Can you track a crewmember?

[jcrocker]

Let`s say you have a party attempting to track a given ship - you go to the Starport, check the database or bribe the clerk, and find out what world the good ship Lollipop filled a flight plan for.

But what about individual crew members? If the party had to follow a person, and that person signs on a ship, is that recorded at the Starport? Or is that only known to the ship master?

Let`s say that you`re at a hypothetical world near Capital, and you are hired to follow a person, and they sign on board a ship and leave the planet. By the time you get to the Starport, two ships have left - one for the Spinward Marches, one for the Solomoni Rim. Is there anything better than a coin flip to help our hapless party?

Does anyone know how ships do this today?

 

[SpaceBadger]

Let`s say you have a party attempting to track a given ship - you go to the Starport, check the database or bribe the clerk, and find out what world the good ship Lollipop filled a flight plan for.

But what about individual crew members? If the party had to follow a person, and that person signs on a ship, is that recorded at the Starport? Or is that only known to the ship master?

Let`s say that you`re at a hypothetical world near Capital, and you are hired to follow a person, and they sign on board a ship and leave the planet. By the time you get to the Starport, two ships have left - one for the Spinward Marches, one for the Solomoni Rim. Is there anything better than a coin flip to help our hapless party?

Does anyone know how ships do this today?

You don't specify a particular setting, which would make a big difference IMHO.

Most CT universes I think you would be out of luck, esp OTU.

GURPS Traveller version of OTU (GTU?) is more organized, so maybe that sort of thing is kept on record at startport w all inspections and manifests and so forth, a crew roster for each time the ship touched port and had any official contact.

Another idea in some TUs would be to check w Guild or TAS or other groups certifying crew skills, as they might also keep records of ship transfers of particular crewpersons.

 

[jcrocker]

Obviously you can set the slider anywhere from 'no questions asked' to 'sign in triplicate with your own blood'. And at first I was thinking the same thing, that a person could pretty easily sign on a free trader and vanish.

But what about disasters, or accidents? I could see a megacorp's insurance subsiduary not honouring some aspects of policies if that info wasn't on file somewhere. "No up-to-date crew roster on file at the port of departure? You're right, citizen, you do have the right to privacy, but that lack of information violates clause 13 B (iii) of the policy, so no payout. Sorry you don't get your 80 megacredits."

And wouldn't that be just too tempting a target for criminals? Bump off the Baron's kid in a botched kidnapping-ransom plan, jump the next tramp trader for the Spinward Marches? (Which doesn't stop the false ID industry, but that's another matter.)

Some powers-that-be really hate to be behind the information curve - and other worlds could have a fierce libertarian streak, which sets up more conflict and roleplay opportunities!

 

[Licheking]

I have always thought that although a world is part of the Imperium they can rule the world how they see fit. The starport though is always considered Imperial territory and is often the reward for a world joining the Imperium. The Imperium, megacorporations and insurance companies would want to track its population and their movements so that they can keep track of taxes and in the case of reservists, personnel useful in times of emergency. So every ship insured and registered within the Imperium would have to file a full crew roster and notify the relevant authorities about changes as soon as possible after the change. Anyone leaving the starport would have to pass through the equivalent of customs and security and presumably the same to get back onto the starport and again these would then have to refer back to a crew roster to see if the person coming onto the starport has any legitimate reason for being there.

Now in T5 you have Life Insurance policies and Wafer Jacks, the insurance requires the company with the policy to know roughly where the policy holder is so that if the policy is enacted they can activate the clone and get it ready to carry on from where the policy holder left off. And Wafer Jacks would be connected to the WiFi network of any world with one, presumably any TL-A and above, almost constantly unless turned off or in anonymous mode.

So in conclusion i would think that throughout the Imperium there would be crew rosters which would update the local system upon arrival, probably automatically through normal traffic conversations with space traffic control, and monitoring of movement of crew on and off the starport leaving detectives and troublemakers plenty of information to try and track people/crew. That doesn't mean that the engineer of the good ship lollipop Tudor, J is actually Tudor, J!

 

[rancke]

The compromise would be to have everyone registered but under whatever name they had papers to show was theirs. On some worlds no IDs are issued, on others they are easy to come by, on others the authorities need Proof of Existence up the wazoo to issue an ID.

I'm in favor of this because it allows for clues to follow without said clues being Big Neon Signs showing that the futigive went thataway!


