What do you offer to an interdicted world?

[rancke]

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

Need not be any official exchange for what? For cash to be used? No, but there need to be some sort of exchange where the use of cash makes sense and for an interdicted world the use of cash makes no sense at all. None.

Note that for interdicted worlds where there had been a pre-existing supply of Imperial currency, smugglers would be happy to accept them, until the supply ran out, but there is no pre-existing supply here.


Hans

 

[Dragoner]

Need not be any official exchange for what? For cash to be used? No, but there need to be some sort of exchange where the use of cash makes sense and for an interdicted world the use of cash makes no sense at all. None.

Note that for interdicted worlds where there had been a pre-existing supply of Imperial currency, smugglers would be happy to accept them, until the supply ran out, but there is no pre-existing supply here.


Hans

If the interdiction was porous enough to allow smugglers in, then sine qua non the porosity would work both ways. Otherwise it is an illogical condition.

 

[rancke]

If the interdiction was porous enough to allow smugglers in, then sine qua non the porosity would work both ways. Otherwise it is an illogical condition.

So? Imperial currency is still useless on the world and local currency worthless offworld, so there would be no trade in them no matter how porous the interdiction (Which, for all that is known about the situation, could be limited to the two visits per year by the same single smuggler -- not so very porous).


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

Okay, CT still classes "gems" as among the highest value game items to transport or trade in, right up there with radioactives. Ergo, synthesizable or not, they pack a lot of value in a small volume. And being able to synthesize something does not mean being able to do it cheaply or easily, or even that it will make the natural product less appealing to the consumer. We can synthesize sapphire and ruby now, but there remains a very nice market for sapphire and ruby jewelry. Given the pressures and temperatures we believe are necessary to come up with diamond, I tend to suspect their synthetic variant would still hold quite a bit of value.

Second, you really aren't giving your local smuggler group much credit. If they're having that much trouble concentrating wealth by ANY means without drawing attention over a 6-month period in a TL6 world, then they're either amateurs or that is a really, really lawful culture - in which case you probably want to rethink the idea of making a quick buck by violating the red-zone restrictions. Am I dealing with experienced criminals or some opportunistic amateurs who figured out a way to contact offworlders? Are they acting under the auspices of the local crime boss or are they free-lancing? Am I going to have to teach them how to do their jobs?

That crime boss is an important asset. He already knows how to concentrate wealth without attracting attention - or at least without leaving enough evidence to cause trouble. He has the experience and the connections to launder his own assets and make them look legit, he should have no problem accumulating jewelry - not with six months to do it. For example:

*persuade a number of jewelers scattered among various cities that it would be both healthy and profitable for them allow him to invest in their businesses. Tell them not to worry too much if an occasional customer dashes out the door while handling an item - just call the police and let them handle it. He's gonna insure them against such losses. (And, he'll have his ways to make sure those items make their way back to him.)
*Jewelers suffer the occasional gem casualty. Trying to cut the stone to the desired pattern, one mistake and it's trash. So now his business is going to be insured against such losses - perfectly legitimate business, they pay a little and if they make a mistake, they get reimbursed for the loss. And of one or two gems are documented as casualties, get paid off, but are instead quietly turned over to one of his agents, who's to complain?
*Arrange a loss. An insured freighter sinks, taking with it a shipment of jewelry that was recorded as taken aboard but quietly diverted beforehand. A jewelry store is destroyed by fire, it's stock destroyed - well, most of it; some of it was slipped away before the fire.
*Burgle someone. Good old-fashioned crime is still out there. One or two more burglaries here and there, by members of the syndicate paid to deliver the goods to the boss's agent, isn't going to look like anything more than the usual free-lancers doing their bit.

Organized crime is called "organized" for a reason. They know how to survive. They know who to bribe, how to blackmail, how to cover up, how to make an example of someone who causes trouble. They know how to persuade a witness to change his testimony, how to persuade the detective not to be too thorough, how to keep the various threads of the organization separate so they can retrench and rebuild if the authorities manage to infiltrate and land the goods on someone. And, with 6 months to play with, they know how to assemble an acceptable payment without attracting too much attention.

