Legality of ship weapons?

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

The Imperium isn't claiming the asteroids and stuff. They are asserting Imperial law in that area. The national government in the US regulates interstate trade, requires states to accept documents from other states, manages some land, and so on. Both the Imperial Navy and the Glisten Planetary Defense forces are going to patrol Glisten space. Glisten governs the system. But, whereas the Glisten government is largely able to do whatever it wants in Glissten City, it is NOT free to do whatever it wants in space. Does the government of Glissten control the mining rights to the asteroids? Yes. Can they impose a tax on all shipping passing through the system and using the starport? NO.

Are you destined for the Imperial pokey instead of the Glisten jail if you do crimes in space? Yes. Can the Glisten planetary navy arrest you for those crimes? Yes. Can they tell the Imperial Navy not to arrest you? Nope. Can they arrest you for some Glissten government crime if you are on your ship? Probably not, unless the Imperial authorities approve it. Just like Texas Rangers can't arrest you in CA for crimes committed in Texas. They have to ask CA to arrest you and extradite you. Which CA might or might not do, depending on how dumb the law you are trying to enforce is.

It is going to be a patchwork of overlapping authorities with the balance depending on the strength of the government on that planet. And more complicated than is likely ever going to be worth dealing with in any detail.

I don’t agree.
Glissten could impose a tax on shipping using the starport. That is how starports gain revenue.

This analogy is flawed.
For IRL examples:
For vessels in international waters, no nation holds sovereignty over the seas. Rather, the laws of the country where the ship is registered would apply. So, if the ship is registered to the United Kingdom, then the laws of the U.K. would apply.

In space, while the Imperium has sovereignty within their borders, it is highly likely that the laws of the system where the vessel is registered also has applicability.

If you jump in system with a load of nuclear torpedos, even with an imperial permit, I am sure that the system government would want to make sure that you aren’t going to use them in-system, or sell your cargo of weapons to the insurrectionist.

 

[Condottiere]

There probably are laws for interstellar arms trading; certainly, the megacorporations would want it that way.

 

[Vormaerin]

Except there is no international waters. The exact relationship between the Empire and the planetary governments isn't clearly delineated. Are they sovereign nations in a union, like Europe? Are they subordinate regional governments with certain rights and perogatives like the US? Are they wholly subordinate regions like Bavaria in Germany?

What little is said about it is that the Imperium doesn't meddle with local government and it makes the main starport and "open space" be "Imperial territory". All the published material makes it clear that if you go to the main starport, you are still in the Imperial jurisdiction and you are NOT in the local planet's jurisdiction until you leave the starport.

A starship at the starport or out in space is not in international waters. You are in Imperial territory. The closest example I can think of is the American West, where you could leave the state of Texas and be in the Oklahoma Territory, which was entirely Federal jurisdiction. The state police wouldn't have any legal authority there. And doing something in the territory that would be illegal in Texas isn't a crime. Even if you are a Texan.

But there is little detail given to these matters in published materials. There's no information I am aware of about how the Imperium actually gets income. Regarding your nuclear missiles, as long as the nuclear missiles stay on your ship and your ship stays in space or the official main starport, you aren't subject to Glisten's jurisdiction. Whomever tries to take the nukes out of the starport (except back into space on another starship) is subject to Glisten law. Obviously, this example has the flaw that Nukes are on the Imperial banned list, so the nukes would be illegal even if the Glissten government was trying to buy them (unless they got an Imperial permit).

Since so little is defined, every table is going to have to work out as much or as little detail as is useful for the stories they are going to tell. What information given isn't sufficient to answer these questions in detail.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Laws of War and weapons of mass destruction, though I'm not sure ten dice would qualify.

2. Planetary governments have a certain autonomy; there's probably some infiltration by Imperial intelligence agencies, and overt control would be through the local Imperial noble, possibly a Baronet.

3. Direct governance would be rare, as it would require a large military presence, therefore expensive.

4. Amber and Red Zones would be a direct interference; Amber would be more of a warning to get their crap under control.

 

[Vormaerin]

It could be anything. And it has changed over the years. In the earliest material, the Imperial government started at the Subsector Dukes, the Navy was a thinly stretched veil, and the Imperial government was mainly concerned with interstellar trade, with the starport being its bastion in each system (aside from Naval and Scout bases).

