When colonization goes wrong...hear me out!

[Hopeless]

So an interesting topic is being discussed on Facebook and it got me wondering about a possible adventure idea.

So a colony ship is sent out but instead of heading for the earth-like world it was intended for its being sent to a desert world specifically because of mining potential.
The colonists have been carefully out of the loop as their original destination has been ear marked for wealthier colonists including corporates and those with wealthy and more important patrons.

However a friend of one of the families being effectively sent into slavery found out what was happening and went pirate seizing control of the colony ship and landed it on their original destination.

My initial questions would be if they managed to get them down to the world and settled before news of their change in destination reached the authorities what would be the most likely response?

Assuming they can't be seen to have committed this offence would they try to hire a third party to displace the colonists?

If we looked at this as a game where the PCs are either crew or colonists aboard the colony ship how would they handle things if the duplicity is revealed to both the crew and colonists?

Would the crew support the command staff who would be the only ones aware what was planned and should I really be using Dark Matter as an example instead of Earth 2?

Many thanks in advance!

 

[High Orbit Drifter]

I've been working on a scenario something like this.

Response by the authorities: If the alternate colonists are rich, they have connections. The authorities would send in security forces, grab up who they can, stick them in low berths and ship them off to their mining planet. If that is uneconomical, the security forces would be sent in to arrest them and make the bunch, if not slaves, at least an underclass working for the rich colonists. Neither scenario would be very gentle. If that probably won't work out, then they would be killed. Maybe the security would instead be mercenaries or privateers or outright pirates, depending on relocation, underclass or slaves/dead.

If the original colonists are too strong for such treatment, then you get a balkanzied world. A protracted battle that will likely end with the rich colony winning or overwhelming the poorer, or driving them into the wilderness.

Third party hired; depends on how tough a fight the original colonists could put up. A savage battle with lots of deaths is not something a new, rich colony is going to want to see, so instead of their own security they hire mercs. Or pirates. That is one major defense the original colonists might have; public opinion. If they can get the common rich colonist to see them as somehow deserving, then the authorities won't do much. If the rich colonists are out or too hateful, then offworld public opinion can also sway the day. If the homeworld is relatively close, or the story gets out to the neighboring worlds that these poor colonists are imperiled, then they might not get slaughtered.

How would PCs react? Players are notoriously perverse, and will not act in a way you least expect. Just have an idea of resources both sides can reasonably muster, and be ready for nearly anything. Make sure they don't have access to a starship - they will certainly jump away from such a sorry situation and never look back at all your hard work.

I would guess the PCs would never trust the command staff that sold them out to live on desert planet instead of New Eden or whatever. One of the first things they will do it eliminate anything that could be a threat. Best to keep that sort of information secret; maybe some of the command staff know what was going on, but keep their secret. Or blackmail each other. In any case the rich colonists and/or authorities would use them as moles, for the PCs to eventually ferret out.

 

[Condottiere]

Speed of communications and the capability by the authorities to react.

Plus if there is a separate security force onboard, who'd likely side with their employers.

Going by these tropes, you'd have to hold something over the corporation or the crew, so blackmail material.

Likely the scenario has to provide the means in which the corporation and the insurgents can compromise.

 

[phavoc]

Much would depend upon the morals and laws of the civilization it is coming from. By landing on the planet it would only be what was expected by the public when it launched. The corporations could have conspired in secret to send these colonists elsewhere... "accidents happen all the time you know, we're terribly sorry and we'll do all we can to ensure the colonists are as comfortable as possible on their new planet." While there may be some lost credits, the new colonists could hide behind the shield of the law.

But if it was an inherently corrupt civilization that was captured by the corporations, they colonists may find themselves forcibly removed. Though you'd have to factor in costs and such. It might be that they are removed from their colony location if it's prime or coveted by someone else. Otherwise a planet is pretty big and they may simply be ignored by the newcomers, isolated economically and politically. No need to drop a rock on them from orbit (or send in expensive killers).

 

[fusor]

It's a planet - surely it's big enough for two different colony groups? The wealthy colonists coming later may not even have a clue that the others arrived first.

 

[Condottiere]

Then there's no conflict and no story.

Though it does raise the question if the rich colonists brought along their own serfs, in which case, Peasant Revolt!

 

[fusor]

Then there's no conflict and no story.

Sure there is. It just comes a bit later when one side finds the other and they're both established to some degree...

 

[Epicenter]

What universe is this taking place in? If it is the 3I, it's different than other universes; in the 3I space travel is relatively common. The threat that word getting out about this by concerned parties would probably be sufficient for whomever it is who is sending the colonists out to quietly let them settle according to the plan the colonists were promised. Coercing colonists with false promises suggests that whomever is doing this basically has some situation where they can attempt to save money.

