What do you offer to an interdicted world?

[McPerth]

As for slavery, not if you want to live. Bad enough smugerling to a interdicted world, but if you got cought as a slaver then it's the death sentence for sure.

Canon does not fully define what the Imperium thinks of as 'slavery'. It is quite possible that debt peonage does not count. Thus

"I'll lend you the Cr 8,000 you need for Middle Passage off of your world. The Interest rate is 10% monthly, compounded daily."

"I can't come up with that much money."

"Sure you can, I know a guy who runs a brothel...."

May be fine with the Imperium and the only problem is the 'Interdicted planet' issue.

It might be an interesting twist if worlds are interdicted but the people of the world are not. If they leave the planet they have the same rights as anyone else.

From JTAS 14 (Laws and Lawbreakers), Page 20 (High Justice).

The prosecutors of high courts of the Imperium concern themselves with crimes that would affect worlds in more than one subsector. These include the capture, transportation and possesion of slaves...

So, while is true that slavery is not fully deffined, as Peter says, it's also clear that is a High Justice crime in the imperium, so quite dangerous to be involved into.

Even so, I must agree those laws can be ambiguous at times and some form of covered slavery may be used and tolerated (as shown in Arrival Vengeance (MT), on the adventure Keepers of the Flame, IIRC. Sorry, I have not it handy and I cannot give exact page reference).

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Just ribbing you

Payment is the problem. What you want to look for is a high value "waist" product. Or rather something that they think is a waist product. Something that they won't think about losing large quantities of.

You're going to export The Abdominizer to the Imperium? What a brilliant idea!

mobile communicators (that operate without infrastructure) would be useful to both rebels and any govt

what about expert computer systems - a stockbroker would love them

Cheers
Richard

The communicators are going to be very detectable. And will clearly be an outside device.

High yield sterile variant crops of local species. Sure, they only live one season... but they produce 4x as much as an equivalent loss to seedstock would, so charging 50% more isn't a big deal... (Requires a special enzyme to have root growth, and can't manufacture, but each seedling is imbedded with a pellet of it prior to packaging...)

Quadrotriticale? It's a Russian inwention, you know.


In answer to the original question: drugs/drugs
Pharmaceuticals in, narcotics (some local plant, likely) out

 

[Carlobrand]

What to smuggle:

1) Knowledge. If I understand this thread correctly, the world being described is not one that's stuck at TL6 for commercial reasons (i.e. we know how to do it, we just don't happen to have the industrial base to do it), but is one that has been clawing its way up from TL2-3 - and has been under interdict all that time. A bit of TL-7 information might be usable on a TL-6 world. Something as simple as a chemical process for making synthetic rubber or some other useful product could be worth a fortune to the right person - and by extension worth quite a bit to the person who brought that knowledge. How much would a university pay to be able to claim the "discovery" of the DNA helix? If you've got nothing in your hold to sell (and you've carefully purged your computer before the Imperials boarded) then you may be able to argue your way out if you're caught. And, let's see the Imperials try to prove later that the locals didn't come up with the knowledge on their own.

2) Drugs. Due credit to the poster who mentioned it first. That's probably the best thing after knowledge. Drugs that the locals can't manufacture but that would be hotly demanded by the folk with the money, and therefore quietly consumed and or at least hidden when anyone comes searching for evidence. As consumables, they'd be gone by the time you came around again, your market eagerly awaiting your arrival. Anagathics. Antibiotics - heck, you can argue humanitarian motives if you're unlucky enough to get caught with a load of high-grade antibiotics, maybe argue your way out of it that way. Some can be reverse-engineered with the right knowledge of chemistry, but a lot of them at TL-6 depend on having the right species producing them naturally; if the drug comes from something that isn't native, you can argue that your act would not have had a significant impact on their technological development.

 

[E.D.Quibell]

What to smuggle in is easy.

How do you get paid?

Best regards,

Ewan

 

[Carlobrand]

How do you get paid? Gems, jewelry. High value, easily hidden, easily sold without too many awkward questions being asked. You could bring your trip's profit home around your neck.

 

[aramis]

How do you get paid?
Wood, gems, jewels, metals. Maybe even people, cattle, and local drugs.

