On Corsairs, Pirates, Smugglers and Privateers.

[Magnus von Thornwood]

I was reading the Robots in the 3I thread over in the Ship's Locker forum and there was a tangent about the various TUs (Traveller Universes) there and some of the differences, such a Book 2 v. High Guard (small v. big ship TU) or Virus or No Virus, Real Strephon v. Clone (or LMD) Strephon and so on. Well, one of the posters mention that one might create a TU where the Navy was everywhere and thus there were no pirates or smugglers and that made me wonder, why would some people not like such a TU?

See, thing is I am getting very close to my first half century of age, was raised in a nice middle class nuclear family and rather well educated at MPS, my home and the Library and to me pirates and cosairs are bloody vermin who rob on the King's Road and I am with Hammurabi on this and they are the Enemies of All Mankinds and anyone is legally allowed to execute these pukes. Hey, mom was from New England (Mass near Boston to be exact) and so I got a very serious education on our Revolution against the English Crown and the Age of Sail. That education avoided Tommy's naughty hookups with his property, but did give me the awful low down on just not at funny tarring and feathering is and why John Paul Jones gets to be lauded as a hero as opposed to a pirate which he also may have been along with smuggler. That one thing, Papers, me lads, he had a Letter of Marque and Reprisal from the Continental Congress in his pocket. :devil:

So in my [T5 ATU] The Permatic Imperium I do have a few pirates (in fact one of them features in the 2d Ed MgT Merecenary book, thanks to Matt & Rob who gave me the bump). So I have at least one open Ticket against one and I am considering having an open Bounty on known pirates or corsairs, maybe smugglers. I do have Prize and one group (meatspace) with a Letter of Marque and Reprisal against the Parthian Remenants coreward, but that is about it for now. Truth is I merely have them for tropes sake and in the glory days of the Fifth Imperium they had pretty much eliminated them from Civilized Space.

Still, that is my personal hatred bleeding through into my TU. I am curious on the thoughts and practices of my fellow Travellers. So how do things work in your Traveller Universe?

 

[Timerover51]

Hmm, with respect to smugglers, quite a few, as most planets are trying to keep a positive trade balance, so restrict imports to a greater or lesser degree, or are watching out to avoid becoming dependent on technology that they cannot maintain themselves. On Balkanized worlds, smuggling is quite common, both on-planet and coming from off-planet.

In asteroid belts, and systems with multiple gas giants with satellite systems, local piracy and hi-jacking is a problem. Space is large and the number of policing ships is limited to available budgets, which are perpetually short. Armed traders with Letters of Marque are not unusual, and may tend to be more like the Shipman in Chaucer at times.

The smaller planets cannot really afford to support a large navy, so merchant auxiliaries are welcomed for both escort, privateers, ad Letter of Marque cargo ships.

Again, pirates are around, but well-traveled routes between high-population planets tend to keep them well suppressed.

 

[wbyrd]

If two governments are opposed, giving out letters of Marque to attack ships belonging to the other side is fairly common up until the 20th century. I don;t see a reason why large space faring governments wouldn't do the same.

Of course the fine line between commerce raiders and pirate/privateer is very thin at times. A commerce raider would be more interested in simply destroying commercial vessels and less interested in seizing the cargo. Though they might help themselves to a cargo or two if they can take the time to loot the vessel before they scuttle it....a particularly clever commerce raider might even board a vessel and use a prize crew to send it home for a bounty, or for sell.

Pirates would also not be very interested in tankers and support ships. A raider would be very interested in those sorts of vessels, scouts, and couriers etc. Targeting those vessels would be very low profit operation at best.

 

[Timerover51]

If two governments are opposed, giving out letters of Marque to attack ships belonging to the other side is fairly common up until the 20th century. I don;t see a reason why large space faring governments wouldn't do the same.

Of course the fine line between commerce raiders and pirate/privateer is very thin at times. A commerce raider would be more interested in simply destroying commercial vessels and less interested in seizing the cargo. Though they might help themselves to a cargo or two if they can take the time to loot the vessel before they scuttle it....a particularly clever commerce raider might even board a vessel and use a prize crew to send it home for a bounty, or for sell.

Pirates would also not be very interested in tankers and support ships. A raider would be very interested in those sorts of vessels, scouts, and couriers etc. Targeting those vessels would be very low profit operation at best.

Pirates might be highly interested in support ships and tankers, if the support ships are supplying naval vessels or military units, while tankers would give them the ability to make longer jumps or avoiding having to take the time to shim fuel.

 

[rancke]

Of course the fine line between commerce raiders and pirate/privateer is very thin at times.

The line between pirate and privateer is rather important too. A privateer is legal, a pirate is not.


Hans

 

[aramis]

The line between pirate and privateer is rather important too. A privateer is legal, a pirate is not.


