General Starship Repossession Rewards

[Spinward Scout]

The conversation yesterday/today in my last post about Most Wanted Criminals turned to Repossessed Starships. So I've worked it up a bit. Take a look and try it out. I still haven't figured out how to fit IISS Security Branch into these Rewards. Maybe the Scouts do their own Repossessing.

Let me know what you think.

McPerth found a great article in an old JTAS that gave me a ton of ideas. It was written by someone named Jolly R. Blackburn. A Space Pirate name if I ever heard one. Thanks Lluis! And thanks everyone who participated.

Found it: JTAS 16, page 24-27, article named Giving the Bank a Fighting Chance

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Most Wanted Criminals - Starship Repossession Rewards in the Imperium

 

[Spinward Scout]

Did only one person like this?

Or did only one person get to see it?

 

[Kakistocrat]

Let me know what you think.

Most Wanted Criminals - Starship Repossession Rewards in the Imperium

Here are my initial thoughts:

• Are repossession agents legally authorized to use force to recover the ship and/or cargo, or to capture the captain, loan holder, and/or crew members of the repossessed ship? Or are they limited to using relevant law, perhaps in creative ways (e.g. deception), to snare their quarry? If the former, can deadly force be used to capture people on the “Scorched List”, to bring them in dead or alive?
• Setting aside the bonuses and paid expenses, it looks like corporate repossession agents (“CRA”) are paid about the same as a CT ship engineer, who seem to require only Engineering-1 (1977 Book 2, p. 6). Would the potential for bonuses be the big draw in becoming a CRA?
• Would rewards from cargo recovery only apply to cargo that was owned by the captain, loan holder, and/or crew (e.g. selling the scofflaws’ cargo to fund the rewards), or would they also apply to cargo that was owned by people or corporations whose only relationship with the captain or crew was to hire them to transport their cargo (e.g. the rewards being provided by the cargo owners or their insurers)?
• Most of the rewards are defined as “up to X% of ship and cargo value”. As an independent repossession agent, I’d probably be more interested in the median percentage of ship and cargo value as rewards vs. the maximum in deciding which repossession cases to pursue. (I’d imagine that in the banking/lending sector, most ship purchase financing is done by subsidiaries of megacorporations.)
• In the third entry of the list of Ministry of Justice rewards, would a ship (as opposed to its captain, loan holder, and/or crew) be on the “Scorched List”? Could a ship itself kill repossession agents without someone causing the ship to take a killing action?

 

[kilemall]

Someone named Jolly Blackburn?

That’s the Knights of the Dinner Table guy!

Jolly Blackburn - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Spinward Scout]

1) I think so. Those on the "Scorched List" were ones that had murdered Repossession Agents. You'd be helping the Authorities. This is from the JTAS article.

2) Sounds about right.

3) Cargo that is legally owned by Captain and/or Crew would still be owned by them. Taking that from them would be theft. There's nothing saying that the Repossession Agent can't strand them and their Cargo on a deserted Asteroid and fly away with the ship.

4) Probably true.

5) I'm not really sure. If the ship has AI and was 'authorized' to fire...?

Someone named Jolly Blackburn?

That’s the Knights of the Dinner Table guy!

Jolly Blackburn - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

No way!

 

[kilemall]

No way!

Way!

 

[Kakistocrat]

Are repossession agents legally authorized to use force to recover the ship and/or cargo, or to capture the captain, loan holder, and/or crew members of the repossessed ship? Or are they limited to using relevant law, perhaps in creative ways (e.g. deception), to snare their quarry? If the former, can deadly force be used to capture people on the “Scorched List”, to bring them in dead or alive?

I think so. Those on the "Scorched List" were ones that had murdered Repossession Agents. You'd be helping the Authorities. This is from the JTAS article.

I take it that your reply is to my third question, which implies that the answer to my first question is affirmative.

I dug up my copy of the JTAS article —

Repos are allowed to use reasonable force to take possession of a skipped vessel, and may defend themselves if attacked, but they are all subject to the murder statutes (even in the case of ships from the scorched list, although judges are often lenient in such cases). […] [Repos] have no rights over and above ordinary citizens, except for the few they gain if they are employed by the company holding the note on the vessel. They are subject to criminal prosecution for any laws they break in pursuit of a skipped vessel.

which suggests that they’re limited to recovering the ship and/or cargo rather than also being able to capture the captain/loan holder/crew, unless e.g. the captain/loan holder/crew have somehow been confined to their quarters on the recovered ship until the ship is turned over to the relevant law enforcement agency. Is your blogspot.com article intended to closely follow Blackburn’s approach?

