To Quarantine or Not to Quarentine?

[Magnus von Thornwood]

This thread brought to you by the letter "f" and the color "yellow" and the noun "infraction". :devil:

This thread and specifically this post got me thinking about how the various interstellar polities in people's Traveller Universes handle contagions such as disease or microlife infections?

So how do you handle a possible "plague" ship in your TU?

The more detail the better.

For example, as I posted In My [T5 ATU] of the Permatic Imperium, a ship which is the possible vector of a biological pathogen or other "plague" type threat is required by common interstellar law and High Imperial Law to lock down the ship, the pax and crew as quarantined as possible from each other. They are also required to transmit on Guard (the common interstellar emergency frequencies) the fact that they are a possible "plague" ship, their manifests (pax, crew, cargo), medical records for all Sophonts on board and all records and logs regarding current "plague" status as well as how it manifests and order it appeared in those on board. When and if, and that if is very important here, rescue comes you are required to obey all legal orders of the Imperial authorities when they do come on board. Such authorities are selected, specialized Imperial Navy, Scout and Space Guard units that are issued special override codes and forcible entry kits and Biohazard Armor and armed with Stunners, Sidearms and Flamers for entering and dealing with the contents of such ships.

Failure to comply with these mandates can result in as little as fines for something small like mouthing off or passive resisting to confiscation of the ship (normally they are purchased at salvage rates for commonly known "plagues" and at negotiated price, but never more than full value +10% for unknown ones) to death for active resistance to the boarding party.

Now, about that "if rescue comes" part above. While I do lean toward a lighter Imperium, it isn't above being ruthless at times. I have mentioned they aren't above playing StarGods to lower tech societies in order to make them Client Memebers of the Permatic Imperium, so leaving a "plague" ship full of Travellers die or possibly even destroyed to prevent that "plague" from getting to a Starport or World is not that big a deal to them. Better a few die out in the Void than entire Polulations die.

So, what are your methods?

 

[Condottiere]

The contagion appears to have spread to this subforum.

The Imperium probably handles the matter no different than what our local authorities would, with varying degrees of efficiency.

All docking stations, especially those that receive out of system ships, probably have embedded detectors sniffing out fire-arms, drugs and biological entities not carrying the appropriate papers. Those that make planetary landings probably get greeted with a mobile variant of those sensors.

Vargr traditional practise may be to shoot up the ships like you would a rabid dog in the street.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Thanks for the quick response.

The contagion appears to have spread to this subforum.

The Imperium probably handles the matter no different than what our local authorities would, with varying degrees of efficiency.

All docking stations, especially those that receive out of system ships, probably have embedded detectors sniffing out fire-arms, drugs and biological entities not carrying the appropriate papers. Those that make planetary landings probably get greeted with a mobile variant of those sensors.

Vargr traditional practise may be to shoot up the ships like you would a rabid dog in the street.

I assume by your response that you mean your OTU 3rd Imperium? Or are you running an alternate Imperium? I never assume what TU an individual uses, except for Hans who has stated repeatedly that he uses an OTU 3I.

Also, thank you for the detailed response. Though the first line leaves me with the feeling I just caught a barb for my "contribution" to the piracy thread.

So, you let folks disembark before checking them for hazards, interesting. But how about those ships such as the one in the 13 Step Plan where there is appearance of the hazard while the ship is in transit either in N-Space, J-Space or whatever Space your starships travel through, be Void or Aether and the folks on board know they are infected with something worse than a case of the Vlandish Shingles? How does YTU handle those cases?

 

[Carlobrand]

Two levels: the Imperium has its rules for accessing the local starport, the local world usually has its own rules for exiting the starport and entering their jurisdiction. We're looking at the specific case of a "plague" ship, i.e. a ship arriving with a contagion that is both infectious enough and lethal enough to constitute a public health emergency. That would usually be Imperial - it's a little too late by the time they've got to local customs, although some worlds do have the tech and resources to do that job space-side for themselves.

Depends on the level of the local starport. At an E, not a blessed lot: the ship signals whatever planetary authorities there are and hopes they have some way of dealing with the situation; if they don't, then it's hang in space or quarantine in some corner planetside with the local military guarding the ship while they send someone over to the next star for help.

Details depend on the details of the E world. If it's E because it's primitive, you could be about to kill the place; it happens. Those places don't always have the resources or knowledge to hold disaster at bay, and their survival may depend on your integrity. If it's high tech but E because it doesn't trust strangers, the place could be about to kill you; they've probably already got their paranoia routines in place, and you're probably better off negotiating for help from orbit than trying to ground and having them find out there. But then, there's sometimes a price worlds have to pay for not investing in suitable infrastructure for visitors.

Higher level starports, there's usually something approximating a quarantine-and-assist process: you signal the starport as a ship in distress, biohazard. You give them the particulars, as much as you know them. They send out a biohazard medical team on a ship's boat, maybe backed by an escort if there's reason to worry about you doing something silly. (If they come with the escort, that's the point where you know you're in deep kim chee.) They dock, turn your airlock and theirs into a two-stage biohazard lock complete with showers and whatever, go over in garb appropriate to the level of precaution warranted and with whatever equipment they need, and from there it depends on the specifics of the contagion. Most contagions are well known, their handling obvious - although a D-port might not have the equipment to do much more than stick people in freezers and quarantine your ship until decent help can be summoned from a neighboring system, if it's something uncommon. Those that aren't present a dilemma - you don't want them to spread, but at the same time you need to learn about them, and trying to help the affected ship while under very tight biohazard protocols can glean you some more information to add to the database - even if it isn't always the best thing for the individuals involved.

And if you're the kind that bends rules in a situation like that, forfeiture of ship and cargo are going to be the absolute least of your worries.