Hans

No. A Pirate is a criminal everywhere. A Privateer is a criminal almost everywhere but his Letter's Nation of Origin. Rarely, that nation's allies also don't consider a privateer a criminal.

And that's the way it's been for centuries.

 

[rancke]

No. A Pirate is a criminal everywhere. A Privateer is a criminal almost everywhere but his Letter's Nation of Origin. Rarely, that nation's allies also don't consider a privateer a criminal.

And that's the way it's been for centuries.

Wrong. A nation may decide to treat a captured privateer as a pirate, sometimes without any real justification, but that's a different matter. Back in the day when letters of marque were issued, the privateers of enemy nations were accepted as legitimate combatants.

And that's the way it was.


Hans

 

[Timerover51]

No. A Pirate is a criminal everywhere. A Privateer is a criminal almost everywhere but his Letter's Nation of Origin. Rarely, that nation's allies also don't consider a privateer a criminal.

And that's the way it's been for centuries.

The American Privateers, particularly in the War of 1812, and to a lesser degree in the Revolution were not treated harshly, and were not declared as pirates, nor were any of them hung. The British during the War of 1812 worked very hard to capture US privateers intact, as they were some of the fastest ships of the times, and the Royal Navy dry-docked them to take the lines off of them in order to improve their ships. During the American Revolution, there are quite a few accounts of American privateers encountering British privateers or Letters of Marque.

 

[sabredog]

IMTU Pirates exist, mainly the rule is that the farther off the Terran Empire's rim you get the more likely they can exist. Still, despite the campfire tales of colonists alone on remote worlds, they are not that common - they tend to cluster when larger wars start between empires or worlds, then they thin out during peacetime. Mainly this is because the assorted navies need something to do to justify budgets and train the new gentlemen with during periods of peace and pirates are something they can blow up and shoot at without looking bad in the press.

A very few pirate gangs exist that have always had safe havens to run to for shelter from the Imperial and Frontier Navies, but they are alien gangs and others associated with them. Accordingly, sending a couple of destroyers and a passel of Marines in their to scour them out might cause a diplomatic incident, thus these scoundrels scarper across the border into their home race's sovereign territory when pursued. Their lairs, while not exactly Port Royale, are still good places for intrigue and finding valuable, though illicit, goods. Smugglers and the like do well to know the passwords to get clearance to such places, and a fast, fast ship to get in and out in case the Navy guys are hanging around looking for them and/or pirates.

Privateers also wax and wane with the tides of war, both between governments and mega-corps. Corporate trade wars occasionally get pretty hot in my campaign now that the Imperial borders shrank a bit due to the last war and the collapse along the Frontier. The megacorps moved in in a few places and are trying to assert themselves as new political powers out where they don't have to worry about labor rights, environmental impact statements, and those silly laws (ethical and otherwise) on genetic experimentation. If a couple of them fight it out over a trade route or turf on some world they have their own commerce raiders among their security departments, but those are expensive. To reduce costs they hire on privateers. This has resulted in a repeat of the sort of mercenary escapades of the Italian Renaissance with mercs putting on a nice show and keeping damage among themselves down, and then getting back together for a few drinks later at their favorite bars. Fixing your ship is expensive, so they do a lot of damage among the security commerce raiders and enemy shipping, but not when they face off against each other.

Privateers get a percentage of any prize taken, generally about 5% of the value of the vessel and cargo - so don't shoot it up too much - and crews are held until the end of hostilities by the sponsoring megacorp. The corporate crews know how the game is played, and since it isn't their money or ship they don't usually put up much of a fight. Private merchant crews are a different matter, and since I run an LBB 2 small ship game down on the civilian level some of those private merchants can be dangerous to duke it out with for a privateer. Sometimes they might even turn out to be a Q-ship.

The Frontier Navy stays out of the way during these trade wars - the conflicts tend to be destructive only among corporate personnel (assassination, kidnapping, privateers, industrial sabotage, etc.), so as long as innocents and pirates don't get involved the Navy uses these as excellent opportunities to train the crews in rescue and salvage operations.

 

[sabredog]

Wrong. A nation may decide to treat a captured privateer as a pirate, sometimes without any real justification, but that's a different matter. Back in the day when letters of marque were issued, the privateers of enemy nations were accepted as legitimate combatants.

And that's the way it was.


Hans

It tended to depend on the temper of the times and how successful a privateer you were. Sir Francis Drake was considered a pirate by the Spanish regardless of any piece of paper given him by England. Often pirates flipped back and forth, too, going from privateer to pirate and back again depending on the larger circumstances. That sometimes led to pretty tangled legal situations depending on who caught them and when. Kidd was a privateer, but unfortunately ran afoul of that sort of legal entanglement. And being stupid didn't help.