Finally, if the world is interdicted, then the scouts and navy are going to have limited on-the-ground resources. Their on-ground activities have to be cautious and circumspect. If it becomes public knowledge that there's been a bunch of offworlders keeping the planet from contact with other worlds for the past several centuries, the public backlash is likely to be fierce - resentment at all that future-tech that might have prevented that weather calamity or saved their loved ones from cancer. The agents will have taken a culture on the brink of spaceflight and invested it with a healthy hatred of Imperial authority. Yes, they'll have their agents looking for strangers, for signs of unexpected tech and other evidence of contamination, but that doesn't mean they'll suspect a slight upsurge in burglaries and high-value shoplifting over a six month period has anything to do with offworlders. They're more a risk when you're there to deliver the goods yourself than when the locals are assembling their payment.

 

[Dragoner]

So? Imperial currency is still useless on the world and local currency worthless offworld, so there would be no trade in them no matter how porous the interdiction (Which, for all that is known about the situation, could be limited to the two visits per year by the same single smuggler -- not so very porous).


Hans

The currency isn't worthless, it can buy smuggled goods. Any goods worth smuggling out, would also be worth the currency to do so as well or it would not be done.

Otherwise you are setting up absurd conditions.

 

[rancke]

The currency isn't worthless, it can buy smuggled goods. Any goods worth smuggling out, would also be worth the currency to do so as well or it would not be done.

Otherwise you are setting up absurd conditions.

I'm afraid you're the one who is being absurd. However, I don't have the patience to attempt to convince you.

Ahyway, thanks for trying to be helpful.


Hans

 

[Dragoner]

Wrong, but ok, people aren't going to smuggle goods off a planet which they can't sell. Smuggling is still bound by the rules of arbitrage, it is basic economics, no matter if you think it is absurd.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Trinkets are out then?

http://emmausofmiami.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/treasure-chest-1.151213517.jpg

 

[Dragoner]

Trinkets are out then?

http://emmausofmiami.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/treasure-chest-1.151213517.jpg

I was picked up by the Stasi for smuggling trinkets like these:

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i262/peq1989/11-11-le001.jpg

I could get 1000 for $20 and then sell them by the Prater to tourists for $1 a piece or six for five. All they wanted was a cut and then they turned around and informed on me anyways.

 

[aramis]

The currency isn't worthless, it can buy smuggled goods. Any goods worth smuggling out, would also be worth the currency to do so as well or it would not be done.

Otherwise you are setting up absurd conditions.

You are not getting it...

The locals won't be getting currency -
If they are precontact: CrImp is just colored plastic to them. Worthless. What they want they'll have to pay for with goods.

If they are post-contact, the currency WILL run out. What they want will cost more than what the smugglers will pay in CrImp; they'll get a better exchange by buying with what CrImp they have and reducing that outflow by the value of what they can get negotiated off of the CrImp costs with goods in kind. Likewise, the smugglers know they can bilk locals at 3:1 or more if the locals want CrImps for their stuff.

Likewise, Cubanos didn't want US $ during the blockades - they had no way to spend them, they were a crime to possess, and the only people who could spend them were Diplomats, smugglers and fleeing refugees. They were more risk to the locals than the pools of goods.

A Russian SKS in 1988 cost about $300 on the legal market... imported from Poland... but smugglers were paying for them, factory new, with a pair of $30 Levi's 501 Jeans, and those jeans being sold for the equivalent of US$150... But if you asked for US$ in Russia, you were a criminal for sure. I've acquaintances who smuggled jeans to Russia and SKS rifles into Alaska. He offered me an SKS for $130, and an AK47 for $180, and was making a profit. It was still in the cosmoline... he was my driver for the cab-ride to/from the bus stop during an interesting public transit experiment. He never took US$ to russia. And he never accepted Rubles in quantities larger than needed for dinner and drinks. (If he'd gotten caught by either side, it would have been 10+ years in prison.)

 

[Dragoner]

Likewise, Cubanos didn't want US $ during the blockades - they had no way to spend them, they were a crime to possess, and the only people who could spend them were Diplomats, smugglers and fleeing refugees.

Which is who we are talking about.

...and the levi's thing was weird, the KGB counted them in your luggage at the border. But people did smuggle large amounts for cash, but if I tried that, the Russian Mob would have killed me for sure, and I wasn't really into it being just a teenager. A pehota did offer to sell me an AK for $15 once...

 

[aramis]

Which is who we are talking about.

...and the levi's thing was weird, the KGB counted them in your luggage at the border. But people did smuggle large amounts for cash, but if I tried that, the Russian Mob would have killed me for sure, and I wasn't really into it being just a teenager. A pehota did offer to sell me an AK for $15 once...

