Subsector Troopers

[GrayPennell]

I have built a patrol cruiser for T5 which just got me started to think about crime in Traveller. The issue has been discussed before. Things like how does the Imperium track down criminals that flee a world etc. The patrol cruiser seems to be a great answer.

Armed better than most adventure size ships with jump 3 and ten crew it is capable of engaging pirates and to chase after them if it becomes a chase. Additionally imagine the ten crew members trained not just in ship operations but in criminal investigation forensic etc. Ten crew is a pretty good size investigation team.

So I am thinking a patrol cruiser acts like a state trooper but at the subsector level. Their jurisdiction being any system within the subsector that isnt directly governed by Imperium. In those areas and in some case in face of nobles sometimes they have to be granted permission to operate.

These operations include access to records and equipment they need. They can also get local backup when needed. With all these operations it makes for an excellent adventure

 

[BTolputt]

Dude, you just blew my mind! After reading your post, I couldn't help but imagine HBO/FOX mixing their law shows up with a SyFy bent...

 

[rancke]

What does it cost to maintain such a patrol cruiser?

How much does it cost to maintain a permanent field office and laboratory on a member world?

How much does it cost to have a portable crime lab and pay to have it freighted from world to world as the need arises?


Hans

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Their jurisdiction would seem to be anywhere except the actual worlds not owned by the Imperium. Even if they work for the subsector noble, they're still Imperial authority. Being Imperial authority, particularly working for the subsector noble, would give them extra pull to get outside the extrality line once on world, though.

Interesting idea. And, in an ATU (like mine, with much smaller polities of different sorts) it could be even more interesting.

 

[rancke]

Their jurisdiction would seem to be anywhere except the actual worlds not owned by the Imperium. Even if they work for the subsector noble, they're still Imperial authority. Being Imperial authority, particularly working for the subsector noble, would give them extra pull to get outside the extrality line once on world, though.

Things may be different in the OP's TU.

Be that as it may, membership treaties probably allow Imperial law enforcers to investigate Imperial crimes, possibly with some restrictions that could vary from member world to member world. They almost certainly can't step in and investigate local crimes unless asked to do so by the local law.


Hans

 

[Reban]

Some "policing" operations are probably better handled by Imperial and Colonial Naval units. These units may be Type Ts or vessels that can do double duty as police vessels and warships on the US Coast Guard model.

In my country Naval officers were given legal powers of arrest the same as police officers for economic crimes at sea, such as over fishing, failure to maintain proper logs and drug running. Its a regular thing to see my navy's officers appear in courts in other countries in full uniform to give evidence in a multi-national drug bust. One could imagine Imperial Naval officers appearing in some planetary court as a witness for similar purposes.

There are other crimes that might require Ministry of justice agents to have a ship like a Type T to run around in. Crimes using the postal system or in Traveller terms the X-Boat network might need an investigation team to travel (although high jump capability might be useful for them). Tracking down escaped Imperial prisoners or bail skippers a la the US Marshals. Executing Imperial court warrants. Stuff like this might all fall under MoJ agents tasking coming under things and areas the Imperium rules directly as per the OPs thoughts.

IMTU every office of the Imperial Civil Service has its own paramilitary units. The Imperial Revenue Service has an extreme audit unit of crack accountants/commandos. This was inspired by something I saw in the Russian Federation in the 90's where they were training young boys and girls of highschool age to be government auditors. Part of the training was to fire AKs and execute house entries SWAT style. This was because if certain "legitimate business people" got wind of a tax audit coming they'd destroy all files so the extreme audit unit went in fast and secured everything.

Anti-terrorist and anti-insurgency might be something the Imperium sends special MoJ units out to target. These could be FBI style special entry units held at Sector level and assigned as needed to Sub-sectors. They could be busy if in a dark Imperium setting the powers designate anything that challenges them as terrorism. [EDIT] Tying this back to OPs post and sticking with the US I see lots of police departments, county sheriffs and state police forces availing of special subsidies to acquire military surplus equipment and arming themselves to the teeth with tanks, drones and receiving training from the FBI in counter terror operations. MoJ could sponsor similar programs for OP's Sub-sector Troopers hence giving them a way to acquire those Type Ts and the training to go with these law enforcement tasks.

While the idea of an Imperial CSI might sound cool I'm dubious about resourcing what are supporting services to law enforcement with their own Type T. I like the shows but coming from a chemistry background I constantly shout at the TV or go: o:

It might be better to think of the vessel as a mobile police station. Have a mix of specialties aboard. All MoJ Agents but some patrol cops, white collar crime, communications (for bugging as well a regular coms) and a crime scene tech with a lab. That sort of mix requires a bigger ship, maybe a converted trader.

 

[GrayPennell]

When I thought of this I picture a trans system law enforcement agency. Its sector jurisdiction allowing it to track down criminals across the subsector. These are the people that track down the bad players While CSI is interesting I am picture more of the FBI/Interpol model. If you dont like the term subsector you can use colonial. I have always felt the terms where interchangeable.


