Piracy in Traveller

[castiglione]

I know this has been discussed before but reading about the activities of Somali pirates I was wondering if a Traveller-verse analogue of their methods would work?

You have pirates based on board large "mother ships" but the actual raids are carried out by very small, stealthy craft that "limpet" onto target vessels, the crew burns a hole in the hull of their targets and then try to quickly overpower the target crew before they can get out an SOS. Pirates then divert target vessel to somewhere where they rendezvous with mother ship where they either hold the target ship and target crew for ransom.

 

[far-trader]

Realistically, no. Cinematicaly, yes.

It comes down to the level of reality vs cinema (aka Science Fiction vs Space Opera) you want in your game.

To make it work as outlined you need to accept some kind of stealth handwave. It's impossible (realistically) to hide a spaceship in space.

You could take a page from the RL pirates and create an area of space where ships have to pass that messes with sensors such that they are flying practically blind through it. There'd have to be a very good reason for the ships to chance it though, especially if there are pirates known to be operating there. And the pirates would need some way to avoid the blindness themselves. Perhaps Psionics? I'll leave it to you though. The more the idea is your own the better you'll be able to use it.

And of course, anytime pirates get too bold they won't have a chance to get too old. Historically (and more recently) big navies have taken a dim view of pirates eventually, and then they are finished. Same in The Imperium (or any other polity). There will come a point the IN will come in and wipe them out unless they scatter for safer seas, er, stars

 

[flykiller]

It's impossible (realistically) to hide a spaceship in space.

when the cassini probe reached saturn it promptly discovered half a dozen new moons. the things are hundreds of miles across, they weren't hiding, some of them are bright white, and people have been studying saturn and its moons for hundreds of years, yet they weren't noticed until a probe got right into orbit with them. one reads lots of confident theory about how ships can't hide in space, but the theory doesn't seem to match up with the real world.

besides, one doesn't have to hide a spaceship in space, one has to hide merely the fact that the spaceship is a pirate.

1) merchant vessels are cheap, who says they have good sensors?

2) hijackers, either active (weapons) or passive (hacking sensor spoofs) coordinating with external pirates, can cover both ends of the situation.

3) a merchant with maneuver 1 is maneuvering to jump, and another ship is half an hour behind him - only the follow-on ship has maneuver 4 and overhauls the first before 100d is reached.

etc.

 

[mike wightman]

Piracy is alive and well IMTU too.

There will be the usual flame war eventually but until then, yes I like your scenario and have used something similar myself.

For Somalia think of a balkanised world, or an off world industrial colony in revolt. They have access to ship's boats (6g, 30t, armed) and other assorted small craft.

They can use all sorts of subterfuge to get close to the target merchant:

customs inspection

distress signal

ambush

IMTU most classical piracy is actually sponsored by nobles or megacorps - hence the career path and ship production - these "criminal" pirates are usually much nastier.

 

[castiglione]

Good points - Somalia is a current hot bed of piracy because that area seems to be an area that freighters have to go through or else their voyage would become much more expensive and Somalia's government is currently impotent to do much about them (as it's distracted by an insurgency) and despite the presence of a substantial foreign naval task force in the area, they can't be everywhere at once.

Well, an impotent government is an impotent government no matter what era you live in. So that leaves the area being part of a must-travel route and being large enough that any naval forces in the area still can't deter pirate attacks.

 

[castiglione]

Sooo...for piracy to be feasible we need:

A world (or group of worlds) with really, really fragile governments, with insurgencies, corruption, etc.

That world (or group of worlds) has to be part of a trade route from A to B and divergence from this route should be expensive enough to make passing through those worlds economically feasible.

And possibly, there has to be some serious stuff going on in another part of the Imperium to explain away a minimal Imperial Navy presence in these areas.

 

[flykiller]

That world (or group of worlds) has to be part of a trade route from A to B and divergence from this route should be expensive enough to make passing through those worlds economically feasible.

And possibly, there has to be some serious stuff going on in another part of the Imperium to explain away a minimal Imperial Navy presence in these areas.

well, the IN may not be available, but A and B may have an interest in getting the trade ships through. and A and/or B may be corporations, with their own private forces. and ship roles may not be fixed - a customs inspector may become a pirate at the drop of a hat, and a ship may be a patrol boat in one system and a pirate in another. think competitive trade wars, cold war, or simple ship-to-ship cut-throat competition. might be a bit more interesting than straight-up pirates. it would certainly be better-funded. an A8 world may not be able to construct starships, but it could pay for some privateers.

