Trophy ship - consequences

[Murphy]

Let's say a crew of travellers have captured a ship that was previously involved in crime, in Aramis subsector. They decide to keep it for themselves, hiding it among the rings of a seldom-visited gas giant somewhere in the Towers Cluster and going away for a while to sell their other trophies at a black market on Jesedipere.

As a referee, I am inclined to let them keep the ship but occasionally have them deal with some nasty consequences to balance out their acquisition. Some inspiring advice would be appreciated here.

Also, for now, what could they do to throw Imperial authorities off their trail? I'm thinking of something involving spending lots of resources on forgery, transponder spoofing, and getting a new home port in Vargr Extents where people are lax about this kind of thing...

 

[Lycanorukke]

As a referee, I am inclined to let them keep the ship but occasionally have them deal with some nasty consequences to balance out their acquisition. Some inspiring advice would be appreciated here.

The original owners (not the original crew) come looking for it? Stealing from the Mafia is not healthy.
As to why they want it so badly - well there is a secret compartment loaded with drugs, forged credits, the Dons anagathic supply, whatever. And the INI has been tracking these drugs/forgeries so they are looking for the ship as well.

I'm thinking of something involving spending lots of resources on forgery, transponder spoofing, and getting a new home port in Vargr Extents where people are lax about this kind of thing...

The best bet is to get an annual maintance with 'extras' - new paint job, new transponder, scrub the computer, etc from somewhere with "No questions asked if you pay for silence".
Of course, if the aforementioned Mafia/Cops can beat that price later on either in cash or kneecaps....well, no honor amoungst thieves and all that.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I agree with Lycanorukke. But, the idea of hopping out somewhere like Vargr territory allows for a set of adventures unto itself. ANd, if they can shake any tail on the way there, then they can reduce the risk of their price being beaten later.

 

[Carlobrand]

Let's say a crew of travellers have captured a ship that was previously involved in crime, in Aramis subsector. They decide to keep it for themselves, hiding it among the rings of a seldom-visited gas giant somewhere in the Towers Cluster and going away for a while to sell their other trophies at a black market on Jesedipere.

As a referee, I am inclined to let them keep the ship but occasionally have them deal with some nasty consequences to balance out their acquisition. Some inspiring advice would be appreciated here.

Also, for now, what could they do to throw Imperial authorities off their trail? I'm thinking of something involving spending lots of resources on forgery, transponder spoofing, and getting a new home port in Vargr Extents where people are lax about this kind of thing...

The players captured a ship with a criminal history - and they don't want the Imperial authorities to know?? Reasons that might be the case:

A. The original owners or their backers are still a threat.
B. The Imperials are insufficiently generous with someone who just solved a problem for them.
C. The players want some feature of the ship that the Imperials wouldn't let them keep.

The players' problem is analagous to the problem of skipping payments: someone's on the lookout for that ship. Similar mechanics can be applied, with the location of the crime replacing the ship's home planet, and a DM for the seriousness of the crime and the uniqueness of the ship - it's easier to track an Annic Nova than a rogue scout/courier - and maybe a DM for starport type, since the average E port really isn't looking all that hard at the ships that are coming through.

Then it's a matter of figuring out what kind of encounter occurs. Most likely with a ship involved in crime is a patrol ship ordering it to surrender or be attacked - in which case your innocent players stop being innocent when they shoot back. Second most likely is port authorities allowing it to land and then surrounding the crew with armed officers when they leave the ship.

Neither's a fun state of affairs for players - unless you convert them into an opportunity for adventure: OK, says the port master (or some other useful and influential person), you've taken out the criminals, you control the ship, I tell you what - I'll clear the ship's record and assign it to you legally if you'll help me out with a few off-the-books little problems...

You're going to have to cross that bridge eventually, or your players are going to find themselves relegated to non-Imperial space pretty much as long as they fly that ship.

 

[Murphy]

The players captured a ship with a criminal history - and they don't want the Imperial authorities to know??

To quote the adventure (by Rick Morey) which inspired the thoughts:

Capturing the corsair is worth Cr 50,000 for taking it out of circulation. Should your players prove as mercenary as the ones I’m familiar with and want to keep the ship for themselves, remind them that taking a ship by force is called piracy, not salvage.

I definitely know that any "reminders" aren't going to dissuade my players from keeping their rightful spoils (as they view it). So I need to know what to throw at them for doing it, but at the same time I don't want to ruin them entirely.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

[SanDragon]

Pirating pirates makes you a pirate, even though you're exercising the right of self-defense?