That being said I like the sketch of the CIS team and thats the image in my mind too.

 

[Reban]

You might like to look at the history of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Texas Rangers. The Rangers were modeled on the RIC. Both were highly mobile law enforcement agencies covering major crimes, riot control, counter insurgency as a paramilitary force, tracking down fugitives and provided close protection for governors/lord lieutenants.

They were both organizations that had the wide ranging writ across the whole state/country which was different to the very local constabularies of the period.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Texas_Ranger_Division

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Irish_Constabulary

The FBI is a good model and I think this is how Ministry of justice Agents are supposed to work. However Interpol is purely a co-ordinating agency and doesn't have field agents who make arrests.

I hope this might be of some help. I'd like to see what you come up with in adventure material for your Troopers.

 

[Carlobrand]

What does it cost to maintain such a patrol cruiser?
...

Starting with the canon patrol cruiser and assuming a small polity decides to engage a bank loan paid through taxes, and assuming the standard Book-2 wages, I put it around 15 million annually for one ship. Less if the polity can finance at a more reasonable rate, but probably no less than half that.

I don't have any way of guesstimating the costs of the needed infrastructure to support it - double it, maybe? - but it's certainly within reason for any single world of a million or so population. By extension, most subsectors ought to be able to field several of them, not so many as to dominate play since they can't dig as deep into local pockets as the local government can (and the bulk of such income will be paying for colonial fleet elements), but certainly enough to justify their rate of occurrence on the random encounter tables.

 

[rancke]

Starting with the canon patrol cruiser and assuming a small polity decides to engage a bank loan paid through taxes, and assuming the standard Book-2 wages, I put it around 15 million annually for one ship. Less if the polity can finance at a more reasonable rate, but probably no less than half that.

I don't have any way of guesstimating the costs of the needed infrastructure to support it - double it, maybe? - but it's certainly within reason for any single world of a million or so population. By extension, most subsectors ought to be able to field several of them, not so many as to dominate play since they can't dig as deep into local pockets as the local government can (and the bulk of such income will be paying for colonial fleet elements), but certainly enough to justify their rate of occurrence on the random encounter tables.

That's not what I was getting at. If I was the person in charge of the subsector troopers and had to provide law enforcement support to the member worlds, I strongly suspect that it would be a more effective use of my budget to have permanent offices on the more important worlds and several portable crime labs that could be moved as freight to the less important worlds as needed. Pirates I would leave to the navy.


Hans

 

[GrayPennell]

In general I can see wher your going with your point but imagine keeping a building and staff would cost millions too and throw in the freight ship too it gets costly. While the navy is great to take on Varga raiders I like the idea of smaller ships for adventuring. And you already know my navy's operate in 10K to 100K not the mega ships of OTU TCS and High Guard. So a Patrol of enforcers in a small ship works well in my MTU and is funner in my book.

 

[rancke]

In general I can see wher your going with your point but imagine keeping a building and staff would cost millions too and throw in the freight ship too it gets costly. While the navy is great to take on Varga raiders I like the idea of smaller ships for adventuring. And you already know my navy's operate in 10K to 100K not the mega ships of OTU TCS and High Guard. So a Patrol of enforcers in a small ship works well in my MTU and is funner in my book.

As I said earlier, maybe things are different in your TU. All I can do is go by the rules and setting I know about.

That said, how do you figure that a permanent staffed office/crime lab will run into millions to maintain? My guess, and I admit it's just a guess, would run into around Cr200-250,000 for a 8 dT office/lab and, say, 4 employees.

The freight ship won't be on permanent standby. You pay a freighter to move the portable units. Might be a problem with getting to the low-population worlds, but then, low-population worlds don't pay a lot of taxes. Or get a lot of tricky crimes either.


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

That's not what I was getting at. If I was the person in charge of the subsector troopers and had to provide law enforcement support to the member worlds, I strongly suspect that it would be a more effective use of my budget to have permanent offices on the more important worlds and several portable crime labs that could be moved as freight to the less important worlds as needed. Pirates I would leave to the navy.


Hans

I see that as an administrative quibble: does the army get ships or no, do the airmen stay with the army or get their own branch, do we need marines or no ... questions that have come up in our own history, with the answers depending on details that as often included political considerations and questions of turf as any objective facts. With respect to interworld law enforcement in a Traveller setting, the "right" answer regarding patrol ships and the troopers is going to depend on details and particulars that mostly aren't described in canon, therefore very dependent on the ideas and preferences of the game master.

Patrol ships could be a branch of the colonial navy or a part of "subsector troopers" or an entirely independent organization reporting directly to subsector administration. They exist - canon sets them as one potential random encounter. Since they exist, they're budgeted for; it's just a question of who's getting and using that money. Me, I'd make them a "coast guard" style entity, independent of the navy except in wartime. However, your portable crime labs and personnel could occasionally use some back-up; being able to call on your own ships to provide both transport and back-up can be useful if, for example, the crime in question involved a corrupt government or organized crime. So, I wouldn't entirely discount the option of having the patrol ships under that command.