 

[Ran Targas]

The Imperium is a really big place and piracy is going to exist where ever the IN doesn't regularly show a presence; which I suspect is still a large volume of space. And with other threats requiring the attention of the IN, I would imagine small scale pirate operations would fall under the jurisdiction of local space forces (system patrols and the like). Where piracy becomes a real problem, the IN would move patrol routes to eliminate it, but this doesn't stop the pirates from just packing up shop and heading for areas with lower IN presence.

It's human nature to take from those who can't defend what they have and since Trav is definitely not Star Trek, there's no reason to think Humaniti has matured beyond the point of simple greed and avarice. Therefore, where pirates can scrape out a living, they will. No different than organized crime popping up like a weed where ever the ground is fertile. And I would expect that in some backwater systems, the local government might actually turn a blind eye to pirates if they are able to provide necessary goods at low prices (it's all profit when it cost you nothing to get it). Cargos that the IN might interdict like high tech weapons might find a ready market on a world that doesn't have the tech level to produce them themselves.

 

[GypsyComet]

Travel choke points on (or into) mains, systems with all of their refueling resources far inside the stellar jump horizon, nearly any Asteroid main world (or mainworld that's a GG moon) that's a bit backwater. Any of these can create lanes that channel traffic, and all it takes to make the setting a bit more pirate friendly is that these conditions be far enough from a military power that keeping pickets on station is difficult.

The Marches also have an entire subsector that can work: District 268. Mercantile traffic can and does move within and through the area, but Imperial presence is sparse and always moving. Make the pirates Sword Worlders and they even have friendly ports to retreat to.

A commonly ignored point in this argument is that real merchants are not playing a game with fake money (like gamers are), and if the monthlies on a free trader can be knocked down another KCr by keeping the cheaper, bare minimum sensor package, a LOT of merchants will do just that. Some editions convey this reasonably well, some don't deal with it at all, and some just plain get it wrong. Hiding in open space is a numbers game, and if the other guy is mostly blind, the numbers are pretty good for the pirate.

 

[whartung]

There obviously has to be some corrupt infrastructure underlying the pirates. They have to move their goods somewhere, someone is maintaining their ships. That's the things about ships -- they have to lay anchor somewhere, and they can't run very long in a, well, vacuum.

How wide spread that corruption is, who knows. Could range from a paid off inspector to and entire "pirate system".

Here, the pirates operate across the spectrum. In Somalia, they seem to be specializing in ransoming the crew and being completely uninterested in the cargos. Whereas in the Asia, they're seizing entire ships, and even trying to relist them under new names.

In Somalia, they seem to operate much more freely, being as they're based in essentially wide spread, complete anarchy. Whereas they're seemingly a bit more subtle in Asia, where the infrastructure is more secretive.

The most difficult part of traveller piracy is that supporting infrastructure. As any Trader can tell you, starships are not cheap. It's one thing to be towed on in a dingy and take over a tanker with ropes, ladders, and small arms. If the skiff gets blown out of the water, what are your losses? Hardly anything. But if you're in a starship go up against an armed merchant, then your losses get much higher. Ship to Ship combat is particularly lethal.

If pirates become a problem, then merchants can start a impromptu convoy system, even with out a local navy assuming the merchants themselves are armed. One thing for a lone ship to take on a lowly merchant, but quite another to take on 8 or 10 of them. And if the pirates boost they're strength in response, then that whole infrastructure issue kicks in. Take out the infrastructure, and you weaken the pirates ability to prosecute their trade, and the more powerful the pirates become, the bigger their infrastructure becomes.

If you have a navy that has the kind of "free" rules of engagement regarding pirates, then I think that attacks on pirate infrastructure could really cripple the pirate economy.

It does boil down to opportunity and enforcement. We haven't seen much in the way of rules regarding how local or the Imperial Navy is funded (taxes, tariffs, "general fund", etc).

 

[samuelvss]

I think the CT starship encounter table is both inspired and instructive.

