How is it possible? It’s gotta happen in system that’s known to have trade because space is just too vast. Now if there’s trade the means a population and that means law enforcement. One would suspect the trade routes to be patrolled and ships can see each other from miles away. So how does it happen?
Piracy.
- Thread starter Thanos
- Start date
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
How is it possible? It's not. At least not in the usual way 
There's discussion a plenty on piracy here and elsewhere but in general in MTU it works only with inside help. It's more hijacking than the "high space" piracy imagery of a laser across the bow and heave to merchie.
...but, if you want high space piracy just make it so.
Then it's going to happen in the systems off the mains and away from the big rich ports where the bulk trade is done and the patrols are thick. In other words it is in the systems that the poor Free-Traders are stuck scrounging a living from. The low pop class C and poorer starports, where you might be lucky to see a token patrol once a year and the locals can't afford a space force. In those systems it's up to the Free-Traders to look after themselves. Go armed or be ready to drop some cargo and hope the pirate goes for the easy credits. Or hire an escort and/or travel in convoy.
There's discussion a plenty on piracy here and elsewhere but in general in MTU it works only with inside help. It's more hijacking than the "high space" piracy imagery of a laser across the bow and heave to merchie.
...but, if you want high space piracy just make it so.
Then it's going to happen in the systems off the mains and away from the big rich ports where the bulk trade is done and the patrols are thick. In other words it is in the systems that the poor Free-Traders are stuck scrounging a living from. The low pop class C and poorer starports, where you might be lucky to see a token patrol once a year and the locals can't afford a space force. In those systems it's up to the Free-Traders to look after themselves. Go armed or be ready to drop some cargo and hope the pirate goes for the easy credits. Or hire an escort and/or travel in convoy.
That is like asking why is there a thriving pirating industry in Somalia...
Pirates can exist wherever you have piracy support. Corrupt governments, bribed law enforcement, a cultural tolerance or righting a perceived injustice, corporate sponsorship and the occasional skipped merchant on the run from the repo guys needing spares food & fuel.
& thats just off the cuff.
Anti-piracy measures can be extensive, provided there is the political will and the credits to pay for it. A dedicated, corruption free and well paid enforcement arm helps too. And of course your enforcement must have jurisdiction at the point you want to tackle the pirates (ideally at their home base in many cases).
The Imperial Navy fits much of this, but on the whole unless Piracy halts trade (you are unlikely to get a Pirate blockade, its bad for business) the IN has much more important jobs to do. If they happen to be there, they will tackle it, but most of the policing/investigative work is done by the afflicted planetary agencies, who might have to ask for IN help if they cannot tackle it themselves.
So, in theory piracy should not exist in the OTU. In theory, modern day earth shouldn't have pirates either...
And all that aside, pirates in an RPG are fun.
Pirates can exist wherever you have piracy support. Corrupt governments, bribed law enforcement, a cultural tolerance or righting a perceived injustice, corporate sponsorship and the occasional skipped merchant on the run from the repo guys needing spares food & fuel.
& thats just off the cuff.
Anti-piracy measures can be extensive, provided there is the political will and the credits to pay for it. A dedicated, corruption free and well paid enforcement arm helps too. And of course your enforcement must have jurisdiction at the point you want to tackle the pirates (ideally at their home base in many cases).
The Imperial Navy fits much of this, but on the whole unless Piracy halts trade (you are unlikely to get a Pirate blockade, its bad for business) the IN has much more important jobs to do. If they happen to be there, they will tackle it, but most of the policing/investigative work is done by the afflicted planetary agencies, who might have to ask for IN help if they cannot tackle it themselves.
So, in theory piracy should not exist in the OTU. In theory, modern day earth shouldn't have pirates either...
And all that aside, pirates in an RPG are fun.
AramisSockPuppet
SOC-6
just remember...
change any of those, it fails.
- modern pirates are faster than their prey
- modern prey isn't armed
- modern insurance finds it cheaper to pay ransom than to pay for repairs or replacement of ships.
- modern pirates have easy access to personal military-grade weaponry
- modern pirates have a cooperative (non-)government
change any of those, it fails.
Rigel Stardin
SOC-13
Piracy can also take the form of hacking a cargo manifest and having the goods deliever to another location, ship or warhouse.