 

[Meteoric Assault]

What do you offer .....

A BLT sammich ..... yum

 

[E.D.Quibell]

How do you get paid? Gems, jewelry. High value, easily hidden, easily sold without too many awkward questions being asked. You could bring your trip's profit home around your neck.

That's not going to work in the long term. As a one off then fine, but in the long term these are going to be missed, or the price will go up as you reduce supply on world.

It costs a lot to put a starship in a system, so you need to ship out goods that will more than pay for the risk in smuggeling goods in.

For one off smuggeling it's easy, for a long term smuggeling operation almost anything you ship out is going to be noticed by the navy/scouts who are monitoring the world.

Best regards,

Ewan

 

[Carlobrand]

That's not going to work in the long term. As a one off then fine, but in the long term these are going to be missed, or the price will go up as you reduce supply on world.

It costs a lot to put a starship in a system, so you need to ship out goods that will more than pay for the risk in smuggeling goods in.

For one off smuggeling it's easy, for a long term smuggeling operation almost anything you ship out is going to be noticed by the navy/scouts who are monitoring the world...

Uh, what?? Going to be missed by who? The initial premise was, "You're in in contact with a smuggling ring on the world that keeps the 'imports' secret from the rulers." What kind of an incompetent smuggling ring can't get me gems and jewelry without the bling being missed? And what kind of a world is going to have a noticeable supply reduction just from what I can carry on my body? If my payoff's that big, I don't need to go back 6 months later, I'm set for life - conversely, if the population's that small, maybe they aren't worth my trouble. I'm not doing this for charity, people; cough up the bling.

And, since when are gems and jewelry not enough to pay for a trip like this? Gems and jewelry are the most concentrated forms of wealth in the game, after knowledge. I can wear enough jewelry to BUY a ship - which again is a big enough payout to consider retiring after gaining that haul. What exactly am I doing between these 6-month trips, blowing it all on Baccarat at the casinos on Jewell?

Also from the initial premise, "(e)vading the patrols is difficult, but doable, maybe twice a year." If I'm evading the patrols, how are the navy/scouts even aware of anything I ship out? And how incompetent would I be as a smuggler myself if I didn't have connections good enough to fence something as portable and easily fenced as jewelry without attracting Imperial attention? After all, I'm not taking anything that would be unique to the planet, just the high-value stones that are known on all worlds - diamonds and such - and any unusually distinctive settings can be taken apart and melted down long before I see my fences. I mean, I can see maybe the local crime boss might get interested in where I'm finding all this wealth - assuming I'm stupid enough to fence it in one place - but I'm not seeing how this raises any Navy or Scout suspicions.

 

[Dragoner]

Cash is what the smugglers would be paid in, and the Navy and Scouts would be paid off, that is if it is anything like the real world. They might just pick up a chit for an offworld account after they drop their shipment.

 

[aramis]

Cash is what the smugglers would be paid in, and the Navy and Scouts would be paid off, that is if it is anything like the real world. They might just pick up a chit for an offworld account after they drop their shipment.

Cash is the one thing an interdicted world's people CANNOT get. At least, cash spendable off world.

Specie and precious stones are the only "cash" readily available to the, and maybe not even specie nor gems.

 

[E.D.Quibell]

Uh, what?? Going to be missed by who?

snip the rest of the message about stuff off the indicted world.

Appologies not "missed", but "noticed" is a better word.

Diamonds can be sythasised, and their price in the real world is kept high by a cartel of the mayor players who restrict the supply to massivly inflate the price. So I would suggest that diamons in the Imperium are not such a good means of portable wealth as you may think they would be. If we move to other gems you are looking a considerably less value vs portability, and if we move on to presious metals you are looking at a reletivly large amount physically. In context all the gold ever mined in the world to date would only fill two olympic swimming pools.

However having said all that, concentating an amount of wealth in one place on an indicted world, (enough to pay the smuggeler and make it worth the risk) over and above that which would normally be concentrated is going to be noticed. Either by the people on the world themselves or by the scouts/navy who are monitoring the world.

If I went and bought 10 bars of gold (4,000 troy ounces or around £4.7 million worth) tomorrow that might not be "noticed" as a one off (even though it would effecct the price of gold), however if I did that once a month it would definatly be "noticed". The same thing would happen with diamonds or saphies or emeralds etc etc.