Jean Lafitte tried playing both sides against the middle until it became obvious the Americans were going to be the winning side, but by then he had caused enough trouble for himself with flip-flopping and pirating he wasn't as trusted as some popular accounts of the War of 1812 would lead you to believe, and he was his own worst enemy.

The vast majority of the time, though, privateers legally hold a Letter of Marque were secure so long as they strictly obeyed it. They were important force multipliers and sources of income, and nobody wanted to have all their privateers hanged when caught - bad for business and empire.

 

[aramis]

Having one's ship taken, one's belongings forfeit, and one's person incarcerated or impressed is pretty much identical to how most pirates were handled. Only the pirate captains and officers generally got executed, and even when privateers were being hung, again, only the captain and officers stood to be executed. (There ARE exceptions...)

But capturing them was often deadly enough. And for privateers, the best chance of survival was unconditional surrender once one started losing.

As for the war of 1812... England was still claiming us as in rebellion, not a valid nation... that political fiction meant also that they had to give full due process... but 3rd party nations were not so kind.

And no one paid any attention that the provincial rulers of the Barbary States had issued Privateering Licenses... the Barbary "Pirates" mostly were commissioned raiders... with a target choice of "Everyone who is sailing through our waters except..." And the law of unintended consequences struck the US... since the UK was on the "except..." list, their recognition of the US made US merchants fair game.

 

[BlackBat242]

Often pirates flipped back and forth, too, going from privateer to pirate and back again depending on the larger circumstances. That sometimes led to pretty tangled legal situations depending on who caught them and when. Kidd was a privateer, but unfortunately ran afoul of that sort of legal entanglement. And being stupid didn't help.

His biggest problem was allowing the British government to get hold of his documents.

He was convicted and executed primarily on the two ships he took that the prosecution claimed were not legal targets, and which he claimed were - and that he had given the papers proving they were legal (the French passes those captains had had) to the government.

The government swore that such papers never existed, and he was hung in 1701. In 1910, both of those French passes actually did show up in the British government archives (Board of Trade) - and they proved exactly what Kidd said they did.

He simply had gotten too much false press in England from personal enemies while he was still in the Indian Ocean, and his supporters decided to pretend to have never heard of him in order to keep themselves free of taint (this did not fully work, but they did escape legal penalty).

 

[mike wightman]

IMTU privateers are sponsored by three main sources:

dukes will sponsor privateers to conduct trade wars against rival dukes, megacorporations will sponsor privateers to conduct trade war against rivals, and finally some world governments will sponsor privateers to conduct trade war against rival planets.

This is how I explain that corsairs have a career plan, purpose built ships, and a pension

Of these three types of 'legitimate' privateer the last one is the most likely to lead to IN intervention, since dukes and megacorporations often have the political clout to make the IN turn a blind eye.

If the sector economy starts to suffer too badly then the sector duke may order the IN to take action.

Then there are raiders/pirates from beyond the Imperial border, and ethically challenged merchants who can't resist a golden opportunity.

 

[Ulsyus]

The line between pirate and privateer is rather important too. A privateer is legal, a pirate is not.
Hans

References to privateers go back to a time when it was reasonably feasible to arm a vessel so that it could present a significant risk to an intended victim. How much harder is that in a high-tech environment where weaponry is far more regulated. Wouldn't one need an environment like the Cold War with protagonists happy to arm proxies to wreak havoc on their opponents, or one similar to Mexico or Somalia?

IMTU Pirates exist, mainly the rule is that the farther off the Terran Empire's rim you get the more likely they can exist. Still, despite the campfire tales of colonists alone on remote worlds, they are not that common - they tend to cluster when larger wars start between empires or worlds, then they thin out during peacetime. Mainly this is because the assorted navies need something to do to justify budgets and train the new gentlemen with during periods of peace and pirates are something they can blow up and shoot at without looking bad in the press.

This is a really good point. When a nation has the organisational capacity to devote resources to security issues, then if he security effort is effective the issues can be managed. Think Indonesian piracy in the 90's and 00's, crime in New York from the 70's to the 00's, paramilitary and separatist violence in Columbia from the 80's to the 00's, and piracy off the Horn of Africa from the 90's to the 10's.

If the sector economy starts to suffer too badly then the sector duke may order the IN to take action.

Isn't the economics of the matter the bottom line? If it's worth the while of a world to be part of the 3I then the rulers/govt would chose to join, yes? But if the space between worlds is infected, not even wracked, by piracy, wouldn't members of the 3I ask what they're getting for their membership? Wouldn't the nobility who's reputations rely on interstellar trade take action? Wouldn't the Imperial government who's taxation base relies on that trade take action to protect it's income?