You also have to look at Hijacking as more of an auto theft ring in the richer systems. They give the ship a new paint job, transponder code and ship it off to some backwater area where no question asked.
The other issue which was mention in the Spinward Marches Campaign book was trade wars. In this case, it's basically a denial of service attack. Stealing cargo is not as important as giving the other company a black eye because they can't deliever their cargos safety.
In the case of the last paragraph, I see Pirate Guilds who are familar with imperial laws and how they would react to situation cause by a trade war spring up as well. Not only are they paid by the megacorporation involved in the war but they make a profit off the cargos and ramsoms.
You also have to look at Hijacking as more of an auto theft ring in the richer systems. They give the ship a new paint job, transponder code and ship it off to some backwater area where no question asked.
The other issue which was mention in the Spinward Marches Campaign book was trade wars. In this case, it's basically a denial of service attack. Stealing cargo is not as important as giving the other company a black eye because they can't deliever their cargos safety.
In the case of the last paragraph, I see Pirate Guilds who are familar with imperial laws and how they would react to situation cause by a trade war spring up as well. Not only are they paid by the megacorporation involved in the war but they make a profit off the cargos and ramsoms.
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The observation is that insurance takes a short term view that ransoms are cheaper than combat damage, has direct correlation to the the OTU. Any situation where the insurance companies stand in isolation and do not or cannot co-operate, will result in ransom preferred to actually solving the root problem (which it can also be argued is outside the realm of insurance companies).
Pirates in the OTU will usually be much faster than the 1G/2G prey they are chasing. Ton for ton, the pirates and merchants may be equally armed, but, the pirates will have maximum armament, the merchant may well just have the minimum specified by the insurance company. Relying on pay out ransoms if captured. Not to mention the merchants Ships Steward may not be as good at gunnery skill as the pirates ex-IN dishonorably discharged gunner with say 5 years of IN gunnery training.
Regime change in our RL example has proved difficult to impossible, which again will have correlations in the OTU. Of course it could be argued that the IN will step in, however they don't have the resources to occupy a planet, merely blockade it (which arguably can be worse than the piracy problem). And when the local government is elusive and merely replaced by the next warlord in line when taken out, the problem gets worse with local animosity increasing. I would guess at the extreme, almost inevitably resulting in a blockaded Red Zoned world, preventing trade far more effectively than piracy.
But its easy to make arguments for and against piracy. IMTU high pop worlds do not suffer from piracy (high pop = big budgets available for anti-piracy/smuggling etc). Low pop worlds may harbour pirates if I can think up a plausible excuse. Very rarely mid pop worlds may harbour pirates, if I can think up a plausible excuse including govt, corporate or enforcement complicity. Of course jump drives mean that any world within reach of a base is a target. And any world harboring pirates will eventually attract attention. And therein lies the adventure.
Out-of-game reason: Piracy exists because its "cool" and provided many adventure hooks
in-game reason: Piracy exists because the will to surpress it doesn't. Theoretically the Imperium could flood every system with hundreds if not thousands of escorts. However the threat of piracy is not sufficent to get either a) the Imperium to want to or b) local governments to surrender their independence to allow the Imperium to do a).
Piracy will exist in minor systems off the main trade routes. There the local authorities either can't afford to patrol the system or taking a cut (rarer). There the economic damage is sufficently low to be factored in as just another cost of trade. However this does imply that pirates have to operate under some unwritten "rules" and those that step out side those rules get thumped PDQ. Of course these systems just happen to be the ones PC free-traders spend their time grubbing a living in.
in-game reason: Piracy exists because the will to surpress it doesn't. Theoretically the Imperium could flood every system with hundreds if not thousands of escorts. However the threat of piracy is not sufficent to get either a) the Imperium to want to or b) local governments to surrender their independence to allow the Imperium to do a).
Piracy will exist in minor systems off the main trade routes. There the local authorities either can't afford to patrol the system or taking a cut (rarer). There the economic damage is sufficently low to be factored in as just another cost of trade. However this does imply that pirates have to operate under some unwritten "rules" and those that step out side those rules get thumped PDQ. Of course these systems just happen to be the ones PC free-traders spend their time grubbing a living in.
