Starships, Explosions, and Mortgages

[opensent]

Hypothetical question:

What happens to the mortgage on a Starship if it is destroyed prior to the last payment?

Is the Master/Owner now responsible for 100-300K payments every month without any means to generate this amount? Or does the bank have some sort of insurance built into the payment scheme?

What happens if your players were a bit over zealous and managed to effectively destroy their ship without getting themselves killed off in the process.

 

[Jame]

And you should know, being one of the authors of GT:FT?

 

[kaladorn]

Also, the nature of the 'loss' would have a lot to do with any ability of PCs to recoup their loss (and the bank may get theirs under any case, but their insurer may come after the PCs for some civil actions if the PCs did something stupid or criminal to cause the loss).

And even if the insurer pays off to the PCs, they mad to so...v...e...r..y...s..l...o...w...l...y....

But that's good info to have, thanks Citizen Thrash.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Furtive Envoy:
Hypothetical question:

What happens to the mortgage on a Starship if it is destroyed prior to the last payment?

It still exists, but since the consequences of defaulting on a loan secured with a starship are having the starship repossessed, this is not exactly a big problem.

What happens if your players were a bit over zealous and managed to effectively destroy their ship without getting themselves killed off in the process.

Depends on the terms of the loan. Given your description, it sounds like the PCs were taking stupid risks, which probably triggers some sort of penalty clause which allows the bank to sue them for damages.

The truth is, given typical PC behavior, no bank would loan them the money to buy a starship, unless the loan was secured by property other than the starship, or the loan was much shorter duration at much higher interest.

 

[kaladorn]

Let me take an alternate PoV: Characters with a Merchant or Noble background might have little trouble getting a loan. You'd think SEHs etc. would make you a good loan candidate, but not so much. Yes, they speak to your ethics, but not so much to your ability to manage money and a business. Bureaucrats probably have a good chance of getting a loan due to knowing how to work any admin-based system. Similarly, Diplomats may have connections. Scouts? Good luck. Go find an IISS detached-duty Type-S. Rogues? Possibly, but it takes some imagining. Hunters? Probably not. Cops? Probably not. Other military? Probably not. Scientists? Maybe, depending on their corporate ties or influence. It goes on.

But there are those, like Nobles, for whom a loan could be secured by holdings. Essentially, a bank is going to be concerned about the ship disappearing off of its radar. A Sector wide Imperial Bank might be more tolerant of itinerant Travellers than a local bank will be, unless the people have strong family and real estate ties to the local world.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by kaladorn:
Let me take an alternate PoV: Characters with a Merchant or Noble background might have little trouble getting a loan.

Anyone with assets which can be used to back a loan won't have too much trouble (so any noble with money won't have trouble). Characters with a merchant background will have an advantage, and if they put together a sane business plan shouldn't have much trouble -- but 'sane business plan' is kinda boring for PCs, and 40 year loans are unlikely for the types of business plans that are interesting (you're looking for venture capital, not a regular secured loan).

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Ummm, kaladorn, why would a bank lend money to an SEH holder? As was discussed on the medals for Mercs thread, people like that take risks. And, if there is one kind of person a bank doesn't want to lend money to, it's a big risk-taker!

 

[lightsenshi]

Odds are that an SEH holder isn't necessarily a high risk taker.

As for the original question, I would assume that the lender (at least a legal lender) would have insurance to cover this sort of thing. But then again, I would expect insurance companies to keep bounty hunters on staff for these sort of "risk reduction" models.

Originally posted by Fritz88:
Ummm, kaladorn, why would a bank lend money to an SEH holder? As was discussed on the medals for Mercs thread, people like that take risks. And, if there is one kind of person a bank doesn't want to lend money to, it's a big risk-taker!

 

[kaladorn]

Why would a bank loan money to an SEH holder? I think I said they probably wouldn't, if he was just a military veteran. Why would the question come up? He or she might have decided to try their hand at merchantry after retiring from the service.

The thing to keep in mind is the Imperium is big, space is big and slow, and a crew that buggers off with a ship can go quite a distance before it is noticed and far enough and no one will catch up anytime soon. Banks have to watch for this kind of thing in setting up contingencies. This goes double for planetbound institutions who are probably less likely to fund interstellar traders than larger pan-Sector or pan-Domain financial institutions (who have reach and are thus less worried about someone outrunning them).

 

[aramis]

The banks may not be the ones actually backing the loans.

It may be much like federally guaranteed student loans: THe bank is never actually out the principle, as even if the loan defaults, the bank is guaranteed the repayment by the government.

In fact, I suspect (no offense to thrash & blue) that banking, and private enterprise as well, really ARE NOT the driving force of interstellar commerce; I suspect the 3I tends to take a far more managed approach. Why do you not default on a loan? Cause that Standard Imperial Transponder screams "I'm Stolen" if not reset for 3 months, and that the navy actuaLly monitors for that.

I doubt those loans ever even see a bank; they are not private investment driven, either... the only logical source is a government subsidy.

So, I suspect that, assuming no malfeasance on the part of the ship's owner nor crew, they either get to walk, or get a fresh 40 year with no further down needed (depending upon local IMOT's assessment of the usefulness of the ship in procuring further local trade.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Aramis:
The banks may not be the ones actually backing the loans.

It may be much like federally guaranteed student loans: THe bank is never actually out the principle, as even if the loan defaults, the bank is guaranteed the repayment by the government.

Which opens up the question of why the government would want to do this. It also implies a much more active and intrusive Imperial government than most of canon implies.

 

[kaladorn]

Yeah, I have to agree. My Imperium isn't that involved - Canon seems to be more 'live and leave alone' from their PoV.