Many people fall into the trap of taking Traveller's "age of sail" ideas too far; in a technological future (even one as weirdly pseudo-retro as Traveller) given the expense of transporting colonists and setting them up and so on and the reality that futuristic mining is probably going to be much more technical than it is even today. It's pretty much easier to be upfront about the situation and pay professionals extra "bad posting" pay to go out there and operate the industrial mining equipment on a 5, 10, or 20 year contract. The employees will be less likely to do things like revolt, sabotage the equipment, and so on. The cost of equipment and infrastructure is much more expensive than the colonists themselves; the amount you'd save from creating "slaves" of misled colonists is low compared to the costs of low productivity, sabotage by disgruntled workers, the additional security necessary to watch over the slave miners, and most of all the cost of training the slaves to do their new jobs. To put this transport issue into focus - in Traveller, the cost of sending unskilled slaves from one world to another in low berths is not worth the expense of preparing the low berths and the numbers of slaves who'll die during revival, meanwhile, the cost of putting skilled labor into low berths is equally not worth it because of the lives lost; the cost of transporting unskilled "strong backs to swing a pick" is greater than the output such grunt slaves would produce. The output of machines is much greater by many factors, so they'd have to be trained to operate the equipment, during which time they'd be effectively useless. Then their productivity would be low initially as they also get practical experience. Only a few years after they arrived would productivity begin to go up.

In a non-3I universe, the situation might become much more plausible and interesting.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

I've been working on a scenario something like this.

Response by the authorities: If the alternate colonists are rich, they have connections. The authorities would send in security forces, grab up who they can, stick them in low berths and ship them off to their mining planet. If that is uneconomical, the security forces would be sent in to arrest them and make the bunch, if not slaves, at least an underclass working for the rich colonists. Neither scenario would be very gentle. If that probably won't work out, then they would be killed. Maybe the security would instead be mercenaries or privateers or outright pirates, depending on relocation, underclass or slaves/dead.

If the original colonists are too strong for such treatment, then you get a balkanzied world. A protracted battle that will likely end with the rich colony winning or overwhelming the poorer, or driving them into the wilderness.

Third party hired; depends on how tough a fight the original colonists could put up. A savage battle with lots of deaths is not something a new, rich colony is going to want to see, so instead of their own security they hire mercs. Or pirates. That is one major defense the original colonists might have; public opinion. If they can get the common rich colonist to see them as somehow deserving, then the authorities won't do much. If the rich colonists are out or too hateful, then offworld public opinion can also sway the day. If the homeworld is relatively close, or the story gets out to the neighboring worlds that these poor colonists are imperiled, then they might not get slaughtered.

How would PCs react? Players are notoriously perverse, and will not act in a way you least expect. Just have an idea of resources both sides can reasonably muster, and be ready for nearly anything. Make sure they don't have access to a starship - they will certainly jump away from such a sorry situation and never look back at all your hard work.

I would guess the PCs would never trust the command staff that sold them out to live on desert planet instead of New Eden or whatever. One of the first things they will do it eliminate anything that could be a threat. Best to keep that sort of information secret; maybe some of the command staff know what was going on, but keep their secret. Or blackmail each other. In any case the rich colonists and/or authorities would use them as moles, for the PCs to eventually ferret out.

What if the original planet has natives? What if it has ruins of an advanced technological society. The natives are in a primitive state, but they weren't always so. Just throwing in a little something to make the scenario a little more interesting. The ruins aren't obvious from orbit, much of it has been blasted away by war, and thousands of years have passed since, and nature has taken over, all except for a few underground vaults...

 

[Hopeless]

My original idea was leaning towards setting this either in T2300 or the Clement Sector.

In T2300 the colony ship is largely made up of Americans the family friend located the suitably inhabitable system and rather than profiting from the discovery offered it to her friend as a potential destination making it easier for her to remain in contact and even visit in person.
Those in charge of this expedition had the system checked out which brought it to the corporates attention as well as Politico's involved with these colonisation efforts who decided to keep this for their own purposes and their attempts to keep this secret failed dramatically because it alerted the finder to their intentions and they took steps to thwart them.

The Clement Sector version would involve pretty much one of the last ships to pass through the Octagon which was thought lost.
In actual fact it was seized shortly after jumping away from the Hub and safely transported to an uncharted system which was kept secret from the Hub Authorities because it was intended to be claimed by the largely American crew, but their attempt failed and the Victor chose to keep their colony a secret unaware the newly founded Hub Commonwealth had no idea what was going on.

In this version I was going to link it to a certain Frozen world revealing that the leader of this colony was the estranged father of a former Hub Naval Officer in charge of a freighter of her own with the PCs in this version being members of her crew.

Anyway it's clear I need to plan this more the Clement Sector sounds more suitable just need to read the Hub books!

 

[High Orbit Drifter]

Since I haven't read the Hub books - good luck. Keep us posted on what you do, I think this is an interesting scenario.