As to more mundane situations, depends on who you are and where you're coming from. A scheduled liner from a neighboring A-port is going to get the kind of scrutiny you might see on a New York to Paris run. A tramp freighter coming in from the primitive E port is likely to see quite a bit more.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Yay for details!

You have some nice ideas there, though from your text it sounds like a decent starport (Class C+) has or may have a specialized boat for dealing with biohazards, and Lows at the Class D.

The idea of even a crappy starport having Emergency Low Berths for quarentine purposes hadn't occurred to me. Thanks! I love it when someone else has a brilliant idea, save me lots work later.

So, about the Hazard Boat, do all your ports have them or are they at some but not others?

 

[rancke]

My take is that ultra-tech medical procedures are more than adequate to let a ship's medic handle most pathogens. According to canon, unspecified medical techniques for contacting new populations were worked out a couple of millenia ago. Untreatable pathogens exist, but they are quite rare. Rare enough that most worlds don't worry about it any more than present-day cities worry about getting diseases from visitors from neighboring cities.

I most certainly don't think that class E starports have routine quarantine measures in place.


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

All Imperial ports, D and above. Your tax dollars at work, and they'd rather have the captain reporting freely than counting costs and cutting corners. Also available at some X-ports, but then it's courtesy of the orbiting naval picket force and you're left explaining why you're at an X-port, which isn't always a happy thing.

E-ports, generally I assume they have a reason for being E-ports - if they can't be bothered to offer so much as a fuel tank or a customs office, there's no reason to station support there and any consequences are on them and on the guy who pilots his ship to a "marked spot of bedrock". However, Imperial regulations (IMTU) do offer some contingencies to those aboard, such as stateroom climate control systems that allow a stateroom to be set to operate at slightly lower pressure than the main corridors to allow sick passengers to be confined to quarters while minimizing spread of airborne contaminants, arrangements that allow the captain to order a stateroom door locked (also useful when needing to turn a passenger's room into an improvised brig if someone gets out of hand during the trip), and requirements that shipboard medics be periodically retrained on infection control procedures (usually a simple computer training program) and the sickbays stocked for same. (Much of which assumes someone who frequents bare spots of bedrock can be bothered to maintain his ship in compliance with Imperial regulations, which is by no means certain.)

All significant neighbors. The non-aligned worlds, mostly, but there may be exceptions among the really low-pop C/D ports that have trouble scraping up the capital for the boat. Vargr, you'll get a bill afterward, and you can pay or they impound the ship - they're not so tight-fisted with other Vargr, but then they're more likely to catch things from other Vargr, and there's nothing quite like sticking it to the monkey-men.

Cost of a small craft is not all that great when amortized and taken against a world's tax base, and the cost of a few skilled medical personnel is a blip against that, so there's really no reason not to.

 

[Drakon]

Lemish Imperial Starport

Incoming ships have between 8 to 39 hours from 100D limit to Lemish's orbit for a merchent ship. Between 6 and 19 hours for military. Military procedures will differ slightly in that the Imperial Navy deals with their own, and leaves the colonial government to deal with civilian emergencies.

Any ship experiencing a medical emergency will be directed to the "INS Blue Whale" SHL-12 in orbit over Lemish. While serving as both high port and Imperial War Museum, sufficient space was made available and facilities either maintained or installed to deal with most medical emergencies. At worst, the Blue Whale can serve as quarentine facilities, preventing the spread of any hostile pathogens.

Ships failing to comply, well, Lemish will be protected.

 

[Condottiere]

For most of the technical stuff, I tend to stick to published materials.

And it wasn't a barb, just an observation.

 

[Timerover51]

Aside from Starport classification, you might also want to plug the planet's Law Level into the equation for E and D starports within the Imperium, starports without an orbital facility (I am thinking low-population planets here), and any starport not in the Imperium, Zhodane area, Darrian Confederation, and Solomani areas. You would be surprised what a $100 US bill or two or three will do in some of the less-advanced countries on this planet.

You might also want to take a look at Andre Norton's book, Plague Ship, on Project Gutenberg, for a ship which is not a "plague ship" per se, but gets listed as one. The standard practice for "plague ships" in the Solar Queen series are blast on sight.

 

[Carlobrand]

Aside from Starport classification, you might also want to plug the planet's Law Level into the equation for E and D starports within the Imperium, starports without an orbital facility (I am thinking low-population planets here), and any starport not in the Imperium, Zhodane area, Darrian Confederation, and Solomani areas. You would be surprised what a $100 US bill or two or three will do in some of the less-advanced countries on this planet. ...

As in they're bribable, or as in law level might influence their decision to invest in a small craft for orbital emergencies?

 

[Timerover51]

As in they're bribable, or as in law level might influence their decision to invest in a small craft for orbital emergencies?

Sorry that I missed this. Both the possibility of being bribable or in the case of a high Law Level world, severe restrictions on any off-world visitors. Possibly restrict them to a single isolated island for landing, with all contacts being made through video-conferencing, all trade good incoming subjected to high-level decontamination procedures, with outgoing goods being left in enclosed shelters for pick-up once the local delivery personnel are safely away.

 

[Carlobrand]

Sorry that I missed this. Both the possibility of being bribable or in the case of a high Law Level world, severe restrictions on any off-world visitors. Possibly restrict them to a single isolated island for landing, with all contacts being made through video-conferencing, all trade good incoming subjected to high-level decontamination procedures, with outgoing goods being left in enclosed shelters for pick-up once the local delivery personnel are safely away.

Sounds like a lot of the Class-A starports I've been to. Of course, there are a lot of pretty restrictive worlds, so that's maybe not too surprising.