Well, we already touched on the subject of a fine, upstanding, HONEST,
and NEW starship owner (that is, a NEW owner, not neccessarily a NEW
starship :-)). But what about the less-than-honest NEW starship owner?
In the campaign I mentioned earlier, before either of my "about to become
starship title holder" PCs actually get their shiney, new asteroid dodgers,
they have to get out of one teeny, little predicament: a war. Now, as
it turns out, they're at the starport when the planet is attacked, and,
as luck would have it, there will just happen to be a 1000-ton long haul,
freighter (fueled and ready to go) sitting in the parkbays. Since the
plan is for the group to snatch the ship to escape becoming POWs, they
will be motivated into ship thievery by the situation, rather than greed.
Assuming that they make it to a safer haven (read, different system), and
assuming that the original captain and crew met with unsavory ends back
on the embattled planet (as Ref, I can safely make this assumption :-)),
is there a legal way for the PCs to permanently acquire the ship? Be
advised that I'm not sure yet whether I actually want them to, but should
the situation present itself, I'd like to have some details ready.
So, compare this to a group of people fleeing the Nazis in WWII by stealing
a boat on the French coast and making it to England. Do the english arrest
them for boat-napping, or do they say, "Right, it's your boat from now on,
an' don' let anybody tell you otherwise!"
Well, obviously I don't know the answer to this one. HEEELLLPPP!!
Mark F. Cook
USMail: User Interface Technical Support
Hewlett-Packard - Interface Technology Operation
[address removed]
INTERNET: [email removed]
UUCP: {cmcl2, harpo, hplabs, rice, tektronix}!hp-pcd!markc
P.S. Re: Psionics & Antimatter: You're right. I forgot that we were
talking milligrams instead of grams. And my 4-function math stinks!
The original number SHOULD have been 36 Kt, NOT 200 Kt. So if the
REAL answer is a 0.36 Kt detonation (that's 360 tons of TNT, boys and
girls!), I still don't believe that somebody is going to laugh it off
if it goes off INSIDE their hull!! It'll still hurt plenty! The specific
reference I quoted earlier from Encyclopaedia Britannica was in the
Macropaedia, under the heading "Climate and Weather: Major forms of
weather disturbances: Tornadoes, whirlwinds, and waterspouts: Physical
characteristics of the vortices" (Whew!). There is a comparison under
"Pressure, heat flux, and energy" of the energy of a tornado to that
of the Hiroshima bomb.