Corsair Question

[GypsyComet]

So that would mean privateers with letters of marque are just spiffy to the Navy... I can just imagine the communications. "You're from where? You're hear to take what? Well then, carry on. We'll be watching..."

Essentially, yes.
A ship with a letter of marque is, to most legal intents and purposes, a warship of the issuing polity.

If the imperium recognises that polity as legally able to have a navy and recognises it as a 'legal' war, then as long as the privateer sticks to legitimate targets (i.e. not 'neutral' imperial shipping), then it's a legitimate combatant and they have to wind their necks in.

I can imagine unscrupulous privateers being the sort of activity likely to cause imperial intervention, though...

"Unscrupulous privateer" = Pirate. If an element of the IN is anywhere nearby, a privateer will need to be able to defend every action it takes against other ships, because every action *will* be on camera.

 

[locarno24]

Agreed. But it's more than just[/i] "Unscrupulous privateer" = Pirate. Because he is legally a naval vessel of wherever-he's-from, his actions are considered to have been carried out by the navy of that polity, which could lead to all sorts of repercussions.


If A and B are both recognised imperial polities and A and B are at war, and this war is recognised by the Imperium (i.e. they have officially stated they are neutral and will not interfere), then A has a recognised prerrogative (not exactly a 'right') to recruit mercenaries/privateers to attack ships specifically belonging to B.

If a ship with a letter of Marque from A attacks a vessel which is clearly a legitimate target belonging to B (system defence boat, entirely govt-owned transport, etc, etc) then a witnessing Imperial ship would not intervene. Since both parties are imperial citizens, it may well provide humanitarian support (picking up escape pods from the loser, for example), but that's about it.

If a ship with a letter of Marque from A attacks a vessel which is not a legitimate target belonging to B (third party merchantman) then a witnessing Imperial ship would intervene. However, if it took said ship, not only would the crew be considered pirates, but since they are legally naval personnel of A, it is highly likely this would also bring about imperial intervention in favour of B, which is likely to end the war very quickly and very badly.

 

[rust]

Indeed, from a political point of view the main difference between
privateers and "pirates" (= black operations commerce raiding) is
that privateers are not deniable and therefore have to follow the
rules of war to the letter in order to avoid any accusations of war
crimes.

 

[mr31337]

Basically to summarize opinions; war & commerce raiding within the 100D sure, knock yourselves out. War & commerce raiding outside the 100D is fine if you have the right paperwork, in which case the Imperial forces go from policemen to observers.

That seems odd, because I can’t imagine any ‘policeman’ behaving like that. I bet in most cases they’d arrest everybody involved ‘fighting’ or ‘attacking’ and sort it out at the station with interviews, checking paperwork, ship searches etc and then allow them to be on their way the next day.

 

[dragoner]

My view it is similar to the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act which prohibts bribery except:

Regarding payments to foreign officials, the act draws a distinction between bribery and facilitation or "grease payments", which may be permissible under the FCPA but may still violate local laws.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act

It basically saying, you can officially bribe officials, until we say you can't.

Similar to say that the Imperium states: You can Coerce with Force (Police Actions, Counter Insurgency, Raid, etc.) until it becomes War, then the Imperium will step in. The Imperium retains the right to the definition of War and usually a perogative is the disruption of commerce beyond the two systems.

 

[GypsyComet]

Not a bad take. As previously quoted, the Imperium declines to write down the Rules of War for good reason. If what they see has become a threat to the health of commerce and the Imperium, then they step in, and no legal loopholes are going to stop them.

 

[dragoner]

"Salt the earth" type of weapons would be illegal, as written; but it would also sort of being unspoken that backroom diplomacy would play a huge part, with Imperial Nobles, Megacorps getting their hands dirty.

 

[rust]

That seems odd, because I can’t imagine any ‘policeman’ behaving like that.

I have no problem with it, perhaps because we had an almost identical
situation for many centuries of our own history. During most of the his-
tory of the Holy Roman Empire feuds and small wars between local and
regional nobles or between free cities and nobles were both permitted
and rather common, the Emperor did only intervene when such conflicts
threatened to damage the interests of the Empire itself.

 

[dragoner]

That is another good example.

 

[mr31337]

That seems odd, because I can’t imagine any ‘policeman’ behaving like that.

I have no problem with it, perhaps because we had an almost identical
situation for many centuries of our own history. During most of the his-
tory of the Holy Roman Empire feuds and small wars between local and
regional nobles or between free cities and nobles were both permitted
and rather common, the Emperor did only intervene when such conflicts
threatened to damage the interests of the Empire itself.

Perhaps because the HRE forces were not always where the local wars were in sufficient force to effectively intervene. However, if they were both there and in force I wonder on how many occasions they would have sat by and watched. In the Third Imperium a similar situation is likely true as well.

 

[rust]

However, if they were both there and in force I wonder on how many occasions they would have sat by and watched.

As long as both sides followed the established and rather complex
rules for feuds and similar conflicts there was no reason to interve-
ne, because what they did was perfectly legal. You could compare
it to the fact that individual duels were equally legal in many sta-
tes, where the police would also not have intervened to prevent a
duel as long as both sides followed the rules. The right to feud was
like a kind of right to duel for families, communities and such. In
the Third Imperium the equivalent is a right to duel for individual
member states, megacorporations, noble houses and so on, also
perfectly legal as long as the rules are followed and the interests
of the Imperium are not damaged.

