oh yes...another bloody pirate debate

[sid6.7]

Lets keep it to CT ONLY...the small ship universe

yes i agree adventurers could field a pirate ship
as the GM can do anything he wants to
help a pirate adventure group exist.

BUT historically/realisticly..

1. would pirates really exist in CT?

2. if they would, what kind would they be?

3. considering the small ship uni, what
would one look like. 100t-5000t considering
that a cruiser comes in at 800t.

4. looking at the tech and maintenance involved
do you think the authors really intended
for many if any at all?

5. mercenaries are a different matter considering
gov't or corporate support, so lets try to stick
to a classic pirate( a stolen vessel or a crew gone rouge).

 

[Spinward Scout]

1. would pirates really exist in CT?

Pirates (Commerce Raiders) can exist anywhere that you have commerce.

Pirates (Privateers) can exist when there is an overt war ongoing.

Pirates (Blackmailers/Ransomers) can exist when you have Important People™ flying about the galaxy lightly armed or defended.

2. if they would, what kind would they be?

See number 1.

3. considering the small ship uni, what
would one look like. 100t-5000t considering
that a cruiser comes in at 800t.

400 ton Corsair doesn't show up until MT I think, but any ship could be used for Piracy if it is armed enough (or the Captain has enough Bluff/Balls)

4. looking at the tech and maintenance involved do you think the authors really intended
for many if any at all?

Hire (or blackmail/con) techs to fix the ships.

Pirates can exist anywhere I think. There are Pirates out in the Indian Ocean right now as I type this. Open Space would be even easier, I would think.

Dameon

 

[Maladominus]

And pirates can be harbored on just about any world where the Law Level is low or the government is corrupt. There are plenty of those.

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by Sir Dameon Toth:
400 ton Corsair doesn't show up until MT I think, but any ship could be used for Piracy if it is armed enough (or the Captain has enough Bluff/Balls)

The 400 ton Corsair appeared in Supp 4: Citizens of the Imperium.

Originally posted by sid6.7:
4. looking at the tech and maintenance involved do you think the authors really intended for many if any at all?

The authors created a specific character generation system for them. Clearly they were intended to exist!

More importantly, pirate encounters were prominently present in the ship encounter tables in Book 2.

So, yes indeedy, pirates were a key feature and threat in original, small ship, pre-OTU CT.

---

And they should be such a feature and threat in proto-Traveller type settings that look back to those days!

 

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

IMTU...

If we're sticking to CT, we needn't even limit things to LBB:1 thru LBB:3. Piracy clearly exists. It has a chargen and a ship design.

Piracy, however, is much more than the Yo-Ho-Ho School would have you believe. Piracy always has been, is now, and will be more than intercepting merchant shipping, seizing that shipping, and then making off with cargo. Pirates can extort, raid 'ashore', be hired, and rely on ransoms.

Some terms:

Commerce Raiding - Is a strategic warfare option designed to destroy or damage an opponents shipping and thus deny or hinder the movement of critical supplies. The seizure of ships and cargos is not the object of commerce raiding.

Privateering - Essentially 'legal' piracy. Privateers are licensed by a government or organization (i.e. trade war, TTA) to harry the shipping of an opponent. While the actual seizure of ships and cargos is often the goal of privateers, they can also be 'paid' by other means; stipends, 'volunteer' status in the military sponsoring them, etc.

Piracy - Essentially 'illegal' privateering. More than the others, pirates depend on the seizure of goods, vehicles, sophonts, and ships to make their payrolls. Pirates can adn do threaten the destruction of or interference with shipping and thus extort payments. Pirates can and are hired as deniable assets by third parties which further blurs the lines between pirate and privateer in the OTU.

On scale of one to ten with 1 = 'Destruction/Damage of Civilian Shipping/Cargos' and 10 = 'Seizure of Civilian Shipping/Cargos', commerce raiding rates a 1 or 2, privateering rates around 5 and 6, and piracy rates at 8 and above.

YMMV.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[parmasson]

Oh yeah, pirates.
1. would pirates really exist in CT?
Argh, avast ye scurvy stardogs . . .
Merchant ships have historically been under gunned and under manned. Every non revenue space is . . .well non revenue space. Besides that is why we have insurance.

