Mercenary Accreditation and Weapons permits

[Condottiere]

How many cutting edge technologies have the National Security Agency and the Pentagon released to the consumer market?

Just because your homeworld has a technological level fifteen industrial base, that only means that they can produce high technology items, not that civilians have access to them

 

[Nobby-W]

How many cutting edge technologies have the National Security Agency and the Pentagon released to the consumer market?

Quite a few, actually, although in recent cases they may not have intended to. The spook services - NSA, FSB, GCHQ etc. - buy most of their zero-day exploits off the open market. From the leaked documents, their only contribution was wrapping them in a script-kiddie framework so the spooks could deploy them from a menu. Government institutions don't have the culture or pay scales to keep talented hackers on the payroll, so they're actually forced to compete on the open market for usable exploits. The value of a good zero-day can run to 5 or 6 figures.

Under U.S. law, most state-funded research is either classified or is released to the public domain.

Also, a lot of military tech isn't necessarily better than that available from civilian sources. It's been observed on quite a number of occasions, for example, that the avionics systems on the F22 run a CPU that's about as powerful as a Playstation 1. The myth of military tech being somehow cutting edge dates back to the cold war, when the folks doing the actual R&D were run by the military as they had the money. In some cases - such as weapons - they are, but it doesn't take more than a generation or two for most technology to be commodified.

 

[Condottiere]

I'll look forward to that stealthed Porsche that radar guns won't detect.

The primary problem with the Lightning Too is, okay, one of the primary problems with Lightning Too is that it requires endless coding to work probably, not necessarily the speed of the computers.

But the technology involved in defence weapon systems are still classified, such as the stealth coating and Chobham armour.

Arguably, a Samsung Galaxy is more sophisticated compared to a Raptor's onboard computer, but weapon systems were originally designed with built in obsolescence, because frontline aircraft were expected only to fly six to eight thousand hours, before getting replaced by the next model. Probably less for the Soviet ones.

 

[steve98052]

My understanding is that anything is legal as long as it stays aboard a ship, if it's legal at all. The catch is that there's always the risk that meddling authorities will be concerned about the possibility that they will leave the ship.

"Yes, captain, there's no law that says you can't keep a plasma gun in your ship's locker. But you can understand that planetary authorities might be concerned about a weapon that could cripple your entire ship if fired aboard. I'm afraid we'll have to lock it up in a tamper-guard box until your ship leaves atmosphere. May I have a moment to look up the cost of that size of tamper-guard box? It's not a size we use every day."

Even nuclear weapons are legal, as long as they are never used within a planetary atmosphere or near civilian structures in vacuum. But the risk that someone might violate that rule -- the regulation most likely to draw prompt attention of a large force of Imperial Marines -- means that not just anyone will be permitted to possess them, even if the warhead includes a fairly strong failsafe to limit where it can be detonated.

"I'm sorry, captain, but we can't allow you to take your ship to the downport, even with your anti-piracy nuclear license. Taking a nuke planetside requires an Imperial Marine nuclear weapons team or 'equivalent security measures', and if I understand the equivalency formula correctly we don't have enough security personnel in the entire downport, and probably couldn't round it up without deputizing most of the startown police force too.
"Here at the highport, we're supposed to have the equivalent of an Imperial Navy warhead transport watch, but since we're way out here on the Hazard Spar dock, I can reduce that to a pair of guards each by your warhead locker, your missile turret, and your fire control. That will cost 100 per day, each, but I'll pro-rate it to quarter days as long as you're off-structure before I have to start paying them overtime.
"And by the way, I know you probably can't tell me how you qualified for that license, but whatever it was I should probably say, thank you for your service to the Imperium."

 

[Condottiere]

Under Confederation law, it depends on the registry of the ship.

Sort of the reverse of the current practice where you fly the flag of the lowest cost country, where local Confederation members are more reluctant to irritate ships from rather powerful and influential states.

So if the that particular political entity permits ships or individuals to carry or own powerful energy weapons, in theory it's legal while onboard.

In practice, the ship is likely to be constantly under surveillance and harassed by local law enforcement.