 

[mr31337]

As long as both sides followed the established and rather complex
rules for feuds and similar conflicts there was no reason to interve-
ne, because what they did was perfectly legal.

So if the war is clearly known and legality for any action has been well established all is good. However, if that isn't clear for any reason, which seems plausible in a great many cases (war is based on deception, ie surprise) with no FTL comms, you're back to the policeman arresting everybody on spec.

 

[phavoc]

Much is going to depend upon the local Imperial authorities. First you'll have the views of the system commander, but he too is only going to provide broad policy to ship captains. It will be up to the individual captain to determine what to do for each encounter. Some may order all parties to cease firing, some may board all the ships, others may just wait around and observe and then provide assistance (or not) to the survivors.

It's really a crapshoot. And because everything is all loosey-goosey, I would expect the combatants (well, the smart ones anyway) to be very congnizant of that fact and either do everything they could to avoid Imperial intervention, or do everything they could to force the Imperials to intervene. I think the latter would be more of the tactics of the weaker side to offset their weakness.

As a ref, something like this can be quite entertaining to spring on your players. Gee, their 'authorized' letter of marque appears to be a forgery! Or that ship they thought was flying the flag of the opponent turns out to be a Q-ship, or maybe its a lure to get the PC's to fire on what they think is the other side's vessel and then they change their transponder code and broadcast they are under pirate attack. Lots of ways to spin this to make life interesting for your characters.

 

[rust]

... or do everything they could to force the Imperials to intervene.

This is another reason why I think that the Imperials would be
very reluctant to intervene without all the informations required
to understand the situation. Since both sides of the conflict are
likely to attempt to manipulate them into directly or indirectly
supporting their side they could otherwise easily end up on what
their superiors might consider the wrong side. Better wait until
the politicians have decided who is a target and who is not ...

 

[mr31337]

... or do everything they could to force the Imperials to intervene.

This is another reason why I think that the Imperials would be
very reluctant to intervene without all the informations required
to understand the situation. Since both sides of the conflict are
likely to attempt to manipulate them into directly or indirectly
supporting their side they could otherwise easily end up on what
their superiors might consider the wrong side. Better wait until
the politicians have decided who is a target and who is not ...

The problem I see with that is that it suggests that Imperials will generally never intervene. If you don't intervene when in doubt and you don't intervene when you know for certain what exactly are you doing there?

 

[rust]

The problem I see with that is that it suggests that Imperials will generally never intervene. If you don't intervene when in doubt and you don't intervene when you know for certain what exactly are you doing there?

Your actual job, protecting the Imperium from external and
internal threats. Unless the conflicts between Imperial mem-
ber worlds break the established rules or threaten the inter-
ests of the Imperium as such, dealing with them is just not
a part of the job.

 

[Dave Chase]

Oh, I actually see them intervening on both sides. All the more reason to not get them involved.

Ask big brother to come in and they will sit on both sides and if you don't like they will either take over or blockade the place.

Better to play a little war and not ask big brother for help because he plays much rougher and tougher.

Dave Chase

 

[Nathan Brazil]

The problem I see with that is that it suggests that Imperials will generally never intervene. If you don't intervene when in doubt and you don't intervene when you know for certain what exactly are you doing there?

I did not post the entire Rule 78 from CT Striker rules for brevity and not to infringe on copyright. It does point out when the Imperial Navy does intervene:

"The main aim of the rules is to maintain the economic and military well-being of the realm, and the lmperium will intervene only when military action threatens this. The primary causes of instability, as viewed by the Imperium, are long-term economic dislocation and excessive extra-planetary influence."

Long-term Economic Dislocations on a planet are basically your INTENTIONAL large-scale civilian targeting. Paraphrasing their examples, blowing up or stealing let's say a food transport heading to a military base is ok, blowing up the farmland just because SOME of the food might feed military is not. Blowing up cities just because SOME of those people might become soldiers is not cool, destroying military bases are.

Excessive Extra-planetary Influence
This basically explains that your planet can't hand off your war effort to someone else nor can someone else force your planet to war on someone else. The example was off-planet megacorp doing majority of the work. Imperial smackdown occurs.

Keep in mind again that the Rules are not codified nor did the game rules go further into detail on the determination of intervention.

 

[Captain Jonah]

A very good reason why the Imperial rules for intervention are NOT clearly written down is because the Imperium is well aware of the character of its Megacorps and nobles.

If there is an exact point where the navy steps in then you can guarantee that every war will be just short of the intervention point and any attempt by the navy to step in will be met by blood sucking lawyers making the case that the line has not been completely crossed.

Look at the likes of Tukera for example. They break most of the laws of the Imperium anyway, give them a solid frame work that they can work around and they will be crushing worlds to gain exclusive access everywhere.

By keeping the Laws vague it comes down to the senior naval officers or Dukes to step in and have words when they think things are getting out of hand. I suspect that warnings will be issued to both parties before the navy jumps in a battlegroup. Plus the fact that there are small naval units watching what is going on helps to keep the war contained. No one wants to cross a line they cannot see or do something to trigger intention when they don’t know what the trigger is.

Or it allows those same megacorps to drop some hefty bribes to ensure that what they are doing is not considered to cross that line.

A system so corrupt that it both acts to prevent corruption while at the same time making it possible. You have to love the 3rd Imperium :lol:

 

[mr31337]

A system so corrupt that it both acts to prevent corruption while at the same time making it possible. You have to love the 3rd Imperium :lol:

They're so shallow it's deep?