Would rewards from cargo recovery only apply to cargo that was owned by the captain, loan holder, and/or crew (e.g. selling the scofflaws’ cargo to fund the rewards), or would they also apply to cargo that was owned by people or corporations whose only relationship with the captain or crew was to hire them to transport their cargo (e.g. the rewards being provided by the cargo owners or their insurers)?

Cargo that is legally owned by Captain and/or Crew would still be owned by them. Taking that from them would be theft. There’s nothing saying that the Repossession Agent can’t strand them and their Cargo on a deserted Asteroid and fly away with the ship.

Another snippet from the JTAS article suggests a different resolution on cargo owned by the captain and/or crew:

If a ship’s cargo belongs to the crew of the skipped vessel, it becomes the property of the financial institution holding the note on the ship. If it belongs to a party unconnected with the skipped vessel (if it has been stolen, or is a contracted cargo), it remains their property.

A repo stranding the captain and/or crew on a deserted asteroid without their consent could be legally treated as kidnapping (if they can get off of that rock quickly enough to seek legal representation within the statute of limitations).

In the third entry of the list of Ministry of Justice rewards, would a ship (as opposed to its captain, loan holder, and/or crew) be on the “Scorched List”? Could a ship itself kill repossession agents without someone causing the ship to take a killing action?

I’m not really sure. If the ship has AI and was ‘authorized’ to fire…?

In the article’s context (second column of page 26), I view “vessels on the scorched list” as really meaning “captain and/or crew of vessels on the scorched list” in terms of law enforcement being able to apprehend them and charge them with murder, rather than a ship’s AI being held responsible for a repo’s death. I can’t otherwise understand why these vessels’ recovery fees would be so much higher than those of vessels not on the scorched list.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Definitely go with what the article says.

Honestly, I'm not sure about a lot of that. I grabbed information so that Referees could have a list of numbers so they're not left scratching their head when they need to put out Rewards.

When I worked for a grocery company, there was an accident and the food-filled trailer was at the State Police office for more than a month. They had to get rid of everything inside. It all stank so bad because of waiting for the investigation to get done that it was all rotten. They didn't try to salvage any of it.

Any Cargo on a time constrain will probably be junked if it doesn't get to its destination in time. Or the Repossession Agent gets the Cargo transferred to another ship, probably through a Broker.

I guess stranding the Crew is more of a Pirate thing.

Well, a Captain is responsible for a ship and it's Crew's conduct. The AI could be considered part of the ship or part of the Crew. If it's part of the Crew, it could be "switched off" permanently.

But if it's part of the ship, would they just replace its circuits?

 

[Kakistocrat]

Definitely go with what the article says.

Honestly, I’m not sure about a lot of that. I grabbed information so that Referees could have a list of numbers so they’re not left scratching their head when they need to put out Rewards.

Some of the rewards in the blogspot.com article seem rather generous to me — even from a non-financial perspective. For example, the possibility of an Imperial knighthood for recovering a starship and cargo with a value of at least one megacredit = CR 1,000,000 (or perhaps CR 1,048,576 ) —what kind of shape would a starship with an outstanding note have to be in to not be worth at least that much?

When I worked for a grocery company, there was an accident and the food-filled trailer was at the State Police office for more than a month. They had to get rid of everything inside. It all stank so bad because of waiting for the investigation to get done that it was all rotten. They didn’t try to salvage any of it.

Any Cargo on a time constraint will probably be junked if it doesn’t get to its destination in time. Or the Repossession Agent gets the Cargo transferred to another ship, probably through a Broker.

Yes, I agree on the perishable cargo, but I don’t see the repo doing that cleanup in the cargo bay; the repo would get the vessel back to its owner or to law enforcement as quickly as possible, so that he could move on to tracking the next renegade on his list, and let other people handle the recovered vessel’s processing (so that e.g. insurance adjusters representing the cargo owners can determine what might be salvageable, and what would be covered by the cargo owner’s policy, and what could still be deliverable in a marketable state).

I guess stranding the Crew is more of a Pirate thing.

It could also be a repo thing if he has developed some kind of fanatical, to-perdition-with-legal-niceties hatred for a particular crew that he’s been chasing for far too long…

Well, a Captain is responsible for a ship and its Crew’s conduct. The AI could be considered part of the ship or part of the Crew. If it's part of the Crew, it could be “switched off” permanently.

But if it’s part of the ship, would they just replace its circuits?

If an AI is legally culpable for its actions — if it has legal sophonthood — then it could be punished according to the relevant legal code. Otherwise, it would probably be viewed as an indirect action of the captain or a crewman, depending upon who’d authorized the AI to use deadly force, and the authorizing sophont would probably be held responsible for the AI’s actions. But, of course, I’m not a solicitor in the Imperial legal system, so any purported legal advice found here is worth no more than what you’d paid for it.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Some of the rewards in the blogspot.com article seem rather generous to me — even from a non-financial perspective. For example, the possibility of an Imperial knighthood for recovering a starship and cargo with a value of at least one megacredit = CR 1,000,000 (or perhaps CR 1,048,576 ) —what kind of shape would a starship with an outstanding note have to be in to not be worth at least that much?