It has steadily gotten more powerful, and its bureaucracy has grown so now we have knights on every planet and Viscounts, Counts, and Marquises that actually have territorial influence instead of just being titles given to folks doing Imperial jobs.

But still nothing about how the Empire pays for any of this. Or how the planetary and Imperial jurisdictions work in practice.

 

[Jame Rowe]

1. Laws of War and weapons of mass destruction, though I'm not sure ten dice would qualify.

I'd expect that different areas of the Imperium might take it differently. And, it depends on if the WMDs are being shipped to the Imperium.

4. Amber and Red Zones would be a direct interference; Amber would be more of a warning to get their crap under control.

And a Red might be any reason for someone to not go there, even "how in the world does their psionics do THAT?"

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

I am one of those weirdos who get a kick out of world building, interstellar trade and all that jazz. I absolutely loved the oddities of Traveller.

Cross-cultural intrigue is way more interesting than “another bug hunt” or “space submarine battle”.

 

[Saladman]

Having recently re-read Seveneves, I'm of the mind that every starship and spaceship except maybe a high thrust small craft is going to want at least a turret with a single point defense laser, for defense against space debris if not pirates. Admittedly this is not modeled or required by the core rules of space travel though.

Having armed civilian spacecraft dock at starports is a calculated risk the Imperium is prepared to make.

Local spaceports could make their own requirements for landing, and one reason that the final mile is done by an unarmed smallcraft.

This is probably one reason for highports. Planetary governments at any level of functionality above clown-car retarded aren't actually going to want to limit trade by indirectly encouraging piracy or discouraging merchants from working dangerous routes, but if they are otherwise worried about armed craft in their front yard they can make those dock at the highport, and only unarmed starships join the small craft at the downport.

(I foresee a canon uber alles argument that the Downport is Imperium territory too. I can only say I prefer making the world make sense over being strictly true to canon at every point.)

Any merchant that is going about normal trade within the Imperium is unlikely to be armed. It costs money for both the weapons and the crew training and they aren't going to be good enough at fighting to make fighting worthwhile. And that's without the insurance and licensing stuff that isn't a factor in Traveller play. Same reason why retailers forbid their associates from confronting shoplifters and modern merchant ships don't carry weapons like East Indiamen did. Which is why most ships have nothing in their turrets by default, if they even have turrets installed at all.

If they do go armed, because they are mail carriers (required by Imperial law to be armed) or they are going to kind of dodgy systems...

For a dedicated route in the Imperium core, and having deliberately forgone any opportunity to carry mail, I'd give you that. For the marches, or for ships that are mainly core but may alter routes, or for the opportunity to carry mail, I think they'd default to at least one turret with lasers, and maybe more. Gunners can be added for anticipated needs, and left unfilled on safe routes. (In fact, one of the ships -Heavy Freighter?- explicitly says it's notoriously under-crewed most of the time.)

And, as an aside, what's up with the mail/armaments requirement if they're entirely unneeded? At the very, very least it's an antiquated custom that was once functional, but even that weak form isn't guaranteed.

And the insurance requirement/retailers forbidding their employees from confronting shoplifters argument is the last thing I would apply to Traveller. It's always openly been an age of sail analogue not a 21st century bureaucratic democracy analogue. "Everything's like today, except IN SPACE" is both boring and unlikely.

 

[Vormaerin]

Traveller's rules, ships, trade system, etc are all designed around what creates a place for adventurers to get into trouble. Nothing in the Traveller rules are about what 'normal' people in the setting do. Whereas I was under the impression that this discussion was about what normal people do. What is the situation in the background that the players are the contrast to. Certainly my statements applied to what I think typical citizens working for commercial enterprises would be doing. PCs and the kinds of free traders who live PC type lifestyles are absolutely going to do different things.

You can, of course, say "people in the future don't act recognizably like people from Earth" if that's more interesting to you. But humans are likely to continue to act like humans, even in space. And the bulk of humans don't like being in danger or subject to violence. And they are going to develop procedures and social structures that make them safe if that's possible.

