The purpose of this thread is to explore the possibility of the non-soldier security guard in the Star Fleet Universe.

These individuals are essentially the 23rd Century rent-a-cops; given a maybe a hand-LASER, a pair of handcuffs, uniform, baton and some credentials.

They man freighters and civilian installations of all sorts. They are found on freighters and cargo ships of all sorts, as well as other private and commercial space going craft.

They are no where near as effective in combat as starship security (marines), but offer a strength of combat that no normal crew unit could allocate (militia included).

I'd like to open up this topic for exploration.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, July 15, 2007 - 09:12 pm: Edit

George, this sounds more like a PRIME DIRECTIVe idea. Also, I'd give them a STUN-only civilian version Phaser, not a LASER.

Personally, I'd rather allow "red shirts" into SFU, but SVC will have nothing to do with it. As much as I totally disagree with him on the point, I'm also not going to argue it with him ... it's HIS universe, so if we want to play in it, we have to follow his rules.


Garth L. Getgen

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Sunday, July 15, 2007 - 11:36 pm: Edit

Garth; yeah, I really wasn't thinking about red-shirts as such. I was thinking more along the lines of your local mall security, or the guys who drive armored cars.

I suppose it could be an interesting PD idea. I was thinking of a half-strength or quarter-strength BP for SFB purposes.

I've drafted several "civilian" SSDs for a proposal I intend to send off to SVC, and I wanted a "weaker" form of a BP to help guard said ships.

What do you think?

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 12:23 am: Edit

Oops.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 12:24 am: Edit

I could see it, if you said, one BP of rent-a-cops was a 10 person unit ( the size of a whole crew unit ) and they have a stunner and a laser ( sometimes leathal force might be required (but only very rarely)) and thus you have weaker firepower and skill and no armour than an actual 6 man BP.
You might want to limit the number of extras you can buy to half the current limits ( and no specialty units like HWS (although that could be Rent-a-SWAT but if SWAT were anything they'ld be oversized commandoes) to represent the fact that such units are a huge drain on ship resoarces due to their larger size.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 09:41 am: Edit

Alternately, these security guards could be called "militia" or "poor crew unit BPs" and handled under the existing rules

By Mike West (Mjwest) on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 11:31 am: Edit

The fundamental issue is that your base premise doesn't work.

You want something worse than a BP, but better than a militia. The granularity of SFB doesn't allow for that.

A BP is a strength "1", size "1" unit. A militia is a strength "1", size "2" unit. So militia already is your half-strength unit.

I also disagree with your premise. A militia of military personel is probably going to fight much better than your typical mall-cop or armored car driver. However, introducing something worse than a militia isn't really going to buy you anything.

So, I would have to say that despite your objection, militia units already give you what you are asking for.

By Reid Hupach (Gwbison) on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 03:14 pm: Edit

Yup

BURNS SECUITY IN SPACE (think bad echo chamber effect when you say that). In truth i dont see them on regular starships but more as customs security on comercial platforms.

All they would be is something the same as militia with just a different title and some slightly different applications.

An effective fighting force, never, an anti crime force, possible.

First line of defense against intergalactic shoplifters..... YES.

The guy who catches the kid who spraypainted

"SVC IS AN CRACKED DILITHIUM CRYSTAL"

I should hope so.

In all truth less usefull for SFB than Prime Directive.

But if you renamed them Pinkertons you might have something.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 05:34 pm: Edit

I could see a particular individual of a special type that might equal a rating of one BP but not any sort of civilian security. Basically they are subsummed into the crew and from the crew you can augment them with other crew personnel to form a malitia squad (the guys leading that or each squad might be the security guys but there isn't enough of them to form whole squads).

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 06:37 pm: Edit

Pinkerton?

Militia; oops, I mis-spoke. I really wasn't aware of a militia's capabilities. Therefore I reccomend something worse than a militia unit.

Thinking about militia units I'm thinking of Scotty and the engineering section passing out phasers. Likewise McCoy passing out phasers to the medical section and so forth.

Private security wouldn't have that kind of lethality (if at all). So maybe a 1 to 3 ratio?

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 06:40 pm: Edit

The next worst thing after Militia is Civilians, with 0 Offensive and 2 Defensive. i.e., 2 Defensive is the default for a double-boarding party sized unit. SFB doesn't really have any other granularity between those three unit types.

By Steve Petrick (Petrick) on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 07:03 pm: Edit

George M. Ebersole:

The Pinkerton Detective Agency performed some espionage and security duties for the Union during the Civil War. Their espionage activities were . . . lets just say less than Stellar and of far more value to the South than to the North.

Other than that, the main claims to fame for the Pinkertons was busting Unions as hired muscle and chasing some of the more notorious post Civil War bandits.

They probably were not as bad and high-handed as shown in various films, but I cannot actually attest to that as it is not an area I have delved into extensively.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 11:38 pm: Edit

To a degree, leathal force is required.
How else do you melt a lock to bust into that Andorian-crackhouse unless your stun pistol has a kill setting?

You could, I supose change G9.23 to make all hit enemy BPs into wounded BPs if all your defenders are rent-a-cops to reflect the effects of only being issued with stun-pistols.

You might also change the chances of getting killed in H&R against guards by converting BPs destroyed into BP returns...results.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 11:53 pm: Edit

If the above hasn't shown it.
I'm still not convinced how we differentiate between rent-a-cops and beat-cops.

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - 01:04 am: Edit

Welp, I'll give it some thought.