Yes, I agree on the perishable cargo, but I don’t see the repo doing that cleanup in the cargo bay; the repo would get the vessel back to its owner or to law enforcement as quickly as possible, so that he could move on to tracking the next renegade on his list, and let other people handle the recovered vessel’s processing (so that e.g. insurance adjusters representing the cargo owners can determine what might be salvageable, and what would be covered by the cargo owner’s policy, and what could still be deliverable in a marketable state).


It could also be a repo thing if he has developed some kind of fanatical, to-perdition-with-legal-niceties hatred for a particular crew that he’s been chasing for far too long…


If an AI is legally culpable for its actions — if it has legal sophonthood — then it could be punished according to the relevant legal code. Otherwise, it would probably be viewed as an indirect action of the captain or a crewman, depending upon who’d authorized the AI to use deadly force, and the authorizing sophont would probably be held responsible for the AI’s actions. But, of course, I’m not a solicitor in the Imperial legal system, so any purported legal advice found here is worth no more than what you’d paid for it.

The Rewards were from the JTAS article mostly. It said 2% - 5% of the cost.

With the Imperial Rewards, I said 'up to 10%' - it depends on the purpose of the Starship. If you have a Captain of a small Escort ship (like The Hunt for Red October, if you know the movie or novel) and the Captain and some Crew decide to go to Zhodane with the ship, or anywhere else., the reward will be much larger than normal.

Salvage Rewards are variable depending on the condition of the ship. Repossession Agents get this Reward. Anyone else gets normal Salvage Rights - complete ownership of what's left of the ship and all of it's contents. But the Widow of a dead Crewmember would probably want her Spouse's belonging back.

The Apprehension Rewards are based a bit on my previous Most Wanted Criminals article. I figured that the ship would be worth more to take if the Crew and Captain were Criminals. It's more dangerous, so it's like Hazard Pay.

The part about Knighting came from the discussion on the board the day before I made the article. I added the automatic Knighting part.

 

[Condottiere]

I think that would require boarding under heavy fire of a very valuable prize(d) starwarship.

 

[Spinward Scout]

I think that would require boarding under heavy fire of a very valuable prize(d) starwarship.

Possibly. And wouldn't that be a great adventure?

But if the Repossession Agents are resourceful and can get in while the Crew is incapacitated somehow, knowledge of overriding authorization would be their best friend.

 

[Condottiere]

For extremes cases:

 

[Spinward Flow]

recovering a starship and cargo with a value of at least one megacredit

The correct way to read this is:

1. Recovering a starship (any value)
2. Carrying a Speculative Goods cargo of at least MCr1

The point being that anyone who has MCr1 to spare for buying speculative goods (with their own money) ought to have been able to afford their monthly mortgage payment (and if the starship is listed for repossession, ipso facto the operator has been skipping out on their payments).

I agree that the Social Status to B in a single step (regardless of starting point) is ... A BIT MUCH ... for such a service to Law, Order and the Almighty Imperial Banks That OWN EVERYONE™ ... however a +1 Social (limit: "it goes to 11!") reward that "stops" at Social: B (can't get to Social: C+ this way) for "services rendered" in the recovery of starships that have been skipping with a MCr1+ speculative cargo aboard (which the bank seizes and sells for their own profits) would seem reasonable. For most people (Social: 9-) you'd have to pull off that stunt MORE THAN ONCE to be able to reach Social: B status, rather than a One And Done™ type of deal, is the way that I would rule on it as a Referee.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Getting Knighted is a Reward of the game, np matter the SOC of the Knighted character.

 

[Kakistocrat]

The correct way to read this is:

1. Recovering a starship (any value)
2. Carrying a Speculative Goods cargo of at least MCr1

The original wording in the blogspot.com article was divided into two bulleted items:

- up to 10% of Ship and Cargo value
- if the value is a MegaCredit or more - throw 12+ to be Knighted instead

I took the meaning of “value” in the first part as referring to both the ship and the cargo for determining the reward of up to 10%, and applied the same meaning to “value” in the second part. Changing “value” to “cargo value” in the second part would make the intended meaning unambiguous.

 

[PVernon]

Question - Does GURPS 'Bounty hunters' have anything on repo work?

I can't get to my books till tomarrow.

 

[Nightwind1]

Someone named Jolly Blackburn?

That’s the Knights of the Dinner Table guy!

Jolly Blackburn - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

That's exactly who it is. His earliest printed game-related material were JTAS articles.