credit Dew", being a close crew, were loathe to leave behind the purser on a permanant basis, so they, three days before a scheduled lift off to their next declared port of destination, needed to find a perfect "temp" purser who would take the position for only 8 weeks. As fate would have it, there happened to be one such candidate for the position in port at the time, who also happened to be a retiring purser who was persuaded to take the position aboard the Credit Dew.
What happened next is pure conjecture of course, but it fits with the observed facts. The purser's position is a particularly vital function aboard a passenger shipping tramp freighter. His position is one of high trust in the sense that he attends to the needs of his passengers, has access to the rest of the ship when preparing meals for the rest of the crew, and has access to the cargo hold when attempting to draw on ship's stores. In all probability, the temp purser fed the captain and the ship's engineer some sort of contaminant - incapacitating them slowly, but sufficiently to present an emergency of sorts. It was probably done during mid-jump. In all probability, the incapacitating agent was biological instead of chemical, so as to present an emergency without it looking like a planned attack. Kepterian Fever could have been induced for example, causing first the engineer to succumb, and then a passenger (or vice versa for that matter), making it seem like the Credit Dew was the unfortinate victim of what the tri-vids like to call a "plague ship" event. Security under those circumstances would become a secondary issue no?
In all probability, if the Ministry of Justice has gone the route in their investigation, it will be discovered that the passenger manifest of the Credit Dew's last jump will be determined to contain false id's, and that at least some of those passengers had skills in running a ship's powerplant, jump drive, and/or manuever drives - plus perhaps some minor skills in computer hacking and/or piloting.
How would the plague ship scenario go down? First a passenger gets sick. Nothing major, just a minor thing at first. Then the Captain gets sick - or possibly the Ship's engineer. It doesn't really matter at this point. Then the emergency is declared, and ship's security now has to take into account what happens if half of the ship's senior crew are incapacitated. If the ship carries a competent med-tech, then things probably would have required that the ship's med-tech be taken out - otherwise, the crew is on its own dealing with the emergency.
The starport's records indicated that the Credit Dew exited jump space with a zero relative velocity per normal routine, and then accelerated away - all the while maintaining minimal communications with Starport Authority. When queried about its flight plan, Acting Captain Hylan, First mate of the Credit Dew, had made plans to engage in gas giant refueling. That was the last she was seen, as she never made it to the gas giant, but disappeared in mid-flight to the giant. Speculation is, that she either met up with a refueling ship mid-way to the giant, or that she had enough operational range to meet up with another craft which took her into tow - never to be seen again.
Me? I think what happened to the Credit Dew is that she was sold across the border to the Sword Worlders. If not to the Sword Worlders, then possibly sold to an Imperial citizen on a world where the local administration is not above selling legitimate transponders to newly registered hulls. With the right connections with the criminal cartel, it is only too possible that the old transponder for the Credit Due was replaced with that of a transponder from a ship going to the breakers.
An example of how they could do it? Suppose you have the Lemon's Rhyme, a similiar ship to the Credit Dew, be sent to the breakers because the cost to repair the ship was too high, or the organization that owned it was bankrupt. The transponder for the ship would need to be certified as having been destroyed when the ship was broken, and its authentication codes being retired from Starport Authority records. But if instead, the transponder is not destroyed, and documents detailing that the Lemon's Rhyme was purchased at the last minute, and repairs made to the hull and systems - it would remain in the Starport Authority's records as an active hull. Gut the drives and replace it with new drives, gut the computer system and replace it with a new computer system - which would be explained as part of the refurbishing process, and the Credit Dew would re-emerge as an "old Lemon's Rhyme" and be recommissioned as say, the Pink Pearl. In reality, it is the Credit Dew hitting ports with the papers of the Pink Pearl, whose history says it was once the Lemon's Rhyme. The ship's breakers make out in that they have the broken up Lemon's Rhyme, they make a profit selling the transponder and keeping their mouths shut, and the criminal cartel now has the documentation for a stolen ship that appears for all intents and purposes, as a legit ship.
The lesson to be learned here? Put a frog into boiling water, and it will try to hop out of the "obvious danger". Let the frog sit in cool water, then bring to a slow boil, and it will not notice until too late, that it is truly COOKED.