Local governments authority ends at 100 diameters. The Imperium's ends at 10 diameters. (See COACC.) Local worlds, canonically, don't own the system; they might own other worlds in system... but not the space between them.
So it's not really giving up any independence.
That most certainly is the theory. However all those ships would need support facilities dirtside, plus many governments may be a little "nervous" about such a substantial Imperial presence.
But the basic point is that piracy will only exist where the will to eradicate it doesn't. This usually comes down to a cost/benefit thing. The RW somali pirates could be eliminated, but the cost (both financial and political) is too high. I imagine if piracy exists in the OTU it does so for similar reasons. As long a pirates don't disrupt interstellar trade too much and you can write of the costs as just another expense, the Imperium won't seriously tackle it. Leaving to local authorities, whoes performance will vary.
Also remember many times those planetary agencies won't coperate with one another, due to rivalities, trade advantages they many take, etc.
About IN, IMHO, in the zones it's strong (frontiers) is also where the pirates can cross the borders and seek refuge. In the zones where this is not possible (core) is also where IN is weaker (as they have not to defend. What it has there are reserves and police keeping forces, but I guess not too many of them).
And also don't forget the communications difficutly in OTU. If pirates are active in one system, there will take at least 2 weeks to reinforce it (one week to take notice to the next base, if it's one hump away, and another to go from the base to the threatened system). This slow response of Law Forces also helps piracy.
While the need for repairs, supplies, new recruits and a ready market for illegal goods helps law enforcement.
Generally law enforcement is not pushed for time. They can and do take the slow methodical approach (inter-agency rivalries obviously don't help...). The long term view is taken, rather than rushing to pursue what could be red herring leads with scarce resources.
Conversely the pirate operates knowing they have a window of opportunity ranging over months or perhaps a year or two, to earn enough to retire in comfort far away. Before law enforcement narrows down their activities and is able to take effective action. Strategies put in place to make the law enforcement job slower and more difficult will merely delay the inevitable, hopefully profitably.
Pirate bases will likely be like the Star Wars Rebel base on the snow planet, moderately difficult to find, set up for a light defense and quickly abandonable (is that a word?) if attacked by superior forces.
Also, don't forget that piracy can be funded/supplied by any number of organizations. The most obvious being... terrorists or separatists. Most planets have some form of group that dislikes the Imperialism and would provide aid to pirates for either economic, political or just plain ornery reasons.
Not to mention privateers between corporations, between planets, political groups and so on... there's an argument to be made for all sorts of resources available to pirates. I play in the Gateway Sector so I have the plausibility that ships can jump to safe systems. But, even if you're not on the frontier, the notion that every single moon could provide a moderate base for a well-heeled outfit (ie. out-of-work mercenary group) makes discovery rather daunting.
Not to mention privateers between corporations, between planets, political groups and so on... there's an argument to be made for all sorts of resources available to pirates. I play in the Gateway Sector so I have the plausibility that ships can jump to safe systems. But, even if you're not on the frontier, the notion that every single moon could provide a moderate base for a well-heeled outfit (ie. out-of-work mercenary group) makes discovery rather daunting.
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
One issue with various Traveller rules is that operating a merchant vessel while taking only cargo and passengers is generally going to cause you to go broke. This introduces the speculatory cargo rules. While these can cause tremendous profits, they can also cause tremendous debts. All of these roads point to forcing the crew into potentially "unsavory" pursuits, such as possibly joining in with various portentially risky or even criminal enterprises (all kill, loot, and ploot stories were "adventures" way back in the early days).
The speculatory rules and adventure activities "force" crews to go places they wouldn't ordinarily. Pirates and void krakens may lurk thereabout. Some pirates may divert target craft into ideal unpatrolled local space with complicated confindence games.
"Yes, of course the Rialto Grain will sell for 7,678 Cr per dTon on Dinomn at High Fest, it's required in local religious rituals! There has been a run on Zuchai Crystal overproduction on Dinom and now there are no independent ships left to carry the last lots of Rialto Grain that will be required on Dinomn. Too bad there are no Zuchai Crystal shipments left to buy for the current market, that would have been some real money. Come on, it's only J-2 from Regina, one jump! It's not like its far out of the way or anything. You'll be back in time to watch the Regatta for the Purple! I hear Duke Norris is favored to win this year!"
