Re: pirates

Hans Rancke-Madsen [email removed] writes:
> Steve Higginbotham writes more about the impossibility of pirates.
> [Posing as customs inspectors.]
>
> >It has merit.  But only if your ship is indistinguishable from a Customs
> >ship.  Minor vagaries like your oversized power plant are sure to be
> >noticed.
>
> No it isn't. You keep it turned low. Not completely powered
> down, but down to the level of the cutter you're trying to
> impersonate. Turning it up full power will not involve the time
> it takes to cold-start.

Well, it's unlikely to be a cutter you're impersonating, unless your
main ship is a starship which carries a cutter.  You do not want to
be tied to one system, or the navy will have a much easier time
finding you!  Now, if you can get your hands on an Imperial Type T
patrol cruiser, you would be in business.

> >And the first time a target gets away a message (which will be
> >the first target, probably), then that game will no longer work.
>
> Ooops....

So you do what commerce raiders did during WW2.  You approach using
your cover, and then signal the victim and tell him not to use his
radio, or you will leave the area in a hurry and leave him in a lot
of small pieces.  Your signal, of course, is tight beam and low power,
so that it will not be picked up by anyone else.

Besides, why would one signal prevent the same trick working later?
So the merchants now know that there is a Type T in pirate hands,
posing as an official Naval ship.  What are they going to do, ignore
all Type T cruisers that they see in future?

> > It's not safer if a pirate will jump you if you stop.
>
> It is if the chance of getting jumped by a pirate if you stop
> is less than the chance of being wrecked if you don't.

So you cut your manoeuvre drives just before you jump.  It is, of course,
not possible to make your ship stationary before you jump (stationary in
whose frame of reference?).

Another question which has been raised is jump points.  I assume that this
is an artificial concept, rather than a physical limitation - you can jump
from anywhere to anywhere (assuming that departure and destination are at
safe distances from their respective stars/planets), but the world's
government would prefer you to jump to and from a certain place.  This
increases the risk of collision, as one ship approaches preparing to jump
just as another ship exits jump space.  But you would probably not have a
jump "point", so much as a jump region.  This region would be a sphere of
radius 500,000km (the maximum range of sensors and weapons), with a warship
or two at the centre, and another one or two cruising along a line joining
the centre of the sphere to the planet.  The government would not forbid
jumping to somewhere outside this region, because if it can patrol outside
that region, then it is unnecessary to define the region in the first place.
But the government would be able to protect merchants who used that region,
and would make no attempt to help anyone who did not.

Another possibility would be to simply have a large space station at that
point, acting as a starport.  Thus, a ship could jump almost immediately
after launching, and could dock very soon after exiting jump space.  Or
would the use of jump drives near the station be likely to harm it?

Anyway, there are a few more points to chew on!

- --
 "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   [email removed]