C and D systems have enough traffic to be targets, and not enough to rate a constant IN presence. From there, it is a matter of opportunity costs versus reward. The old, successful pirate has to have good intelligence and a tactical edge. Starships are expensive, but the guy with an "SP," is a desperate character. He can only outgun the ungunned.

Piracy is like bankrobbery: it's always going to be there. How much, and in what form, will depend on law and order, tactics, economics, politics, and a bunch of other ics that ellude me a this early hour. But on the bottom of the economic barrel, desperate merchants (running unarmed, skimming fuel in backwaters) are prey for desperate pirates (who may have been desperate merchants not long before...)

 

[robject]

Sooo...for piracy to be feasible we need:

A world (or group of worlds) with really, really fragile governments, with insurgencies, corruption, etc.

That world (or group of worlds) has to be part of a trade route from A to B and divergence from this route should be expensive enough to make passing through those worlds economically feasible.

And possibly, there has to be some serious stuff going on in another part of the Imperium to explain away a minimal Imperial Navy presence in these areas.

I might suggest the Regina - Rhylanor route. The Xboat route is tortuous; the direct route is much quicker, and time == money. 3 jumps instead of 7. If you assumed that the Imperium only cares about patrolling worlds along the Xboat routes, then you've got who-knows-what in the backwaters.

 

[castiglione]

Oh yeah - piracy works in the waters off Somalia because most crews of freighters don't carry weapons (since most of the ports they dock in will not tolerate this) and crews are also instructed not to fight back (and they won't since the pirates are looking to ransom live hostages).

 

[Hal]

There also seems to be one other aspect to the Somali pirates scenario that many are missing...

Most governments are too "Civilized" to retaliate against a given "Government" when clearly that government is:

A) incapable of clearing out the pirates themselves
B) incapable of identifying the pirates as pirates (and external governments aren't either
C) clearly not supporting the pirates

As a consequence of all that - none of those world class navies are willing to step in, enforce embargoes against the offending nation(s), nor engage in hostilities against Somalia as they might have against a nation that is clearly supporting the acts which would be construed as acts of war by a competent nation.

As for myself? I have no issue with having pirates in my campaign (were I running one now) simply because of one factor...

You do not need a pirate base to get rid of stolen merchandice. A ship that comes in with forged documentation, along with a port inspector who doesn't look TOO closely at the forged documents, can feed in stolen freight to a world's infrastructure and it would look like nothing worse than the local criminals "laundering" stolen goods.

What is needed to make piracy work on a tactical level?

A region of space where the prey (the merchants) can't jump away into jump space as soon as the prey hits the 100 planetary diameters of the world they're leaving.

Such regions are:

Areas where wilderness refueling at the port world is illegal. This can happen at a desert world where the claim might be "fragile ecosystem", or it can happen at a world that has a high control rating and the "Greenies" afraid of a freighter contaminating their ecosystems with foreign lifeforms as they "dip" into the water for jump fuel.

Regions where the main world is within the shadow of a larger body such that the 100 diameter limit for the main world is inside the 100 diameter limit for the other body. A moon in orbit around a gas giant, or perhaps a main world inside the sun's 100 diameter limit.

As for other possibilities? Marc Miller spoke of "navigational accuracy" for jump space, such that the displacement error can be about 3 km per parsec, or the problem can be made worse by a factor of 10 by bad navigation and/or poor computers etc.

For those who like to include other factors in their campaign universe, I suggest the following:

Ships that precipitate into normal space by trying to exit space inside the 100 diameter limit, automatically place stresses upon the ship that can potentially add to the wear and tear of the ship itself. In addition, ships that exit unexpectedly into normal space inflict the conditions that lead to "Jump sickness". As this is a "IMTU" type of thing, the level of space sickness inflicted can vary to "moderate" to "Severe" in time duration and how likely it causes crews to be incapacitated.

The options are there - and any GM can create conditions where piracy may exist. In regions where two "national" entities are in potential competition, pirates might use the artificial boundaries of the two political entities to avoid the law enforcement arms of either side. Outlaws on one side, and model citizens on the other side of the "border" might lead to tensions building up because one "nation" doesn't want war, but also hates the piracy it has to deal with that the other side decries as "horrible", but does nothing to deter it.