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Did they give up multi-masted sailing vessels and yelling, "Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum," a while ago? Some of them did. Some pirates used sail well into the 20th Century and may yet be using it.
The most serious issues regarding piracy in the OTU are technologically related, in essence, what can the technology of ships in Traveller do? These are debated issues across many editions.
Pirates on the high seas (or roads) of Earth have numerous advantages, most notably the coverage of the Earth itself.
In space, there is basically little or no cover. You can hide behind an object, but that's about it. It's a matter of who can spot who, who can run down who first, and who can force boarding (or whether it can be forced at all: grav-pong, anyone?), which goes to issues of planting passengers or crew in order to obtain a hijack (by whatever means), preferably one that looks like a malfunction rather than a theft. The most ideal hijack would be to suborn the navigator who enters a false jump course. The ship does not even know anything has gone wrong until it appears with no remaining jump fuel in an empty hex with no choice but to starve or surrender to a waiting and fully-fueled vessel (which may be a foregone conclusion if the navigator has control of the ship's computer). Said waiting ship would be carrying collapsible fuel bladders in the cargo hold to refuel the target, or might have a cargo hold or boat bay big enough to just take the ship whole, allowing it to be better hidden for however long the journey to the sale site or chop-shop will take.
Does your anti-hijack program check to make sure the destination course entered by the Navigator is the one on ship's flight plan? What does it do if they're different? How does this interact with emergency situations with new orders flying about at the last second? Does the anti-hijack forbid a new course until a tedious security procedure is cleared?
One GM may allow all of this and another GM may not. It leads to some potentially strong differences of opinion regarding these matters.
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The speculatory rules and adventure activities "force" crews to go places they wouldn't ordinarily. Pirates and void krakens may lurk thereabout. Some pirates may divert target craft into ideal unpatrolled local space with complicated confindence games.
"Yes, of course the Rialto Grain will sell for 7,678 Cr per dTon on Dinomn at High Fest, it's required in local religious rituals! There has been a run on Zuchai Crystal overproduction on Dinom and now there are no independent ships left to carry the last lots of Rialto Grain that will be required on Dinomn. Too bad there are no Zuchai Crystal shipments left to buy for the current market, that would have been some real money. Come on, it's only J-2 from Regina, one jump! It's not like its far out of the way or anything. You'll be back in time to watch the Regatta for the Purple! I hear Duke Norris is favored to win this year!"
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There is piracy all over the Earth today. There was all over the Earth last century. Piracy on Earth has never really stopped.
Did they give up multi-masted sailing vessels and yelling, "Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum," a while ago? Some of them did. Some pirates used sail well into the 20th Century and may yet be using it.
There is precious little information, in my opinion, to do more than try and form hypotheses about the true reality of piracy in the OTU.
The most serious issues regarding piracy in the OTU are technologically related, in essence, what can the technology of ships in Traveller do? These are debated issues across many editions.
Pirates on the high seas (or roads) of Earth have numerous advantages, most notably the coverage of the Earth itself.
In space, there is basically little or no cover. You can hide behind an object, but that's about it. It's a matter of who can spot who, who can run down who first, and who can force boarding (or whether it can be forced at all: grav-pong, anyone?), which goes to issues of planting passengers or crew in order to obtain a hijack (by whatever means), preferably one that looks like a malfunction rather than a theft. The most ideal hijack would be to suborn the navigator who enters a false jump course. The ship does not even know anything has gone wrong until it appears with no remaining jump fuel in an empty hex with no choice but to starve or surrender to a waiting and fully-fueled vessel (which may be a foregone conclusion if the navigator has control of the ship's computer). Said waiting ship would be carrying collapsible fuel bladders in the cargo hold to refuel the target, or might have a cargo hold or boat bay big enough to just take the ship whole, allowing it to be better hidden for however long the journey to the sale site or chop-shop will take.
Does your anti-hijack program check to make sure the destination course entered by the Navigator is the one on ship's flight plan? What does it do if they're different? How does this interact with emergency situations with new orders flying about at the last second? Does the anti-hijack forbid a new course until a tedious security procedure is cleared?
One GM may allow all of this and another GM may not. It leads to some potentially strong differences of opinion regarding these matters.
In an RPG game, definitely. In real life, I dodge.