 

[Murphy]

Well I guess if there are no survivors, you can claim salvage, but:
1) When you go so far as to ensure there are no survivors, it isn't self-defense anymore, and you'll have to prove you didn't just do it to claim the ship.
2) They can expect a reward from the ship's rightful owner - that's what salvage means - but they can only have the ship itself if no rightful owner shows up.
3) If the pirate captain in question was the rightful owner (i.e. the ship wasn't stolen) then it's probably going to be confiscated by the authorities.

Alright, think I now know what I'll be doing.

 

[Lycanorukke]

You could try to claim salvage, but you would have to drag the ship to the local admiralty board who would make the decision what to do with the ship (and/if they awarded it to the PC's legally). However the board would probably ask some pointed questions as to how the ship came into the PC's grubby hands in the first place...

Eg:
Mr PC, this pirate has FGMP burns - a restricted wepaon...can you explain this?
Mr PC, the local police would like to ask some questions about this vessel you claim as war booty, their records some some irregularities.
Mr PC, we need your transponder logs to investigate events, dont worry I'm sure you have nothing to hide.
Mr PC, your lawyer has said he wont continue to argue your case until you pay him a 50,000Cr retainer.
Mr PC, the board will get to your case soon, we expect it to be resolved in 6-9 months.

 

[Sir Brad]

other questions:

Captain PC, could you explain your Cure History? your Navigator has an INI Seal on his service record, your Medic Isn't Mercantile Certified he got his papers over a decade ago in Field Trauma Response from the SOCOM Protected Forces School, your "Steward" isn't qualified except in Ship Security & Gunnery and your Launch Pilot has an Assault Lander Ticket not a Civilian Launch License. (that one comes from a Custom TTA party).

Captain PC, you have the remains of eight "Pirates" but their is irrefutable evidence of the cure being twelve.

Captain PC, a number of the "Pirates" have bean killed by ARL fire, the shot grouping can only be achieved with the Support Variant, but the ARL in your ships locker is only a standard model and our Armorer sais it hasn't bean fired in over six months.

Captain PC, the Pirates where known to be carrying some stolen Government Radioactives, the Holds Environmental Logs say they where still there a month after you took custody of the ship.

Captain PC, please explain the VRF Gauss Gun locking footprint just outside your Boarding Lock.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Pirating pirates makes you a pirate, even though you're exercising the right of self-defense?

If some pirate steals a ship and uses it for nefarious deeds then someone else liberates it but does not turn the ship over to the proper authorities will the owner, insurance, and financing concerns stop looking for the ship?

Will authorities stop looking for the ship? Will authorities assume whoever is operating the ship are the same ones who stole it and committed numerous nefarious deeds?

So yes, defending yourself is not a good excuse for piracy. "Real" pirates could just as easily say that all the merchants they have encountered shot first and they were just defending themselves.

Investigator: "Well, there is nobody left alive to dispute your story so lets fill out some paperwork so you can get title to this here ship. Have your whole crew come outside to sign statements." Outside, the entire ships crew is gunned down by the inspector and his men. "It's a pity they assaulted us over some smuggled drugs." he says while tossing something on one of them and taking a picture. "So boys, what should I do with my new ship?" One of his men guns him down. "You mean with my new ship." A gun battle ensues with all the men dead or mortally wounded. A port maintenance worker comes by, kicks the gun away from the wounded, sits, eats a sandwich waiting for the last of the wounded to bleed out and die. "Nice ship." When he tries to sell the ship, the case that supposedly had the money explodes and the buyer runs off with the ship... and so on.

The it was self defense, finders keepers, looting the dead type of society would be self defeating. Less able to buy a ship because who would finance or insure it, so less and less ships are even made... Not saying it might not exist in some systems in some TUs.

 

[Carlobrand]

Well I guess if there are no survivors, you can claim salvage, but:
1) When you go so far as to ensure there are no survivors, it isn't self-defense anymore, and you'll have to prove you didn't just do it to claim the ship.
2) They can expect a reward from the ship's rightful owner - that's what salvage means - but they can only have the ship itself if no rightful owner shows up.
3) If the pirate captain in question was the rightful owner (i.e. the ship wasn't stolen) then it's probably going to be confiscated by the authorities.

Alright, think I now know what I'll be doing.