Anti-hijack under these circumstances are circumvented - as nothing the purser has done is out of the operational parameters. Nothing spoke of an actual attack against the system until half the crew were incapacited already. A simple emergency looking for all intents and purposes as a medical emergency requires that security be circumvented in case the worst occurs and the entire crew succumbs to a plague/disease rendering the ship as a navigational hazard requiring the assistance of the Starport Authority. I'm betting that the Credit Dew's crew, in preparing for the worst, left themselves open to the hijacking attempt just HOURS before it was expected to exit into normal space, and that they took over after having either access to the computer, or having hacked their way in. That's my guess anyhow.
I'm not saying this is true or not, but if it is, it makes you pause to wonder about human failings in the arena of tramp freighter economics. It seems to me that once upon a time, a frighter pulled into port at a high volume port, but not the busiest port of all. I seem to recall that the ship, trying to scrimp on expenses, took a low cost docking bay, which was in a relatively run down section of the port. Anyhows - I heard it said that the ship's captain refused to pay the local longshoreman's guild their usual "protection" money and even refused to donate money to the local longshoreman's widow and orphan's fund. This set the stage, or so rumors tell it, for a well planned hijacking attempt. What happened next, or so conjecture goes, is that the purser was mugged in broad daylight, by a bunch of criminal types (duh, would a church going law abiding citizen mug another without being a criminal type? Sheesh!). The puser (the only survivor of the affair by the by) said that when he was mugged, he heard said "This is for not donating to the widows and orphans fund" as each of his 10 fingers were broken. Thanks to modern medical science, the injury was not a lasting one, but would take some 4 weeks to heal, and 4 weeks of rehab time to bring the hands back to full effectiveness. The crew of the Tramp Freighter "Credit Dew", being a close crew, were loathe to leave behind the purser on a permanant basis, so they, three days before a scheduled lift off to their next declared port of destination, needed to find a perfect "temp" purser who would take the position for only 8 weeks. As fate would have it, there happened to be one such candidate for the position in port at the time, who also happened to be a retiring purser who was persuaded to take the position aboard the Credit Dew.
What happened next is pure conjecture of course, but it fits with the observed facts. The purser's position is a particularly vital function aboard a passenger shipping tramp freighter. His position is one of high trust in the sense that he attends to the needs of his passengers, has access to the rest of the ship when preparing meals for the rest of the crew, and has access to the cargo hold when attempting to draw on ship's stores. In all probability, the temp purser fed the captain and the ship's engineer some sort of contaminant - incapacitating them slowly, but sufficiently to present an emergency of sorts. It was probably done during mid-jump. In all probability, the incapacitating agent was biological instead of chemical, so as to present an emergency without it looking like a planned attack. Kepterian Fever could have been induced for example, causing first the engineer to succumb, and then a passenger (or vice versa for that matter), making it seem like the Credit Dew was the unfortinate victim of what the tri-vids like to call a "plague ship" event. Security under those circumstances would become a secondary issue no?
In all probability, if the Ministry of Justice has gone the route in their investigation, it will be discovered that the passenger manifest of the Credit Dew's last jump will be determined to contain false id's, and that at least some of those passengers had skills in running a ship's powerplant, jump drive, and/or manuever drives - plus perhaps some minor skills in computer hacking and/or piloting.
How would the plague ship scenario go down? First a passenger gets sick. Nothing major, just a minor thing at first. Then the Captain gets sick - or possibly the Ship's engineer. It doesn't really matter at this point. Then the emergency is declared, and ship's security now has to take into account what happens if half of the ship's senior crew are incapacitated. If the ship carries a competent med-tech, then things probably would have required that the ship's med-tech be taken out - otherwise, the crew is on its own dealing with the emergency.
The starport's records indicated that the Credit Dew exited jump space with a zero relative velocity per normal routine, and then accelerated away - all the while maintaining minimal communications with Starport Authority. When queried about its flight plan, Acting Captain Hylan, First mate of the Credit Dew, had made plans to engage in gas giant refueling. That was the last she was seen, as she never made it to the gas giant, but disappeared in mid-flight to the giant. Speculation is, that she either met up with a refueling ship mid-way to the giant, or that she had enough operational range to meet up with another craft which took her into tow - never to be seen again.