 

[rancke]

It's two different kinds of problem requiring two different sets of skills and equipment. For fighting pirates you need an armed starship and there's usually not much call for crime labs and forensic scientists. For solving murders a crime lab is often useful while a starship will sit idle in orbit while the crime is being investigated.


Hans

 

[GrayPennell]

Well a Patrol Cruiser has 4 tripple turrets good armor and sensors so they can handle most PC level pirates. The Imperial Navy is more worried about attacks from outside the Imperium or full out revolts inside. As for the crime lab idea lord what about pirates hiding? What about trans-system murders, con artist, runaways, smugglers, robbers ect. All of these would be great to have a FBI, Ranger type force to investigate.

The point for me is to use the PC in a new fun way on the adventures level.

 

[rancke]

Well a Patrol Cruiser has 4 tripple turrets good armor and sensors so they can handle most PC level pirates.

And if it's not stuck in orbit around a world waiting for its crew to solve a crime, it could even have a chance of finding some pirates to handle.

The Imperial Navy is more worried about attacks from outside the Imperium or full out revolts inside.

In peacetime the Imperial Navy and the subsector navy patrols around to keep an eye out for intrusions, which makes them ideally suited for piracy suppression. In wartimes they will be distracted by other duties, but if the Imperium drafts Scout vessels in times of war, odds are that it would draft subsector trooper vessels too.

As for the crime lab idea lord what about pirates hiding?

What sort of clues that requires forensic science to spot would pirates leave behind?

What about trans-system murders, con artist, runaways, smugglers, robbers ect. All of these would be great to have a FBI, Ranger type force to investigate.

All of these would be divided into two parts: 1) Find out who did it. 2) Capture them (Well, in many cases the first part would already be done). People with the skills and equipment to do one part are often not ideally suited for doing the other.

The point for me is to use the PC in a new fun way on the adventures level.

Whatever works for you. To me, this sort of setup would be confined to backwater regions with lowish populations where there are no separate subsector navy and the Imperial Navy seldom bothers to visit. Such subsector troopers would be part of the subsector navy (The Backwater Subsector Patrol ).


Hans

 

[Fritz_Brown]

However Interpol is purely a co-ordinating agency and doesn't have field agents who make arrests.

In the Real World, yes. In the world of books and movies, though, they seem to have quite a lot of them. And, they're all really good-looking and have some relationship to the protagonist.......

 

[Reban]

Ha! True.

Actually you could go with the TV/Novel Interpol model and seconde the best (and handsomest/most beautiful) and the worst (corrupt, ladder climbing political motivated) police officers from various planetary police forces in your sector to the Sector Troopers. You'd get a great mix of background and back stories, with officers exploiting local knowledge or finding themselves completely culture shocked as they visit crime scenes across the subsectors.

Go with the full TV trope and give your Troopers private yachts and independent wealth a la Crockett and Tubbs. Que Phil Collins and scenes of a Type T chasing down a spice smuggler through the rings of a gas giant... I can feel it coming through space tonight, oh Lord




Actually you could do a great version of The Departed with the pirates having a mole in the Sector Troopers and an undercover trooper in the pirate band. Meanwhile Imperial Naval Intelligence are running the Pirate Captain as an agent provocateur. Wheels within wheels.

 

[aramis]

That's not what I was getting at. If I was the person in charge of the subsector troopers and had to provide law enforcement support to the member worlds, I strongly suspect that it would be a more effective use of my budget to have permanent offices on the more important worlds and several portable crime labs that could be moved as freight to the less important worlds as needed. Pirates I would leave to the navy.


Hans

The two or more weeks for a crime lab to be shipped is two weeks for the evidence to be compromised by locals. And a lot of forensic evidence degrades simply from exposure.

If it's worth having a crime lab, it's worth the local rangers having a lab in the barracks. Even if the barracks itself is only staffed with 1 man, having the lab asset in semi-skilled (Forensic 0) hands is better than not having the asset at all.

 

[Reban]

The important thing is to record the scene and secure the evidence in a proper chain of evidence. Any detective level law enforcement official should know enough about this to have Forensic 0.

You could have a little robot that you let loose at the scene which records everything, both visually across a wide spectrum and with a laser scanner. From this CSI techs could reconstruct a digital model of any crime scene and interrogate it at their leisure. Such a CSI-Bot could collect samples as well and using lab on a chip tech analyse what it finds. More detailed chemical and biological analysis could be done later.

The novel Queen of Angels by Greg Bear is part police detective story and starts with a murder scene cyrogenically frozen with nano bots scouring every scrap of DNA from the walls, floors, ceiling and down the drains as well.

The budget option for running a crime lab is to subcontract out to accredited facilities. Need DNA or blood work? Send it to the local planetary medical examiner. Need to forensically check out a computer? Go to the local accredited planetary net security company (although I'd think that you could provide your Troopers with a computer and software to do this automatically to a certain level, read everything thats been on the HD short of massive EMP or physical damage). Of course there are times when you'll have to send your evidence away or bring in a mobile crime lab and team.