Also, the transponder thing is not enough. In 3 months, your ship can have been chopshopped. Sure, I can't sell the entire ship, but get it to a bootleg yard and some pirate ship now has a new manouver drive, a smuggler has a new jump drive, and a few less picky merchant captains have new computer and avionics hardware and the weapons will be sold to a less-than-scrupulous planetary navy not asking too many questions. Net result: The ship is gone, chopped up, etc.

The Imperium (to my mind) doesn't have time to sweat the small stuff. So it has to let others do that, and this is the role that large megacorps fill. Local banks may have relations with them, and *THAT* may be the vehicle of insuring loans by small banks to 'itinerant' spacecrew.

 

[JAFARR]

Originally posted by Aramis:
The banks may not be the ones actually backing the loans.

Look at the auto makers of today: They all have their own finance divisions. I would assume that within the 3I at least, most shipsyards are owned by the megacorps who also have finance divisions.
Afterall, why let a bank make the profit when you can do add more to your coffers by financing ships yourself?

While the book specifically mentions government sibsidities, other grganizations might well supply ships to qualified persons. For example a major university or a research company may provide a lab ship, while a shipping line may provide a patrol ship of some type to protect it's interests in a back water area. In such cases, I would think the character(s)would have to answer to them in the case of losing their ship.

 

[Anthony]

Lots of people other than banks might finance ships. However, all likely financiers of merchant ships will be interested in having their investment paid back, so it doesn't really matter if the loan giver is a bank or someone else.

 

[Elliot]

Lets not forget that most merchant ships are J1 or J2 - that kind of locks them into mains or slightly larger areas of space, but not trans rift stuff in a hurry.

A subsector/quadrant/sector based mortgagee that is allowed to program its code into the transponder is not going to be too worried about skipping with regard to J1 and J2 ships. I can imagine that interest on J1 ships is less than on J2, which is less than on J3 etc etc as the security is less risky - a bank can pay J4 x- boats to travel worlds with news of repos and that will effectively beat all J1 and J2 ships in terms of enforcement.

 

[kaladorn]

I come back to the point about chopshops. It doesn't matter if you can outrun the crew if the ship can be chopshopped quickly. Or re-transpondered and given bogus registry. Thus all your fanciness with transponders and fast x-boat messages isn't that significant. The only thing those head off are the crew that wants to steal it, can't hack the transponder or get a bootleg one, and that want to continue to operate the ship as a going concern.

Really, the other issues would probably account for a fair part of the risk so they'd want better mechanisms than that.

I can think of several technological deadman solutions, but these aren't infallible and can be beaten. I can think of several steps banks can take in terms of who they choose to loan credit to and what kind of reciprocal agreements they have with larger agencies. I mean, you wouldn't steal a ship very readily if you knew Insterstellarms mercs were going to be hunting you until the stars grow cold and go out. They have reach, they have a willingness to crack heads and kneecaps and they'll get you.... eventually.

But no system is perfect. But it should be designed to be tough to get around (like deadman switches, transponders, etc) technically and augmented by sound business practices and agreements in place with larger outside agencies. This combination gives you a multipronged attack on the various forms of piracy and barratry.

 

[Elliot]

The thing about mains is that J4 x boats get the message to the repo team up the main alot sooner than a Free Trader can. So assuming fuel, maintenance and life support is a necessity for the crew (and it is in canon) unless there are chopshops in every corner of Imperial space (something I rather doubt given the heavy handedness of Imperial and corporate interests) the average Free Trader has no where to go if it decides to skip. An A1 simply does not have the range in its puny j drives.

IIRC the Navy fires on ships with corrupted transponders (which are in effect intelligent lifeforms - Deyo chips) so chopshops would have to be pretty damn good to be in business.

Of course for the criminally minded player the chopshop at the end of the main is a thing a legend and adventure.

 

[Anthony]

Why would the Navy fire on ships with failed transponders automatically? They have no precognitive awareness of Virus. In any case, chopshops take ships apart for materials, so it doesn't matter what the transponder might say.

This, of coures, assumes that the Deyo transponders actually exist, work, and are universally installed, which is probably not true (since it makes no sense) outside of a MT campaign. It's specifically not true for a CT campaign, since the Cymbeline chips were only introduced in one of the classic adventures, at which point they didn't have applications.

There are a lot of planets in the 3I with D and E class starports, which see a mail ship every six months. It's not that hard to hide if you really want to.

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Anthony:
This, of coures, assumes that the Deyo transponders actually exist, work, and are universally installed, which is probably not true (since it makes no sense) outside of a MT campaign. It's specifically not true for a CT campaign, since the Cymbeline chips were only introduced in one of the classic adventures, at which point they didn't have applications.

TNE effectively retconned the deyo transponder into the CT OTU.
According to Survival Margin the Imperials have known about the Cymbeline chips for quite a while now, the first deyo transponders being tested at round about the time the Kinunir disappeared

 

[Elliot]

Look at pages 69-71 of Survivial Margin = Deyo chips installed into all ships transponder systems from 1088 to 1100 as routine maintenance under the 12th Standard Data Systems Law of 1088.

This passage comes up - 'the transponder of a stolen starship will not attempt to conceal the fact that it is a stolen vessel, should the data at its disposal confirm that fact'

Likewise a chopshoped craft will have a different transponder in it which will be recognisable to Starport authorities when the thing squwarks.

It is my understanding from LKW's comments on Virus in G:T that this is true of the GURPS universe as well as in the official TU.

As to hiding on a E or D starport world - well that rather defeats the object of skipping on the mortgage repayment - electronic information on stolen ships planted in Starport computer systems in a main does not get forgotten becuase someone has waited things out for 6 months on a backwater.