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I just have to issue a general MTU ruling that the IN does not pursue pirates. If they see a piratical action in progress, yes, they'll step in. They do not deploy forces in response to piratical activities. That is the realm of subsector and planetary navies.
I'm a little confused here. The IN would never "occupy" a planet, so it's resources availability regarding this is moot. The IM or IA would, potentially, occupy a planet. It's going to be fairly rare for an Imperial member world to be occupied (or even assaulted) in the modern OTU. A lot of political mediation, covert intelligence activity, and PCs or big story-NPCs sent in for the last minute rescue, will have to have all gone wrong in order to get there (IMO).
Yes. Absolutely. The budget's of the four TL-15 High-Pop worlds in the Spinward Marches are immense. Mora and Rhylanor especially so. They can afford squadrons of capital ships and could easily field so many SDBs that every planetary body in the star system would be thoroughly covered. A pirate might not even dare enter the system under legitimate business for fear of being caught peripherally on a background check.
Absolutely.
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How about every single asteroid belt, kuiper belt, and Oort cloud object big enough to dig a base into? Of which there could be tens or even hundreds of thousands per star system...
nats
SOC-12
The fact is that piracy is impossible in Traveller because you would never know where a ship is going to jump into a system, space is too big to hang around waiting for a ship to appear close by, ships travel at maximum speed to and from the jump location so there's no way a pirate could intercept, turn around and catch a target again without being far far far faster than its target, and the only place a pirate could attack a target is near the planet where the ships are slow enough and close enough to reach before they land - but of course police would no doubt be located all over the place.
So in other words you just have to fudge it and make up your own rules - as without pirates the game would be very dull. It worked in Frontier Elite the PC game, so I would say it can work in this game somehow. Just don't try to explain how.
Its one of the biggest problems with Traveller, but there are others. You just have to ignore these problems and 'fudge it'. I have to admit though that all these inconsistencies do start putting you off the game a bit - seems the more you read through the core book the more questions you have and the more that is left undefined in the game. I could spend my life trying to fix Traveller, or just leave it unexplained which is a bit of a cop out to me, or I can go and play something else...and that's the way I am going at the moment.
So in other words you just have to fudge it and make up your own rules - as without pirates the game would be very dull. It worked in Frontier Elite the PC game, so I would say it can work in this game somehow. Just don't try to explain how.
Its one of the biggest problems with Traveller, but there are others. You just have to ignore these problems and 'fudge it'. I have to admit though that all these inconsistencies do start putting you off the game a bit - seems the more you read through the core book the more questions you have and the more that is left undefined in the game. I could spend my life trying to fix Traveller, or just leave it unexplained which is a bit of a cop out to me, or I can go and play something else...and that's the way I am going at the moment.
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Piracy is hardly imposible. Very hard, yes, but not impossible.
Canon says that you have to go line-of-sight into the other system. That reduces the area of the 100 Diameter sphere by 50% right off. Most will be centered upon the world, so that reduces it to a few thousand KM for most ships.
Further, canon says you can read a jump signature... and determine where they going. About half the time, you will arrive before them if you go the same place... Given the uncertainties, it's really not that hard to determine if you made it ... in the typical 3-4 hour difference, they'll still be inbound if they got there first. Just fudge a breakdown if they didn't, use station keeping levels on the drive, and wait. Potentially, Lie about having a forgotten identity doc for one of their passengers.
It's hard, so it's going to be rare. But it's far from impossible.
And that's before other forms of piratical praxis, including barratry, staged mutiny, portside seizure, and customs collusion.
Canon says that you have to go line-of-sight into the other system. That reduces the area of the 100 Diameter sphere by 50% right off. Most will be centered upon the world, so that reduces it to a few thousand KM for most ships.
Further, canon says you can read a jump signature... and determine where they going. About half the time, you will arrive before them if you go the same place... Given the uncertainties, it's really not that hard to determine if you made it ... in the typical 3-4 hour difference, they'll still be inbound if they got there first. Just fudge a breakdown if they didn't, use station keeping levels on the drive, and wait. Potentially, Lie about having a forgotten identity doc for one of their passengers.
It's hard, so it's going to be rare. But it's far from impossible.
And that's before other forms of piratical praxis, including barratry, staged mutiny, portside seizure, and customs collusion.