"When you go ..."; wait, WHAT???

They killed the wounded? They wouldn't accept a surrender?

OOOOOOOOOOHHHH! That chaps my lawful good heinie! Somebody needs a spankin'!

Besides, it's like throwing credits into the abyss. Live prisoners are worth much more, at least in my TU. The Imperial authorities can pump them for information about their associates and fences.

You could try to claim salvage, but you would have to drag the ship to the local admiralty board who would make the decision what to do with the ship (and/if they awarded it to the PC's legally). However the board would probably ask some pointed questions as to how the ship came into the PC's grubby hands in the first place...

Eg:
Mr PC, this pirate has FGMP burns - a restricted wepaon...can you explain this?
Mr PC, the local police would like to ask some questions about this vessel you claim as war booty, their records some some irregularities.
Mr PC, we need your transponder logs to investigate events, dont worry I'm sure you have nothing to hide.
Mr PC, your lawyer has said he wont continue to argue your case until you pay him a 50,000Cr retainer.
Mr PC, the board will get to your case soon, we expect it to be resolved in 6-9 months.

Couple of points.

An altercation between ships in space is under the jurisdiction of Imperial law, not the locals.

I'm not aware of any Imperial restrictions on personal weapon ownership on ships in deep space - only who you point them at.

The Imperium's been dealing with civilian ship-vs-ship altercations for over a millenium. I suspect by now they've figured out a way to resolve the case in a manner that doesn't encourage witnesses to wander off or encourage affected parties to cut the authorities out of the loop - especially with TL15 tools and computers available for forensic analysis. The longest wait I see is maybe a month, if you happen to be somewhere where they have to fetch authorities and equipment in from a "real" starport to conduct the inquest.

As to the later idea that, after a thousand years and more of civilians pot-shotting each other under Imperial jurisdiction, the Imperium doesn't have the tools to analyze the battle damage and recreate what happened with fair accuracy is just silly. A thousand years of it, they'd come up with something. If nothing else, they'd require a couple or three black boxes scattered aboard to capture sensor data and ship operational data at the instant a weapon was fired and at the instant any ship system flashed a damage alert. That'd also give them valuable clues if a ship suffered a solitary mishap. Woe betide you should those boxes be tampered with, missing, or all suffer damage that erased their data in the same combat.

A ship that comes under fire is entitled to defend itself and, given potential police response times of as much as two weeks, is entitled to destroy its attacker if able. Such an act is a benefit to the Imperium as a whole. To imagine a system in which authorities are incompetent to tell attacker from defender, and with perverse penalties for self-defense in an empire where help may be completely unavailable to the defender, is to actively discourage spacefaring and interstellar trade. I don't see the Imperium allowing such a state of affairs to go on for 1100 and more years, nor do I see such a state of affairs creating the kind of setting that Traveller presents. You might have a few odd pockets of bureaucratic incompetence here and there, but the norm will be to settle it quickly and to the satisfaction of the innocent party.

 

[Murphy]

"When you go ..."; wait, WHAT???

They killed the wounded? They wouldn't accept a surrender?

OOOOOOOOOOHHHH! That chaps my lawful good heinie! Somebody needs a spankin'!

Besides, it's like throwing credits into the abyss. Live prisoners are worth much more, at least in my TU. The Imperial authorities can pump them for information about their associates and fences.

Actually, that's what I was trying to point out.
My players merely put 'em in cold sleep. And no, that's not an euphemism.

 

[Lycanorukke]

Couple of points.

An altercation between ships in space is under the jurisdiction of Imperial law, not the locals.

Unless of course the locals 'in cooperation with INI' had an undercover operative on board ...oops.

I'm not aware of any Imperial restrictions on personal weapon ownership on ships in deep space - only who you point them at.

True, but even then a group of civilians packing high end military hardware will raise eyebrows even if it is quite legal. At the very least, someone may ask where did they get such hardware? And PC's weapons are usually obtained from less than reputable sources.

Woe betide you should those boxes be tampered with, missing, or all suffer damage that erased their data in the same combat.

It's not the tampering which is the problem (as that would get you in a world of trouble), but what else is on there. Sure grabbing the priates may have been legitimate, but there was that little smuggling incident a few years ago, and that trip to an interdicted system, etc. While in most cases such log data would be glanced at, filed, and then forgotten by some low level clerk - in this case investigators have a reason to look a bit more closely at your logs....