If you make the Spinward Marches a wild and woolly frontier and space travel a daring and reckless activity, then certainly the discussion points I proposed wouldn't apply. And that was somewhat of the original vision of the Marches when it first came out. The fringe of the Empire, barely controlled, and the hand of the Empire was distant and weak. That's definitely NOT the Marches that is in print today. It isn't the Core, but the Empire is definitely here and it isn't weak. Frontiers IRL don't last that long. "The Wild West" was about 35 years before colonists had largely turned it into settled states. The great age of pirates was maybe 75 years? But you can make the Marches still in that stage despite its long history, no problem.

It is easy to do that. Scale back on the size of the Imperial fleets. Reduce the number of merchant ships that visit ports. Play up the dangers of jumping. Have any large merchant ships move from place to place with their own escort fleet. Have people leaving planets and striking out across space be treated like bold adventurers and/or reckless adventurers. Make more planets look and feel like marginal backwaters desperately glad when the stagecoach, I mean, free trader bothers to stop by with goods, not thriving settlements with routine contact with their neighbors.. Make the environment feel dangerous to justify having normal people act like it is dangerous.

However, the published setting has moved the 'wild west' out to the Trojan Reaches and they've made the Spinward Marches more settled. Not as settled as the Core. But by no means a place only for the bold and the daring. No one in their right mind would go on a borderland run in an unarmed ship, but there's no reason one wouldn't roam the Aramis trace as published in an unarmed ship like Serenity. There are dangers, but the costs outweigh the need.

As far as the armed mail ships go, I assume that they are the equivalent of armored cars today. UPS drivers don't go around armed, but people shipping currency and other valuables do use armored car companies. "Mail" probably doesn't generally mean letters, since communications is probably going to be digital recordings. "Mail" is physical documents and non commercial quantity valuables that are worth the high cost of shipping to another system.

 

[k0k0pelli]

I am more inclined to think the Imperium taxes commercial traffic and business at starports and possibly also levies a tax at the planetary govt level where the tax is based on the economic capability of the planet with it being up to the govt as to how to collect it.

The reason I tend to think directly taxing citizens would be challenging with the wide variety of planetary governments and law levels

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

I am not sure that history agrees with your statement. People resort to violence increasingly rapidly, whenever scarcity economics abound. Human civilization is a fine veneer over animal barbarism.

Travellers have a chance to bring light to the darkness, law to the lawless. They can embrace the chaos and struggles. They can run the fine line and maintain the balance, keeping the extremes from happening.

Of course, this conversation started around the availability of starship weapons.

The Imperial government allows for armed merchants, and has some civilian uses for starship weapons.

I see taxation on a planetary sale, by the Imperium. I see nobles having taxation rights within their domains.

 

[Vormaerin]

Yes, people do resort to violence when they feel that is necessary to make them safe in the long run. They don't leave the wolves at their door. They don't let the wild west stay the wild west any longer than they can help it.

There are purposes to armed merchants. There's no denying that. But the power, crew, and weapons capable of making your ship able to fight costs a lot of money. If the rewards outweigh the costs, folks will do that. But they will try to outsource that cost to the Navy if they can. And if the costs of piracy in terms of lost cargo or ransoms for ships are less than the costs of weaponizing your merchants and paying the repairs on battle damage, they won't build their ships for fighting. Or if running a small number of Q-ships is able to cut down the likelihood of piracy for less than having every ship able to fight, they'll do that.

A lot will depend on how you have set up your Third Imperium.

 

[Condottiere]

1. I think the ancient Greeks invented shipping and cargo insurance, possibly banking, or maybe financing.

2. Troy may have taxed trade through the Bosporus.

3. Bronze Age collapse could have been ignited by a breakdown of international trade.

 

[Vormaerin]

I see taxation on a planetary sale, by the Imperium. I see nobles having taxation rights within their domains.

People sure aren't getting their moneys' worth if the average merchant needs a gun do his job.

Keep in mind, those Age of Sail merchants like the East Indiamen were sailing way the hell outside the borders of their country. They weren't going from York to Manchester.

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

People sure aren't getting their moneys' worth if the average merchant needs a gun do his job.

Keep in mind, those Age of Sail merchants like the East Indiamen were sailing way the hell outside the borders of their country. They weren't going from York to Manchester.