Well, enough on that...

 

[Renaissance Man]

I'm still kinda baffled about the whole pirate holy war. It's as if people are thinking of piracy as distinct from any other naval engagement. That has never been the case. Pirates are armed ships that engage and overwhelm other vessels in naval combat (or the threat of it), board, and take. They never have and never will be able to do so under the nose of a well armed navy or well defended coastline. Pirates typically strike in poorly patrolled or defended waters. If they can't win in a naval engagement, then no pirates. If they can, then pirates. It's not rocket surgery.

Why do you think Free Traders have weapons? Ups the stakes, allows them to go to all those dark spaces where there's money to be had but an imperial frigate only once in a blue moon and know that it'll take a ship with bigger displacement and more firepower to take it down without a fight. And trust me, piracy is only really profitable if you don't have to fight very often. A pirate vessel with a damaged jump drive can't just put out a mayday and hope for someone friendly to come along.

You might say -- well if piracy becomes a problem, then the 3I would send more patrols into the area and end it. Fine, but usually there are reasons why patrols aren't there to begin with. The galaxy surely has it's Somalias. Space is big. Even the 3I can't be everywhere at once.

 

[robject]

I'm still kinda baffled about the whole pirate holy war.

Once one starts applying real-world figures to Traveller, one can start analyzing Traveller as a simulation. Sometimes one can suggest fixes, or barring that, alternatives, to make Traveller a better simulation. But the oldest hunks of Traveller are designed as games, and are poor simulations, so they may be fun to play, but that can bother some who see Traveller as being too immersive to be viewed as a glorified board game.

That's why you'll see some say "it's just a game" and others say "but it's wrong".

 

[BlackBat242]

Part of the modern situation that can be used in Traveller is the whole "armed merchant" question.

At this time, many nations do not allow armed civilian ships to enter their ports... and ban ships registered there from mounting weapons. This seems strange, but that is how things are.

This thread contain other peculiar features available:
http://warships1discussionboards.yuku.com/topic/7228

 

[JustinInOz]

Further info

If it is of interest to you, don't just look at what is happening in Somalia, look at the whole world. The International Chamber of Commerce - Maritime Bureau keeps track of these things. The map can be found here:

http://www.icc-ccs.org/extra/display.php

This is a zoomable, positionable, satellite, political or combo map. It is updated daily.

This is where piracy is happening in the world _today_.

In particular check out Yemen.

Until I looked at this map, I did not realise how extensive and pervasive piracy is in the world today.

If piracy did not happen in the 3rd Imperium, then it would be a strange and fictional place indeed. If piracy were an easy thing to stop as is suggested by some who say it does not exist in the 3I, then I reckon piracy would have been wiped out when Spanish treasure ships stopped crossing the Caribbean. Sure most pirates did not attack ships of the line carrying the "Kings' Fifth" from the silver mine at Potosí, but they grabbbed everything else that they could handle. Sure there are no pirate attacks off the coast of New York, but there are more than you can shake a stick at off the coast of Nigeria, Yemen and the straights of Malacca.

If "the numbers" do not support piracy, I would suggest changing the numbers. Saying that the numbers don't support it comes across as an uncreative dodge to me.

 

[aramis]

200-300 per year...

However, what most people think of as Piracy isn't the same as the definition the IMB uses. IMB considers hijack and barratry to be piracy, even tho' common perception is that they are not.

 

[Renaissance Man]

If you are able to forcibly take command of a vessel, even for the purposes of scaring the crap out of people and roughing them up, you have demonstrated that you are capable of taking their stuff too.

Space is a lot bigger than planet Earth, and yet with all the satellites, all the intelligence, all the carrier groups and all the armed naval vessels in the world, we still have piracy. Why? You still have to be willing and able to send ships to these areas and keep them there.

Yeah, there are pirates in MTU. Pirates are can just be rough trade merchants who figure out they can bring guns instead of cash when they go looking for cargo. And they can operate anywhere where system defences are weak and Imperial vessels are by only a few times a year. Even the poorest most backwater planet has a demand for interstellar trade. What about those deserted systems with gas giants that could save you two jumps, but they take you off the main? Maybe the Imperium is busy elsewhere in the sector, maybe they have to pull some ships off of commerce-raid patrol.