Damned subtle wordings....
- Thread starter aramis
- Start date
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Well, that's no fun, atpollard. 
pendragonman
Absent Friends Margrave
Yeah! Where is the excitement in "just working"? I have had several characters who were broke when they entered the low birth and came out with a small grub-stake when they won the low-lottery.
Well, that's no fun, atpollard.
As later Traveller versions have shown, low berths do just work, provided they're in good repair and operated by a qualified medic. The kind of death rates you get with CT you can still have aboard rundown Free Traders.
The Low Lottery, OTOH, is IMO nothing more than a spacer legend[*], something they have on ships a friend of a friend once took passage on. It seems obvious to me that if a Free Trader has unsafe low berths and/or an unqualified medic, the very last thing its captain would want would be to draw attention to that condition by running a low lottery.
[*]Heard in a starport bar.
"No [alimentary waste products], there I was, standing stripped to my skivvies next to the low berth, when this fat slob that I wouldn't hire to clean my barf bag, clad in the filthiest coveralls you've ever seen, stumbles into the compartment and tells me that he's the ship's medic. He's drunk as a skunk or I miss my guess, but what can I do? The ship's already left the starport and I gather it's get into that berth or have a fatal accident. But just before he starts to put me under, he hands me a small dirty piece of paper with the number '3' on it. I ask him what it is and he tells me it's my lottery ticket for the "Low Lottery". Seems that they have this tradition that the captain contributes Cr10 out of each low passage for a sweepstake. Each low passenger draws a number between one and the number of low passengers, and the one with the number of passengers who survive the trip wins the money. So I ask what happens if the winner is one of the deaders, and he say in that case the captain keeps the money. And that's the last thing I hear before I pass out. Well, as you can guess, I woke up again. So I ask the medic who won the lottery and he tells me that everybody survived, so the captain decided that he deserved to keep the money in this case too."
"No [alimentary waste products], there I was, standing stripped to my skivvies next to the low berth, when this fat slob that I wouldn't hire to clean my barf bag, clad in the filthiest coveralls you've ever seen, stumbles into the compartment and tells me that he's the ship's medic. He's drunk as a skunk or I miss my guess, but what can I do? The ship's already left the starport and I gather it's get into that berth or have a fatal accident. But just before he starts to put me under, he hands me a small dirty piece of paper with the number '3' on it. I ask him what it is and he tells me it's my lottery ticket for the "Low Lottery". Seems that they have this tradition that the captain contributes Cr10 out of each low passage for a sweepstake. Each low passenger draws a number between one and the number of low passengers, and the one with the number of passengers who survive the trip wins the money. So I ask what happens if the winner is one of the deaders, and he say in that case the captain keeps the money. And that's the last thing I hear before I pass out. Well, as you can guess, I woke up again. So I ask the medic who won the lottery and he tells me that everybody survived, so the captain decided that he deserved to keep the money in this case too."
I do have a risk of something going a bit wrong and inducing "Low Berth Syndrome", assorted aches and pains that persist for weeks and months, someting permanently. I use that as a reason why low berths are unpopular even though they're cheaper than economy passage and just as safe -- except for the potential aches and pains, that is.
Hans
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
With the stated survival rate for low berth passage, that would actually be the ideal way to commit murder and get away with it.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
So you have health care IYTU? Put another way, who pays the hospital bills?
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I would imagine the computer is recording the vital signs before, during and after.
Any foul play will show up.
But it will still happen
Given the right skill set a ships crew could murder the odd low passenger and fabricate the computer medical logs to get away with it a few times.Once they have way above average deaths though...
Depends, I generally view there is a public/private health care system in the Imperium and most other smaller states; so if one doen't have the credits, the government will absorb the cost. The Imperium also runs a med service, like in the medship series, with the Kurgulashes, their perrenial symbol is 1:9; a stitch in time saves nine. It's a big help to the Imperium outside of their borders, and not only for promoting a positive popular opinion about the Imperium, but epidemic and other controls which helps them keep costs way down.
pendragonman
Absent Friends Margrave
I would imagine the computer is recording the vital signs before, during and after.
Any foul play will show up.
But it will still happen
Once they have way above average deaths though...
And the requisite skill isn't necessarily medical. A prolonged interruption of power, or a power surge, or a slight induced flaw in the life support for the low birth in question...or...
DangerousThing
SOC-13
Low berths simply worked (without killing people) IMTU.
IMTU also.
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