Honestly, that is a matter of population density and scaled response. Many couriers and merchants around the world need security (and I started this conversation describing security/paramilitary starship weapons). High value, low volume cargos (diamonds and digital currency) are more likely to need weapons than low value, high volume cargo (Stealing 10,000 tons of refined fuel? Be my guest…).
There is an unbelievably high rate of cargo theft (truck freight, rail and maritime) in the modern world, and it is only exacerbated when the government cannot respond in a timely manner.

Rio de Janeiro has amazing civilian helicopter response teams because the police could not drive through traffic fast enough to get to bank robbers before they escaped.
Carjacking is a very common occurrence in southern South Africa.
Trains are robbed in Europe and North America.

The lack of FTL communication and “fast jumps” (aka less than 148hrs) is a forcing factor- you can’t call for help and expect them to arrive.

When seconds matter, help is a week away?

As an inspiration, Robert Morgan created a hibernating human that is basically kept in a high-quality low berth and shipped with cargo bybthe owner- if there is an issue, he would thaw, and kill everyone involved using superior augmentation and skill.

 

[Vormaerin]

Help is not a a week away. If you are a commercial freighter, you are jumping from the 100d limit to the 100d limit. Even if the local customs/navy doesn't maintain a presence where ships are expected to arrive, fast ships and faster fighters are not *that* far away. Unless your system is so dirt poor it doesn't even have coast guard equivalent. In which case, why are commercial grade vessels even bothering with it instead of leaving it to tramps and indie free traders?

And seconds isn't what is needed either. Vector movement and acceleration/deceleration matching takes time. As does transferring whatever is being stolen. As does getting away.

Also, as an aside, what merchant is likely to have large amounts of fuel when arriving in system after a jump? And if they are on their way out of the system, they are just going to jump when threatened. Unless they are attacked inside the 100d limit, in which case there should be a response team reasonably close by.

And your examples of high value, low volume is basically mail in Traveller, not cargo. No one is generally moving cargo containers worth of jewelry or digital currency. That's why mail in Traveller requires armored car service, not the mailman.

Anyway, it is not that there is NEVER a situation where you'd need to arm your ships. My argument is that for commercial freighters, arming your ships is generally a waste of money. Your ship is slow, unarmored, won't have combat software, and is unlikely to have highly trained gunners.
And the weapons are millions of credits, as are the repairs of even most successful combats.

So ship to ship assault has to be common enough along the main trade routes that having to fight is somewhat usual. The average pirate has to have a ship that is weak enough that an armed freighter is going to be able to fight it off. And the pirates have to be sufficiently violent and murderous that the cost of surrendering or dumping cargo outweighs the costs of weaponry and battle damage repairs. And the trade volume and piracy situation has to be such that convoying with escorts or sprinkling in Q-ships along the route is not more cost effective.

You can totally build your Third Imperium in a way that ship to ship attacks are the way piracy works rather than it mostly being hijackings, lures, or stealth ship operations. And you can have your pirates be bloodthirsty enough and have enough of a criminal infrastructure that they are killing crew and able to steal entire ships to keep rather than just robbing and/or ransoming. That is entirely fine. That sort of feeble and/or corrupt Imperium suits the early adventures from the Classic Traveller era to a T. Personally, I think that with the way the Third Imperium is presented in published works these days, those sorts of conditions only exist outside of Imperial borders or in the backwater pockets off the mains within it. YMMV.

 

[Condottiere]

To reiterate, it depends on how existential the threat is.

The armament should be enough to deter any attempts to attack and/or hijack the merchantman or it's contents.

 

[Vormaerin]

Yes? Which means you need a situation along the mains that results in widespread actual attacks by pirates. Rather than piracy being mainly hijackings or trickery that lures the merchant ship into an untenable position.

 

[Condottiere]

Once a merchantman is taken, what stops the pirates from not hijacking it, enslaving all onboard, or killing them to remove witnesses?

 

[ProfGrizzlyJon]

I am also discussing the free traders and tramp freighters; large commercial vessels have the added protection of the megacorporation and would require more assets by the pirates.

I also don’t see pirates as depicted by the Mandalorian or some MMORPG experience- pirates should be more Saffron Reynolds or Neuromancer stealthy heists in civilized systems, with swarms of small craft (Somali-style) in areas where the response time is slow.

All in all, fun for all