Me? I think what happened to the Credit Dew is that she was sold across the border to the Sword Worlders. If not to the Sword Worlders, then possibly sold to an Imperial citizen on a world where the local administration is not above selling legitimate transponders to newly registered hulls. With the right connections with the criminal cartel, it is only too possible that the old transponder for the Credit Due was replaced with that of a transponder from a ship going to the breakers.
An example of how they could do it? Suppose you have the Lemon's Rhyme, a similiar ship to the Credit Dew, be sent to the breakers because the cost to repair the ship was too high, or the organization that owned it was bankrupt. The transponder for the ship would need to be certified as having been destroyed when the ship was broken, and its authentication codes being retired from Starport Authority records. But if instead, the transponder is not destroyed, and documents detailing that the Lemon's Rhyme was purchased at the last minute, and repairs made to the hull and systems - it would remain in the Starport Authority's records as an active hull. Gut the drives and replace it with new drives, gut the computer system and replace it with a new computer system - which would be explained as part of the refurbishing process, and the Credit Dew would re-emerge as an "old Lemon's Rhyme" and be recommissioned as say, the Pink Pearl. In reality, it is the Credit Dew hitting ports with the papers of the Pink Pearl, whose history says it was once the Lemon's Rhyme. The ship's breakers make out in that they have the broken up Lemon's Rhyme, they make a profit selling the transponder and keeping their mouths shut, and the criminal cartel now has the documentation for a stolen ship that appears for all intents and purposes, as a legit ship.
The lesson to be learned here? Put a frog into boiling water, and it will try to hop out of the "obvious danger". Let the frog sit in cool water, then bring to a slow boil, and it will not notice until too late, that it is truly COOKED.
Anti-hijack under these circumstances are circumvented - as nothing the purser has done is out of the operational parameters. Nothing spoke of an actual attack against the system until half the crew were incapacited already. A simple emergency looking for all intents and purposes as a medical emergency requires that security be circumvented in case the worst occurs and the entire crew succumbs to a plague/disease rendering the ship as a navigational hazard requiring the assistance of the Starport Authority. I'm betting that the Credit Dew's crew, in preparing for the worst, left themselves open to the hijacking attempt just HOURS before it was expected to exit into normal space, and that they took over after having either access to the computer, or having hacked their way in. That's my guess anyhow.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
I have only one minor quibble caveat...
Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
How curious. My players are currently facing a disturbingly similar sequence of events, and more than one of them frequent this site. I wonder what they'll make of that story? :smirk:
FT, your authoritative rebuff of the frog hypothesis is based upon first hand experimentation, perchance?
FT, your authoritative rebuff of the frog hypothesis is based upon first hand experimentation, perchance?
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
FT, your authoritative rebuff of the frog hypothesis is based upon first hand experimentation, perchance?
No, just a practical mind, confirmed by a quick Snopes search.
I prefer my frog crunchy
EDIT - Just in case some don't know it, the crunchy frog reference is explained here:
http://orangecow.org/pythonet/sketches/crunchy.htm
Last edited:
Bbrrrrrrrrrr
OK, Namesake (I am a Supplement Four PC after all
) you have offically given me RL chills, that made...well, it was pretty brutal, wow...
Hope to be that good some day....spooky. And scary true I bet...
Anyway, that got me right there so, I had to post this response while it was so almost weep worthy accurate. Now I am going back to read the rest and I am glad I already added it to My Personal AAB (see that long line of Bilanidin on the right in my sig).
*virtual standing ovation to Ref and Players* Hardcore, people, hardcore. Bravo!
OK, Namesake (I am a Supplement Four PC after all
) you have offically given me RL chills, that made...well, it was pretty brutal, wow...Hope to be that good some day....spooky. And scary true I bet...
Anyway, that got me right there so, I had to post this response while it was so almost weep worthy accurate. Now I am going back to read the rest and I am glad I already added it to My Personal AAB (see that long line of Bilanidin on the right in my sig).
*virtual standing ovation to Ref and Players* Hardcore, people, hardcore. Bravo!