As per my earlier posts, I've been drafting SSDs and working up some fiction for a small proposal. Part of it's to free up my mind for other projects that I'm stymied on, but this has been something that's been brewing in the back of my mind for some time.

R11 addressed a lot of what I wanted to submit to ADB, but it's worth a shot anyway. I have some concept that I think would make an interesting situation for Private Security. I've also raided some other aspects of SFB for said proposal.

I suppose there could be a "Blackwater" type of security force; i.e. the type of armed personal that have similar weapons to a standard infantry soldier (minus grenades, perhaps), but is otherwise a non-soldier.

Garth; I don't understand the position on red shirts. Why are they not allowed?

By Terry O'Carroll (Terryoc) on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - 08:15 am: Edit

You could have a system similar to the British system: cops armed only with non-lethal weapons backed up by armed police as necessary. Of course, in SFB the unarmed cops would simply be targets, but for fiction/Prime Directive it might make sense.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - 07:10 pm: Edit

I also think it's something of a situation.
Part of the reason Australian cops have guns is because we're a relatively frontier nation.
Consequently, the cops have to deal with; stolen guns that farmers formerly owned, sheep duffers (cattle rustlers) who have injured the animal and angry/rabid guard dogs.

I can see developed worlds like Vulcan and Alpha Centori having cops armed with stun-only weapons but with colonies of less than ten million people on an entire planet, they probably do have a level of leathal force availible.


Red shirts are allowed...they're marines and follow the marine rank structure. Their leader may be called "chief of security" but they are marines.

By Ken Humpherys (Pmthecat) on Wednesday, July 18, 2007 - 01:37 pm: Edit

Chief of Security is a staff position, not a rank. Command structure is not an issue. If the captain wanted to, he could put an ensign or even a civilian into the position of "Chief of Security" but probably wouldn't because that would make all the marines (esp. the officers) quite upset.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, July 18, 2007 - 10:23 pm: Edit

Ken, I'm not following your reasoning here... guess I'm missreading one or more posts in this thread some how... (sad)

Why would you define "chief of Security" as a staff position?

It would seem to me that there are a variety of ways to set up command positions of senior staff... and all of them will either have several sets of duities, or at worse, junior officers reporting to them in the chain of command.

For example, the ships securty officer (in a CA say) might be the ground force commander... or it might be a junior lt. that reports to the ships X.O or it might even be the X.O. (in addition to his other duties).
in smaller ships (say a Frigate or a POL) it might be the senior warrant officer or NCO.

lots of alternatives.

My point is, the job of chief of security might be inaddition to the officers "normal" job... not inplace of it.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 07:46 am: Edit

Wouldn't the head Marine be, by default, Chief of Security?

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 08:54 am: Edit

Andy, good point.

And further more, if the head marine is the default 'Chief of Security', why is he not part of the ships "senior staff"?

SVC or SPP could probably tell us who's correct on this... but if I had to put money down to cover a bet, I'd put it on "...and other duties as assigned by ships captain or other designated officers" as a part of an existing job desription
... and possibly that of the head marine of the ship.

By Michael C. Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 08:59 am: Edit

The question is are you talking about physical or operational security?

Physical security is guards and such.

Operational security is computer passwords, need to know, commumications and censorship...

I think MOST of the physical stuff would be the province of the Marines, the others would be under the Comms chief (and thus thats why the position is so important).

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 10:27 am: Edit

Earlier there was a point about the ganularity of marine combat values and how you can't have a type of squad between a BP and a malitia. BUt I suppose there might be one way.
If a particular force is composed of 1/2 or more or contains more than two Private Security squads (five man teams) there there is a -1 of the die roll on the marine combat table.

This reflects that they are comprised much the same as a regualr marine squad but not as capable.

PS squads never have any legendary officers although one could lead them if brought in from somewhere else.

Cost is still 1/2 BPV but there needs to be some reason a freighter would buy them.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 10:47 am: Edit

Loren, I would suspect that the reason a freighter would buy them is the same reason why Reids "Burns Security" got hired... they provide a service that hopefully reduces "shrinkage" of inventory (a polite way of referring to theft of the merchants retail stock).

it is the same reason why grocery stores keep a man posted at the back door loading docks to prevent merchandise from "walking out the back door" as new deliveries are being brought in by vendors.

It is unfortante that people steal, but it happens. even in the future of star Trek (and by implicatioon, SFB's) there are those individuals who seek to better their lot in life by taking things that do not belong to them (I'm thinking Orion Pirates).

In a GURPS PD situation, it would not be unreasonable (and possibly humorous) to have dock side security handled by a "rent a cop" security firm rather than assume every dock guard is a highly trained and motivated Marine.

By George M. Ebersole (George) on Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 12:36 pm: Edit

The minus DM sounds interesting. I drafted up some merchant SSDs with PS forces on them, but wasn't sure how to allocate them in terms of physical bodies.

I would think a ten-man "heavy" security team, the kind that might be found in Iraq, would have something like "kevlar" (or phaser resistant) vests, maybe a Laser carbine (or phaser, depending on interstellar law), some handcuffs, flashlight, communicator, and a company uniform.

I had imagined private security would be a bulwark to Orion or other pirate boarders.

Regular private security would be as Jeff describes; bring down company shrink. Maybe they have a -2 or -3 DM? I'm not sure. Just tossing out ideas.

GURPs PD; there're already numerous ways to generate and extract to creation GURPS security personel. With all the resource books I would be hard pressed not to find a security guard example somewhere in the GURPs library.