I will try to answer as best I can.
The Bloodwell was destroyed over a transponder issue and a refusal to answer comms, that's the Imperial side of the story, there was no call for the Captain of the ship to be court martialled or even investigated. The matter of fact TAS News item indicates to me this is not an out of the ordinary happening. A lot to take form one news item, but back in the day that is all the setting info we had - plus Adventure 1 where PCs are arrested and imprisoned with no trial at the whim of the IN ship captain who catches them.
Ok. I had to go look this one up. I did not recall it and found it:
Dentus/Regina
Word was received today that two weeks ago the Imperial Battle cruiser Adamdun mistakenly engaged and destroyed the merchant craft Bloodwell of the Oberlindes Line. The Bloodwell, according to the crew of the battle cruiser,was not showing its ID transponder signal and would not answer broad-beam hails. The Bloodwell was under full acceleration, and after it refused to change vector in response to laser warning fire, it was engaged by high-G missile fire and destroyed. A subsequent (and unsuccessful) search for survivors resulted in the identification of the ship.
Oberlindes Lines officials called the story "an obvious cover-up of a tragic display of incompetence." and claimed that the Bloodwell's transponder had just undergone its annual maintenance check, and could not have failed to function. As in all commercial vessels, the ID transponder wa ssupposedly tamper-proof, and are could not have been turned off by the crew. Legal action is expected.
According to the blurb the craft was destroyed by accident. It says the ship was "mistakenly" engaged. I'm not sure the TNS would be useful, as it doesn't provide much info other than an Imperial ship opened fire on a merchant and claimed it was not showing an ID Transponder. In theory the military ship was bigger and faster (it's a BC, but this is CT, so that makes it a Kininur class) and could have done more with it's weapons fire to disable rather than destroy. Not to mention the ship itself should be in their data files. MAYBE it was supposed to be captured by pirates onboard who were trying to flee and that's why blew it up? The second paragraph indicates the line did not agree and was going to sue, so maybe there is more to this story than the blurb suggests (like incompetence on the part of the ships captain). I don't think a single instance is a good example.
The same TNS set of data I pulled up had numerous references to l-hyd tanks as well, including a ship that was destroyed when (they postulate) the tank failed to jettison on time causing the accumulators to overload. Seems that drop tanks would be quite dangerous and that little tid bit isn't covered in the rules either. It's an example, but I'd hope that this would be found in a better source (like description of naval ops, or a policy or something).
I take my model of the Imperium from early Library Data, A:1 and A:2, subsequent attempts to soften the Imperim through in universe propaganda have not had an affect on me...
Herr Goebbels would be proud to know his trainees have persevered into the 52nd century!
More seriously they have gone out of theri way to make the Imperium have the morals and laws of a western democracy - this does not fit with the"reality" of the setting. Even if you take the most liberal interpretation to date, the mongoose Third Imperium book, scratch the surface and you have an authoritarian state that rules every world but pretend it doesn't.
Poor choice of words on my part. What I mean is the wages and status, the rewards, gained by being a ship captain enforcing Imperial, subsector and planetary law (and we all know the planets have to obey Imperial rules for trade...)
I don't, personally, get the feeling that the Imperium is this sort of police state. Even kings and emperors of the past had morals - just like some were raving lunatics who were silently, or publically, removed from the throne as a threat to the land. CT never gave me the vibes of a threatening police state. Again, that's just me.
While we know today that ships captains in the past were provided prize money for seized ships, I don't know of any modern captain or crew to have gotten that sort of reward. Prize monies seem to have kind of died along with the age of sale. I had to go look this up, but in 1899 the US Congress eliminated prize money under the law. However it was actually paid for the last time in 1947 to two ships for capturing a German freighter that had occurred 6 years previously when the German ship was captured flying an American flag.
The Imperim imprisons with no trial, why would there be a court? The ship has been impounded by an Imperial warship, here are the comms logs and transponder records - thanks, here is the cash for you and your crew. The Imperium is not ruled by law courts...
Why would you think the Imperium imprisons with no trial? If they do not follow laws then having laws is pointless. The Imperium MUST be ruled by laws or else it's bureaurcracy and military portions would fail. Without a formal process in place then every captain or soldier with a weapon would be able to do whatever they want through force alone. An interstellar government would collapse under such chaos.
Roman pre-consuls had great powers being so far away from Rome, yet they were still bound by Roman laws (at least for Roman citizens). Sure, some took liberties with their power, but some also were rebuked and/or replaced for stepping over the line. That's been the case throughout history.
The majority ot trade in the Imperium is conducted by megacorporations and sector lines, they follow the rules. Look what happened to the Bloodwell when it didn't.
(In my head canon I have Oberlindes involved with the Ine Givar, his aim is to rid the Marches of Imperial authoritarianism)
Well, we don't
know what happened. the news stuff ends there. I found someone else theorizing about what COULD have happened to the Bloodwell, then fell down the "there IS/IS NOT stealth in space" well... Damn Timmy and Lassie were not around to assist me... if you go looking for it there's at least other alt opines on the topic.
That slavery thing was invented by the fanon that became canon thanks to the T4 authors thinking the Imperium was the US in space... previous canon shows otherwise with many examples, the Warrant of Resoration is an utter joke:
I already mentioned PCs imprisoned with no trial, they even lock up political prisoners by disappearing them, the Traveller Adventure has people bought and sold as sex slaves no less, the Imperim kidnaps, tortures and imprisons with no legal case as shown in A:2 - what a lot pf people miss about A:2 is that it is not some mad renegade scientist, it is a fully by the books Imperial Research station with IN and INI support,
Meh, this is potentially one of those Traveller versioning things - personally I try to keep arguments within a specific version and use only it's references. CT is a little weird because it's got multiple printings of some things and it sometimes contradicts itself. There will always be bad actors, including the government (as evidenced so much throughout history and the recent issues with the US ICE thugs). And, lets be honest here, it's not like a government can't hide "slaver" under something like "20yrs in a penal brothel" or "20yrs in a penal mine".