The KGB didn't get at luggage when you cross the border on a snowmachine out of Nome... the KGB was pretty bad about monitoring the water during the winter. In part, because it was (and still is) pretty solid 4 months a year.

Which is the comparable role to putting a merchantman down during a blockade.

You hop in the smallest thing that will get there with what you know you can sell them. You load up cheap local stuff that you can sell for more back on the other side. Odds are they will sell your stuff for a better rate than they get it from you at. (If not, they are buying for ideological reasons... and you may be expendable.)

Don't forget, either: porous borders are far more obvious if the locals can run their own smuggling ops.

Oh, and one other thing about interdicts... one of the best "Gotcha" moments from any Traveller game I ran was one where they ran a blockade in a red zone... and, thinking they were dealing with mobsters, found themselves very much in deep kimchee when they scragged the tough guy for puling a gun. Next time they landed, they met their contact... to find themselves facing the local army. Seems the guy they were dealing with was the lt. governor of the region, and while from their view, they were just smuggling, from the locals view, they were government contractors, bypassing the local blockade. Moreover, when they blasted their way off world, the locals had a "sympathizer" signal the blockade fleet. The players started rolling up new characters the moment I hit their PP.

Not all smuggling is opposed locally.

 

[Dragoner]

At some point, any permutation of the smuggling paradigm can fit, yours works; as well as the guys out of uniform could be Imperials, contracting their smuggling and taking a big cut off the top (which is often how the mob does it today). About the porous borders, if you are doing it, esp getting goods in barter, the fact is somebody already else probably is, and getting cash. As far as cash that the locals are getting, if the Imperials are there in force, then they are spending their drug and prostitute money locally most likely, which is going straight back to the local Mob. If the world is blockaded I would have a tendancy to say the blockade is somehow letting the smugglers in. Like with the Levis, technically they were illegal, a product from the decadent west, but also got a pass for being the uniform of the American Worker.

 

[aramis]

At some point, any permutation of the smuggling paradigm can fit, yours works; as well as the guys out of uniform could be Imperials, contracting their smuggling and taking a big cut off the top (which is often how the mob does it today). About the porous borders, if you are doing it, esp getting goods in barter, the fact is somebody already else probably is, and getting cash. As far as cash that the locals are getting, if the Imperials are there in force, then they are spending their drug and prostitute money locally most likely, which is going straight back to the local Mob. If the world is blockaded I would have a tendancy to say the blockade is somehow letting the smugglers in. Like with the Levis, technically they were illegal, a product from the decadent west, but also got a pass for being the uniform of the American Worker.

You're mistaking a customs role with an interdict role.

The navy, during an interdict, simply shoots anyone they catch going up or down. If the violator immediately hove too, he might not get shot... but it's pretty likely he's not getting his ship back. The Navy has NO need for a dirtside presence; they maintain their base off the interdicted world, probably outside the system. Each ship on station has a mate off station - do a 6 week rotation, with 2 weeks home station leave, and a base not more than J2, and use drop tanks to get out if more than J1, and those J4 ships can do it easily.

Two Ship 6 week J1 rotation
Week Ships
1 A on station, B in jump
2 B on station, A jumping
3 B on station, A on leave
4 B on station, A on prep
5 B on station, A in jump
6 A on station, B in jump
7 A on station, B on leave
8 A on station, B on prep
9=1

Fit a jump tank for a two extra weeks + 2x the difference in J-Fuel, and you can have your J4 ship doing 2J2... or, for some designs, 2J3. (Under CT BK5, 2J3 is 20% more fuel than 1J4, 2 extra weeks is 2% more fuel, so +25% is 4/5 the performance on that J4 drive, and 5 extra weeks; 16/5=3r1... And thats before the rules that you can run them below rating to save fuel when not in jump. 8 weeks, however, is about how long you can be out without dumping the LS system... at least if the Type S notes in Sup 7 are not a worst case.

I've used players as think tanks for this kind of stuff, on both sides.

Pretty much, the locals can be cut off pretty easily unless someone off world wants to break them out, unless they have a significant fleet before the interdiction starts. After that, the locals have to kill the interdiction with ground based attacks before they can get anything off world. If they don't have meson guns, anything they can use to do so can be targeted from orbit.

A careful smuggler can get in and out..., but quite likely, not without being seen. The question is one of how serious the interdict is, and how hard the smugglers want to push it.

TANSIS!

