Pirates and merchants and navies (oh my!)

Steve Higginbotham:
>The surest way to destroy piracy, uncer the conditions you aim for, is
>to let Navy ships operate far from TL15 worlds.  As it stands now,
>piracy should be a major problem in Jewell Subsector (FAR form the Navy,
>so few patrols, and CLOSE to the Zhos, so a safe haven nearby), and Five
>Sisters, for similar reasons.  I know the Zhos won't want pirates in
>their systems, but as long as you are a good boy in Zho space, they
>probably won't bother fixing an Impy problem, and sure the Imperium
>isn't going to start the Sixth Frontier War just to chase a few
>moth-eaten pirates.

Halving the number of ship works better (though not well). Jump-4 ships
can get from Jewell to Rhylanor and from Iderati to Glisten in less than
six weeks. That means 3/4 of a fleet is available for patrol duty at all
times, even in Jewell and Five Sisters. And the ships going back and forth
can do a spot of patrolling on the way to and from refitting. That makes
Lanth and District 268 some of the _best_ patrolled area in the Marches!

>If you want piracy to flourish, keep the Impy ships close to home, and
>far from the frontier.  Shorten the maintenance cycle, rather than
>lengthening it.  Keep a lot of Navy ships in yards being upgraded to
>state-of-the-art.  That way they are on Glisten/Mora/Rhylanor/Trin as
>opposed to the frontiers.

Well, since I've always assumed that navy ships could refit at naval bases
(and this is also the impression one gets from other Traveller material  -
look at the piece about naval bases in _Fighting Ships_ for example), that
is one "solution" I hadn't even contemplated. I have now, and no thanks.
I'd like a half-way believable explanation, please. If I'd been satisfied
with an explanation to the effect that a tech-15 culture can't make things
that can survive more than a few months without servicing, I'd have chosen
something even easier and just as believable (like the merchant fleet uses
up nearly all the lanthanum, and there's very little left over for the
navies (how's that for a clever explanation? ;-)). An explanation that
makes naval ships _worse_ than civilian ships is no help at all...

>>Ah, but in TCS my century-old ships dose not become decrepit. That's
>>what I mean when I write that it is ostensible the same ships, but that
>>it can't really be. I repeat: TCS assumes both things.
>
>TCS ignores the question of ship aging, and MT and TCS both ignore the
>question of technological advancement.  These are defects in the
>system.  They do NOT assume both things, they merely ignore certain
>CRUCIAL elements of reality.

I think we're both arguing the same side of the issue. Wether TCS makes
a false asumption or ignores a crucial element is immaterial. Something
is wrong anyway.

>I do not believe in ANY resource limit to TL15 cultures.  One lousy
>asteroid can provide all the steel you'll need for any normal usage.
>The total complement of an asteroid belt will provide for ANY
>concievable fleet production.  Robots can be built without limit, so
>fleets can be as big as you want them to be.

Whoa there! Let's not destroy the Traveller universe completely! Forget
unlimited selfreproducing robots. If you allow them, you might as well
roll up the universe and carry it away. If that means we have to believe
an impossible thing or two more, so be it. A culture who can build self-
reproducing robots would be nice to live in (I'd be able to play games all
the time and let the robots worry about the food and rent), but it would be
a lousy place to game in. Soething like that "Safe at any speed" story by
Larry Niven. Repeat after me: "There are limits to ressources in all
Traveller societies! There are limits..."

>How about this as a solution?  Someone (who knows who?  the Shadow?)
>drops an asteroid on Ruie (no-one will care that it is missing, it has
>no effect on any campaign I have ever seen), and destroys civilization
>there.  The governments of the Imperial worlds decide that that is a
>danger, and insist that the Imperium keep enough hardware in each system
>to deal with the potential threat.  The Navy sets up skywatches in all
>Hi Pop systems, but has insufficent forces to do so throughout the
>Imperium.

If they have unlimited selfreproducing robots they just ask the robots to
build some more ships. Not that they would need to, since everybody would
be so well off that they wouldn't need to become pirates in the first place!

But changing the way the military budget is divided between System,
Subsector and Imperial Navy might help. I've been using 1/3 each, so
changing that to 1/2, 1/4, 1/4 or something could help a bit.