Hans

 

[andycowley]

Picking up on Licheking's comment about Starports.
My personal opinion would be that in any star spanning empire like the Imperium there would be security standards followed at starports for ship/crew/cargo. This should make tracking a ship/person/cargo more routine ASSUMING a) you have the necessary access to the starports dBase b) The ship/person/cargo was not trying to 'hide in plain sight' by adopting or faking a registration/name/ID .... Of course outside any such interstellar polity where starport security standards were not standardized would be quite different and relatively random. Perhaps depending on the starport authorities governing body (main world govt. type). I could certainly imagine a strict security protocol on a mainworld under a non charismatic dictatorship while one under the control of little or no organized government may be much more of a crap shoot on what protocols are enforced (or not) ......

 

[MCEvans]

Just an FYI on RL. I do genealogy research and one of the best resources for the movement of individuals and families are passenger and crew lists. The problem is that for privacy public use is usually 85+ years after the fact, government use can be within hours.
How would that work in Traveller? These would be required filing upon arrival and prior to departure and unless you are active duty with a "need to know" your typical PC will not be able to access these records with out some formable task rolls. The active duty "need to know" would be difficult task rolls. This would be standard at all starports, SPA in action.
Also note that the starport and the local world would keep two different sets of records if the local world even kept them, this being a result of both LL & Gov type. (that is a kettle of fish I would deal with on an as needed basis)

 

[Supplement Four]

I think it depends on four things:

1. The Tech Level of the world. Even today, it's pretty easy to find people the world over--through GPS and their phones, using the internet, and such. Class C starports are minimum TL A, or so.

2. The Law Level of the world. Today, in Texas, you can find quite a lot about a person on the net from public records. In Maryland, though, the state has laws passed that some public records are more public than others--a need to know has to be established. I imagine great diversity on different planets.

3. World's culture. Which feeds the LL in point #2. Maybe the information is readily available. Maybe the information is available but hard to get. Maybe the information is not even recorded.

4. The Ref's presentation of his Traveller universe and the story needs of the adventure/campaign. What does the Ref want to happen? What will make for the best, most interesting story? Go with that.

 

[Midgardsormr]

Were this my game, I'd prepare several avenues for PCs to track someone who's signed on to a ship headed off-world.

The most obvious is the starbase records. The facility might keep records of crew hire inquiries in order to provide better matchmaking services. It might also keep records of all individuals coming and going, whether they're passengers or crew, for legal or commercial reasons.

Another possibility is social engineering. Bribing someone who was in a position to observe crew interviews, like a server at the Lone Star, is a likely strategy.

Banking records are another possible source of information. If the subject received an advance on their salary, or if they arranged to forward an account, or if they made a currency exchange, that could also provide evidence for which ship they boarded.

There is likely video or holographic surveillance at the starport that could be obtained to determine which ship the subject took.

And, of course, there are the old-fashioned approaches: shoe leather and tracking devices.

And no matter how many ways I could think of to prepare for the scenario, the PCs will either come up with something that never crossed my mind, or they'll be entirely uncreative and complain that there's absolutely no way to accomplish their mission. Or better still, they'll come up with all of those ideas, systematically reject each one, and then complain that there's no way to accomplish the mission.

 

[Drakon]

Picking up on Licheking's comment about Starports.
My personal opinion would be that in any star spanning empire like the Imperium there would be security standards followed at starports for ship/crew/cargo. This should make tracking a ship/person/cargo more routine ASSUMING a) you have the necessary access to the starports dBase b) The ship/person/cargo was not trying to 'hide in plain sight' by adopting or faking a registration/name/ID....

In addition, any travell company the players contract with will want to keep records as to who they are carrying. This is especially true if the organization is a megacorp. Those records may not be as well maintained or have the vercity of offical customs databases, but they could provide interesting plot twists

 

[Licheking]

1. The Tech Level of the world. Even today, it's pretty easy to find people the world over--through GPS and their phones, using the internet, and such. Class C starports are minimum TL A, or so.

2. The Law Level of the world. Today, in Texas, you can find quite a lot about a person on the net from public records. In Maryland, though, the state has laws passed that some public records are more public than others--a need to know has to be established. I imagine great diversity on different planets.

3. World's culture. Which feeds the LL in point #2. Maybe the information is readily available. Maybe the information is available but hard to get. Maybe the information is not even recorded.

I am envisioning starports as extraterritorial answering only to Imperium Law within the confines of the starport grounds. Therefore the records kept about ships and their crew would not be influenced by the worlds Law, Government or culture. However those entering and leaving the starport would be and LL/GL and culture would have to be considered at that point.

 

[jcrocker]

Thanks for all the ideas - I'll have the StarPort Authority post all the ship arrivals/departures, and there will be some less direct way to track down who the crew is on any given ship.

I haven't decided if they'll have to bribe some of the admin people like in the Traveller Adventure, or if a third party like the TAS will have that listed under some thousand year tradition that I'll invent - if the Starport is big enough to have the TAS there, that is.

Hey, in-game bonus for players carrying their Kickstarter TAS cards!