And once this is "noticed" the smuggeling becomes harder and higher risk, meaning the payoff needs to be bigger, which in turn is more likly to be "noticed".

So assuming that this isn't a one off smuggeling deal, how do you get paid?

Best regards,

Ewan

 

[E.D.Quibell]

Cash is what the smugglers would be paid in, and the Navy and Scouts would be paid off, that is if it is anything like the real world. They might just pick up a chit for an offworld account after they drop their shipment.

No Imperial Credits on an indicted world. Cash is what you _can't_ get paid in.

Best regards,

Ewan

 

[Dragoner]

No Imperial Credits on an indicted world. Cash is what you _can't_ get paid in.

Best regards,

Ewan

There will always be cash, I used to buy things behind the iron curtain with dollars because I could always get a better deal, it was technically illegal though. So even if CrImps are a common currency, it would be highly unrealistic the being none around, even in off world bank accounts.

 

[Blue Ghost]

You're a smuggler running cargoes to an interdicted TL6 world. Evading the patrols is difficult, but doable, maybe twice a year. Still, you'd like to keep the profits on each run as high as possible so as to minimize the number of runs you have to risk. You're in contact with a smuggling ring on the world that keeps the "imports" secret from the rulers. What sort of goods do you carry in order to maximize profits?

What about the goods you accept in exchange for yours? No CrImps to be had, it's strictly barter.


Hans

A chest full of beeds an trinkets :devil:

 

[aramis]

There will always be cash, I used to buy things behind the iron curtain with dollars because I could always get a better deal, it was technically illegal though. So even if CrImps are a common currency, it would be highly unrealistic the being none around, even in off world bank accounts.

Depends on (1) how long the interdict has been in place, (2) if there were any prior to the interdict, (3) level of asset forfeiture at interdict, (4) relative political situation prior to interdict.

If part of an interdict is the 3I emptying their off world bank accounts (Pay for your own interdiction), there won't be any legal bank accounts left. A few might slip by. But checks drawn on them will raise notice.

If the world was interdicted for lack of techbase, odds are good there never were any CrImp there in the first place. So locals can't get them. Except by smuggling them in.

If the interdict has been long enough, what few smugglers make it through will have already depleted the supply.

If it was a hostile world, there might not have been any pre-interdict, either, as they wouldn't have been accepted.

Currency is just plastic and coloring. It's the backing that matters, and in the case of an interdicted world, their own is worthless save as objects d'art or to numismatists. CrImp are only useful on-world for getting stuff from off world, or for buying stuff from people buying stuff from off world. If the interdict has been pretty thorough, or is under a few years old, sure some will be left. But if it's been run repeatedly, with no legal input of CrImp, then it becomes a depleted source.

 

[rancke]

There will always be cash, I used to buy things behind the iron curtain with dollars because I could always get a better deal, it was technically illegal though. So even if CrImps are a common currency, it would be highly unrealistic the being none around, even in off world bank accounts.

This worlds was interdicted when discovered by the Scouts. It has never had any interaction with the Imperium. There are no CrImp notes or coins on the world. None. And the world's own money is worthless offworld, because there's no way to use it to buy stuff from anyone on it. (Not to mention that being caught with artifacts that comes from an interdicted world is a good way to get a long prison sentence).


Hans

 

[Dragoner]

This worlds was interdicted when discovered by the Scouts. It has never had any interaction with the Imperium. There are no CrImp notes or coins on the world. None. And the world's own money is worthless offworld, because there's no way to use it to buy stuff from anyone on it. (Not to mention that being caught with artifacts that comes from an interdicted world is a good way to get a long prison sentence).


Hans

If it has no interaction, then that precludes smuggling.

 

[rancke]

If it has no interaction, then that precludes smuggling.

My apologies for not expressing myself clearly enough for you to understand.

I'll elucidate: No official interaction with the Imperium, thus precluding any normal exchange of currencies. Since CrImps are therefore useless on the world and local credits useless off the world, the smugglers are hardly going to smuggle currency either way.


Hans

 

[Dragoner]

Then see my post above, there doesn't need to be any official exchange.