 

[Dragoner]

A careful smuggler can get in and out..., but quite likely, not without being seen. The question is one of how serious the interdict is, and how hard the smugglers want to push it.

Which is why I say quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

 

[aramis]

Which is why I say quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Thats' why you have multiple ships and staggered rotations.

Still, a Navy interdict isn't going to have local influx of navy derived funds. Especially in the big-ship OTU - too many people to bribe, too many potential narcs.

 

[Dragoner]

Thats' why you have multiple ships and staggered rotations.

Still, a Navy interdict isn't going to have local influx of navy derived funds. Especially in the big-ship OTU - too many people to bribe, too many potential narcs.

There are a thousand historical precedents to the opposite, as well as canonical references. The first adventure of SMC is about black market weapons. A historic example would be Germans selling gasoline for 5 Francs a liter in Paris while on the Beaches of Normandy German forces are running low on fuel. All it takes is for the corruption to move up the chain of command, and the Imperium is as rotten and corrupt as they come by some sources.

 

[aramis]

There are a thousand historical precedents to the opposite, as well as canonical references. The first adventure of SMC is about black market weapons. A historic example would be Germans selling gasoline for 5 Francs a liter in Paris while on the Beaches of Normandy German forces are running low on fuel. All it takes is for the corruption to move up the chain of command, and the Imperium is as rotten and corrupt as they come by some sources.

If you move the corruption far enough up, sure. On the other hand, the more density you have, the harder it is to corrupt a given individual.

The best example of this principle is in Bab-5... it only takes one follows-interdiction-orders captain to cause an intercept. Duplication and large numbers of bodies tends to ensure orders get followed. Note that Vichy France was not terribly dense, while Normandy area was the force concentration.

In general, blockades work, and multiple ships ensures both that someone notices and that someone fires. Now, given the ranges stated in canon, you're under fire for 3 turns in, however long you're down, and 3 turns out, minimum... and weapon ranges are quarter LS, so 3 ships in orbit ensures coverage pretty well. 6-9 is better, as it pretty much ensures someone will follow orders.

Note that most captains of line vessels are nobles - if the interdict was ordered, and someone in between is countermanding it, they'll just send a missive off to their boss... with every expectation of heads rolling. And may opt to follow the top-down instruction instead while awaiting verification. Dual-chains of command work in interesting ways....

 

[rancke]

Currency is worth something only because people believe it is worth something. American dollars were accepted in Soviet Russia because there was an entire underground economy with thousands of people who accepted them. There wasn't just one or two people who smuggled in goods from the West, there were hundreds and thousands and more thousands of middlemen.

Om this interdicted world (almost any interdicted world, but for purposes of this thread I'll just stick to this one) the only people to whom Imperial credits are valuable that a local is going to meet is the one single smuggler he deals with. He's only going to accept these bright plastic rectangles in exchange for his load of Rainbow Bear pelts if he's confident that the smuggler is going to return at a later date with useful stuff that he can buy with those same plastic rectangles. Which in turn depends on him believing that this monopoly money is actually real and not a scam. And that it's actually worth what the smuggler claims it is worth.

But even if he believes that (which IMO implies a level of trust in the integrity of the smuggler that is little short of absurd), he's only going to get any Imperial currency in the first place in exchange for some sort of goods that are valuable to the smuggler. Then, sure, next time the smuggler visits, he could pay for the next load of high-tech goodies with the currency he was paid the first time. But the smuggler has to accept a load of valuable goods first.

For purposes of this thread, I'm assuming that currency is not a viable option. And if anyone feel that this is absurd, that's a blow that I'll just have to accept with whatever equanimity I can muster. I'm not going to waste any time on trying to persuade him otherwise.


Hans

 

[Carlobrand]

I'm not even sure why the currency issue is being debated.

Original poster stipulated a strictly barter arrangement at the outset, stated the interdict was tight enough that you could only manage to squeek in a couple times a year, later clarified that it had been interdicted by the scouts for several centuries and worked itself up in isolation from TL2-3 to TL6, and has since added that there is no Imperial currency on this world. Where, in that framework, is there any basis for assuming Imperials on the ground in force spending currency on prostitutes??

We can imagine a wide variety of potential interdiction/smuggling scenarios, but OP has specified clearly for THIS scenario that no Imperial currency will be involved. Ergo, Imperial currency is not an option. Anything else is speaking to something OTHER than the scenario the OP has presented to us.