>Piracy was never much of a problem on pre-spaceflight Terra.  Something
>to do with the trivial cost of a ship, and the EXTREMELY high profits to
>be made from even one successful voyage.  When one successful voyage
>will replace the ship that failed to come home, piracy can remove 50% of
>all shipping without affecting shipping volume.  When a voyage brings
>home 0.25% of the cost of a ship, then even a small amount of piracy
>will be lethal to trade.

Good point. I hadn't considered that. Sigh! On the other hand, one
little merchant can keep a pirate fed for a long time, so the
pirates wouldn't need more than a very small amount of piracy...

>>>Try looking at historical examples of piracy.  Piracy as a problem
>>>appeared when there was something to steal, and vanished shortly
>>>thereafter (except during wartime, when the Navy was busy elsewhere),
>>>when the merchants forced the Navy to deal with the problem.
>>
>>We seem to have read different history books ;-) Try one about the
>>Caribbean and see how long it took from the first government attempt
>>to suppress piracy until the last pirate was caught.
>
>I know about the Caribbean pirates.  How many of them were operating
>under a Letter of Marque and Reprisal from one European country or
>another.

What has that got to do with it? At the very least there was one
government after them (Spain), and that government fleet were too
small to deal with them. And no, they didn't shelter behind another
country's fleet, because for long stretches of time neither England,
France or Holland had any warships in the Carribean at all.

I'm talking about the early period, of course, and it didn't matter
wether Spain was at war or not, the Spanish navy was unable to deal
with the Caribbean pirates. Later English, French and Dutch (and
Danish ;-) warships did roam the Carribean trying to suppress the
pirates in the intervals between wars. And they did not increase
their fleet to meet the pirate menace, they tried to control it
with what ships they had.

>In virtually every case of persistent piracy in this world,
>the "pirates" were essentially foreign warships operating against
>merchant shipping.

I have to disagree most strongly here. It's true that lots of pirates
tried to hide behind letters of marque (often having a set from each
beligerent), which tended to give privateers a bad name, but there was a
great distinction between them. Privateers that were known to stick to
privateering were tolerated by their friends and might even survive
being captured by the enemy. A pirate would be hunted down by both sides.

>>Only if the Navy can find them. The problem is that there aren't all
>>that many areas to patrol and more than enough Navy ships to patrol
>>them. Pirates can rely on disguise to keep them safe between strikes
>>(looking like innocent merchants), but that dosen't help if there's
>>warship within range when the pirate actually attacks its prey.
>
>MOST ships in MT (Jump-capable ones at least) are never more than 100
>diameters from the main world of a system.  If you check, you will find
>that 12 warships can be deployed so that that ENTIRE VOLUME can be
>brought under fire at any time.

Yes, that's what I meant. Sorry if I was unclear. That means we need to
reduce the part of the fleet that is not protecting the high-population
worlds to les than 24 ships per system (mainworld and gas giant).

>And it is hard to disguise a ship as an
>"innocent merchant" that carries a fusion plant big enough to fight off
>a Sloan.  These things are noticable by Customs inspectors, as well as
>System Defense Squadrons.

Unless the Imperium makes fusion plants above a certain size illegal,
there's not much the custom inspectors can do about it, is there?

>Again, I concede the point.  My example was from US history alone.
>There are, in fact, examples of abject stupidity in every country and at
>every time in the history of the world.

Oh, I can give you an example from US history too :-). After the War of
Independence Congress was reluctant to allow the establishment of a
big fleet for fear of creating a military caste. They thus refused
to allow any Ships of the Line and only 10 frigates. Fortunately
they forgot to specify price and dimensions, so the master shipwright
made the frigates as large as he possibly could and still call it a
frigate with scantlings more appropiate for Line-of-Battle Ship.
Nevertheless the fleet proved unable to protect American shipping
during the War of 1812.

      Hans Rancke
University of Copenhagen
     [email removed]
- ------------
        "A  subsector  official  pompously states that the
        subsector  armed  forces  have  four Kinunir class
        ships in service,  each with enough troop strength
        to put down any military operations that threathen
        the peace of the Imperium."

                        ---Adventure 1, The Kinunir