2. if they would, what kind would they be?
Anything they could get away with.

3. considering the small ship uni, what
would one look like. 100t-5000t considering
that a cruiser comes in at 800t.
More than a scout less than a battleship.

Big operations might like a 600 tom sub liner. Plenty of hard points and it LOOKS like a civilian ship. “We are not pirates we are traders, look at all the cargo we have to sell at deep discounts.”

4. looking at the tech and maintenance involved
do you think the authors really intended
for many if any at all?
Sure did. Considering the existence (arguable) of cutlasses.
IF cutlasses THEN pirates. Simple logical statment

5. mercenaries are a different matter considering
gov't or corporate support, so lets try to stick
to a classic pirate( a stolen vessel or a crew gone rouge).
A mercenary is a pirate who gets a steady paycheck and a repat bond.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Kurega Gikur:
...IF cutlasses THEN pirates. Simple logical statment.

Arr, I likes the cut of his jib I does, hars a hand what knows what's what.

Thar be a tag on that rule tho, IF cutlasses THEN pierats, soooo MARINES be PIERATS. Arrr, tis true.

 

[Darkhstarr]

My campaign is based on a piracy/counter-piracy
premise. You can read my musings on piracy & related matters of the darker side of commerce at
www.darkhstarr.com.

I feel that piracy is very alive & well in CT. Not only that, but syndicates, corporations, & governments being what they are, make very good use of pirates.

I also feel there is a very fine line between Free Trader, Corsair, & Merc.

 

[sid6.7]

i like the input guys...thanks!

i cant believe i missed the pirate on the ship encounter table....... LOL i can't believe
i missed the corsair thing either...DOH!


here is my brief take on it all....but i'll defer
to the group concensus thats pirates are alive and well

i would tend to think that raw pirates
would be rare(pardon the pun) but most
pirates would be "pirates of opportunity"
and they would be few and far between
except of course adventurers/GMs who wish
to run a campiagn so....

most "pirating" i think would be mercenary/
privateer/bucaneer work which really would
be an undeclared war on whomever....by a gov't
or mega-corporatation with a gov't blind eye...

normal economics, technologies and empires
just wouldnt be that condusive to any real
pirate enterprise...earth pirates i think
were maybe more isolated from reprecusions
then space pirates would be, the size of all
the empires, starbases, ships, and individual
worlds would be a hinderance in the long term.

although from time to time there maybe some kind of
galactic breakdown and then merry h*ll ensues
it would get mopped up shortly...if one did succed
at some point....they would probbaly turn into
a gov't of themseleves & rule a section of space
thus becoming anti-pirate themseleves...

manax...
i would tend to agree a FT, C or merc's are shady
at best...

 

[Anthony]

Ignoring the canon that says pirates clearly exist, in practice pirates can exist as long as space is poorly patrolled. If space is well patrolled, pirates cease to be viable.

This indicates that the Imperium either cannot or will not make the effort to stamp out piracy. If the first, it implies a fairly small budget; if the second, it indicates a rather nasty Imperium.

Based on canon UWPs, such a small budget winds up seeming fairly implausible. Hence, the debates on the issue.

 

[aramis]

The other factor in the existence of piracy isw communications...
If a pirate can outrun the commo of his/her/it's deeds, then he/she/it can operate on smash and grab with relative impunity...

This means, though, that such ops will be refuel, grab, and jump.

There has never been a time when there was shipping where pirates of one stripe or another have found niches within which to operate.

Barratry (the unlawful operation of a ship you had formerly been granted use of) is also considered by many to be a form of piracy; it can be the initial crime which leads a formerly above-board operator to other crimes.

Given the comm lags and world-independence, I doubt the imperium can effectively stop piracy. They probably can, however, restrict it to mostly the fringes.

 

[Spinward Scout]

This indicates that the Imperium either cannot or will not make the effort to stamp out piracy.

Job security? Oh, and don't forget the obligatory Chicago subsector bribes...

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Anthony:
[...] the Imperium either cannot or will not make the effort to stamp out piracy. If the first, it implies a fairly small budget; if the second, it indicates a rather nasty Imperium.