 

[rancke]

References to privateers go back to a time when it was reasonably feasible to arm a vessel so that it could present a significant risk to an intended victim. How much harder is that in a high-tech environment where weaponry is far more regulated. Wouldn't one need an environment like the Cold War with protagonists happy to arm proxies to wreak havoc on their opponents, or one similar to Mexico or Somalia?

Well, you'd need a war with an enemy, or at the very least a recognizable enemy. Otherwise there is no one to issue letters of marque against. And you'd need a state that feels a need to supplement its own national forces with privately paid warships. If you have that, I don't see why you can't outfit a private warship. It would have to be considerably better armed armed than its prospective victims, which given the hardpoint rule means a bigger ship than the prospective victims.

Isn't the economics of the matter the bottom line? If it's worth the while of a world to be part of the 3I then the rulers/govt would chose to join, yes? But if the space between worlds is infected, not even wracked, by piracy, wouldn't members of the 3I ask what they're getting for their membership? Wouldn't the nobility who's reputations rely on interstellar trade take action? Wouldn't the Imperial government who's taxation base relies on that trade take action to protect it's income?

The real problem for pirates and privateers both is that for most practical purposes the space between worlds is limited to the space between surface and jump limit (though jump masking can increase that a bit). And member worlds spend twice as much on their own navies as they pay in military taxes to the Imperium. The member worlds might need help against invading fleets, but pirates and privateers they should mostly be able to handle on their own. Except for the low and low-mid population worlds, and if they have a defense treaty with a nearby high-population world (as part of a trade agreement, perhaps), they would be covered by the allies. Anything the Imperium can add would be gilding the lily.

The Imperium's function is to defend member worlds against big fleets; pirates and privateers would just be incidential.


Hans

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Dude, awesome sauce all over this post!

Pirates might be highly interested in support ships and tankers, if the support ships are supplying naval vessels or military units, while tankers would give them the ability to make longer jumps or avoiding having to take the time to shim fuel.

I like to think of myself as a decent enough space admiral, but I had not thought of pirates going after my auxilleries. The other navy sure, but not some damned vermin. Thing is as soon as I read it, I realized you are correct, sir. They do make for an excellent target, often lightly armed (if at all) and armored, and they come with Fuel, Ammo, Life Support, Medical supplies, pretty much anything a right proper smart corsair wants lots of.

Dangnabbit! Now I have to start arming up my auxilleries. Great, that goes over well at the Budget hearings, "Yes, My Lords, I do need 15.754 billion Credits to arm our Auxiliaries, and that is just with a couple triple beam laser turrets. Turrets, My Lords, not even barrettes. Now, if you could see your way toward giving me my initial request 533.82 billion Credits...". :devil:

Because, while we have our differences we share a love of the logistical end of war. Ah, those lovey safe and clean numbers with none of that getting shot at stuff...mostly.

 

[Timerover51]

It tended to depend on the temper of the times and how successful a privateer you were. Sir Francis Drake was considered a pirate by the Spanish regardless of any piece of paper given him by England.

Francis Drake was a pirate, albeit a sanctioned one, when it came to attacking the Spanish. No orders have ever been shown with respect to his voyage around the World, although there are some suspicions that exploration was also on the agenda. Elizabeth did apparently put up some money in backing the voyage. By Knighting him on his return, Elizabeth indirectly declared war on Spain.

 

[aramis]

Well, you'd need a war with an enemy, or at the very least a recognizable enemy. Otherwise there is no one to issue letters of marque against. And you'd need a state that feels a need to supplement its own national forces with privately paid warships.

You don't actually need an active war.

You don't even need a defined enemy.

A defined exclusion zone and clear indicator of who is allowed, and you can easily have privateers.

The Barbary States, for centuries, had a basic plan of, "If you don't have a treaty, don't have overwhelming force, and are in our waters, you're fair game for our privateers."

 

[rancke]

You don't actually need an active war.

You don't even need a defined enemy.

You do if you consider yourself one of the civilized nations -- the European ones and the ones they regarded as peers. A letter of marque specified the enemy ships the privateer was allowed to capture, and ceased to be valid when peace was declared.

The Barbary States, for centuries, had a basic plan of, "If you don't have a treaty, don't have overwhelming force, and are in our waters, you're fair game for our privateers."

Which is why the civilized nations considered them pirates and not privateers.


Hans

 

[Timerover51]

You don't actually need an active war.

You don't even need a defined enemy.

A defined exclusion zone and clear indicator of who is allowed, and you can easily have privateers.

The Barbary States, for centuries, had a basic plan of, "If you don't have a treaty, don't have overwhelming force, and are in our waters, you're fair game for our privateers."

Hmmm, sometimes, even with a treaty, if the prize was rich enough to make the ruler happy, you were fair game.