Based on canon UWPs, such a small budget winds up seeming fairly implausible. Hence, the debates on the issue.

Well, we all know that the Imperium of Proto-Traveller is rather an unfriendly bureaucracy with plenty of political nastiness...

 

[Ran Targas]

The problem I see most pirates facing is not where to hide but finding targets on a regular basis and getting away clean. Even fencing their goods shouldn't be too hard if they are regular trade goods (if very expensive or of specific Imperial interest, beware!). Solar systems are very big places, with all kinds of 400dT nooks and crannies. Hell, you could probably run silent for years at the edge of the Kuiper belt without detection.

The economic zone (say within 100 diameters) around most populated planets would be thick with military and law enforcement (customs, patrol, etc.) ships, making precision attacks and boardings difficult (mostly because they require lots of time). Even intra-system routes between population centers would have a regular law enforcement presence.

So goes the saying, "there are old pirates and there are bold pirates, but there are few old, bold pirates!".

A pirate would need to plan out his activities very carefully to avoid unwanted hull breaches or prolonged tail chases. To maintain a cloak of anonymity, they have to make a clean getaway with the prize! In fact, the more the prize appears to have disappeared mysteriously or had a catastrophic accident, the better.

I figure most would be considered hi-jackers by modern standards, combining a ground and space assault to secure a target (as is canon). You can't beat a man on the inside. They may even sneak a Q-ship into a convoy if the authorities get too wise and wait for the escorts to jump or get distracted by a wild goose. Whatever they do, they better be imaginative or "face a short drop and sudden stop"!

And like sharks, they shouldn't have to fill their gullets very often to make a good living. The value of a typical trader and its cargo would keep the pantry full for a long time; even if you can't get full price, it's still all profit after all! They probably won't receive much direct attention until they get greedy and go for the big score. If they were patient, it would make them even more difficult to route out as a skilled predator would only have to show his colors maybe once or twice a year.

 

[aramis]

It's really simple to gain a good value from a prize.

You pirate the prize. You jump the prize to your hidey-hole.you wait a year, having dumped the transponder. you strip all biotic materials, using enzymes, after taking anything else saleable. You use a different ship to "Find it" and haul it back months later for "Salvage Value"

 

[sid6.7]

i'm surround by pirates!

well at least i know where the black market is for traveller...

 

[far-trader]

Surrounded?

No, that has such a negative connatation. I'd call it safely enclosed in our protective network of private businessmen

Now then about your "insurance" policy, it seems another payment is due

 

[parmasson]

The problem I see most pirates facing is not where to hide but finding targets on a regular basis and getting away clean.

Just sprinkle in a few balkanized worlds into your subsector. Little corrupt banana republics and gun-barrel princely states make great locations to sell off, well anything!

Letters of Marque could be obtained for the right price.

 

[selunatic2397]

One of my players managed to get letters of marque from all the sides in one of the minor little wars that pop up in my campaigns more often than they should. He spent so much time in machiavellian plotting and in character roleplay that he even had me confused which side he was really on.
In the end he sold out to the Imperium for a knighthood and left our group to move back to Idaho.
He was the only truly successful pirate I have ever had in my campaigns. The others were more of the opportunistic merchant/mercenary than anything else.
Now pirate hunting on the other hand. Since they already have stolen all the good stuff. Wouldn't the heroes be rewarded for catching them by governments and/or insurance companies? Any chance of legal title to all those pricey cargoes through right of conquest or some other such rot? Plus, if anything just happens to vanish...like a few choice trinkets...all the pirates would be dead anyway...and we all know what kind of tales dead men tell

To Iron Horse Trujulio...one of the best pirates I've ever seen.

 

[Ran Targas]

Ahhh, my favorite villain, the insurance agent! Dun, dun, duuuuunnnnn! There is no greater hive of scum and villainy than an insurance company!

Actually, insurance agents, adjusters, repo-men, and private eyes are some of my favorite patrons, if only because they often cross that line between what is acceptable and what is necessary.

Read up on some insurance fraud investigations some time; they read like Cold War espionage novels.