Archive through August 30, 2014
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Captain's Log: New Fiction:
The Orion pirates:
Archive through August 30, 2014
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giving them time to collect in one place is the best thing a pirate can do
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But then the pirate is risking that the colony got an alert out to the local neighborhood power. If you're the captain of a CR leading a raid on a small colony, the LAST thing that you want to risk is having the local patrolling navy vessel, possibly backed up by a couple of police ships, show up while you've got raiding parties down on the surface.
You haven't been jamming their signals since BEFORE you came in to raid them? And you haven't gotten the "local patrolling navy vessel's" patrol schedule? You deserve to be caught then.
A few problems...
Jamming has a limited range. The question is whether they can spot you BEFORE your jamming kicks in. And if you're jamming, then you're not operating in stealth mode (since jamming basically consists of taking a whole lot of energy static and dumping it into space). So despite your best efforts, the colony might have gotten that message off. And isolated colonies probably regularly check in with either larger colonies or nearby bases. If you happen to jam the colony shortly before a regular check-in, then someone's going to come nosing around to investigate.
Second, you'd better be absolutly sure that the navy vessel hasn't had a last minute change to its patrol schedule. The vessel could have been transferred to a new sector within the last few days, or it could have been forced to reroute due to some other reason. Yes, it's PROBABLY waaaaay over there, but you'd better be absolutely certain about that if you're going to stay at the colony for very long.
And third, the star nation can't control its space if it doesn't have at least a minimal presence a short distance away from pretty much everywhere. So at the very least, there's probably a couple of police ships that can be there soon enough to make life difficult for you, even if the local navy vessel can't.
Time is your enemy.
Here's the numbers I use for generating star maps for my strategic campaign system for another game; these are based off of the HabCAT and Hipparchos catalogs of stars and their frequency of distribution within 100 parsecs of Sol.
One hex is 0.5 parsecs across (so 1/1000th of an F&E hex), and 6.5 parsecs deep. (I track altitudes from -6 to +6 relative to the map plane, and this stacking height is chosen to minimize the odds of having two star systems in the same hex but at different altitudes, which is hard to cover. Assuming an F&E hex is about 100 parsecs deep (the average depth of the disk of the Milky Way), one F&E hex has 11,272,515 Squadron Strike campaign map hexes in it. 
To fill out a sector, randomise the list of hex numbers, then roll d% for each hex on the map - on a 01 through 17, it’s a single star system. On a 18-29, it’s a binary system, and on a 30 it’s a trinary star system. On a 31 or greater, the hex is empty.
If the hex has a star, the distribution looks like this:
| Solar Masses | Die Roll | M-Class Planet |
| 0.33 - 0.66 | 01-45 | None |
| 0.67 to 0.99 | 46-75 | 1 in 100 |
| 1 to 1.33 | 76-90 | 1 in 50 |
| 1.34 to 1.66 | 91-96 | 1 in 100 |
| 1.67 to 1.99 | 97 | 1 in 1000 |
| 0.67 to 1.0 | 98 | White Dwarf |
| 0.33 to 0.67 | 99 | White Dwarf |
| 2.00 to 2.33 | 001-006 | None |
| 2.34 to 2.66 | 007-009 | None |
| 2.67-2.99 | 0001-0004 | None |
| 3.00 | 0005-0007 | None |
| 4.00 | 0008-0009 | None |
| 5.00 | 0000 | None |
|
This population algorithm weeds out stars of less than 0.33 solar masses, which would add about 1/3 again as many stars, all of them too small and old (no metals) to be interesting.
For F&E, you probably need to drop the frequency of M class planets by at least a factor of 10, and possibly 100. Otherwise, you get an insane number of them with this distribution. (A quick run of the probabilities says 37,571.29 M class planets per F&E hex).
Star nation? When did this small colony become a star nation?
A pirate should be better prepared than what you're suggesting. If the small colony has regular check-in times they should already be known and accounted for. The pirate should be using its stealth to slip into range of its jamming before the check-in time (between the colony and whoever they check-in to should be sufficient), jam its communications right after it checks in, and then mount the raid.
And last minute changes can't be accounted for with any degree of accuracy unless the pirate is the one doing the last minute changes (bribes anyone?). Probably most of the missions that you get in SFB are the result of these "last minute changes" or other unforseen problems.
A small colony is presumeably part of a much larger star nation. If it's in Federation space, then there's a Federation presence of some sort not too far away. Same with Romulans, Klingons, or anyone else. Small colonies don't exist all by themselves, and if by the odd chance it's in a neutral zone, then it's probably got local defenses since it can't count on police stopping by periodically to check on it.
Yes, probably nine times out of ten the Orion's "stealth coating" will help the Orion to get within range. But Orion stealth isn't a cloaking device, and it's possible for a careful (or lucky) sensor operator to spot an Orion from quite a ways out. If that happens, then the colony is going to get an alert off. And someone is going to come investigate with enough force to at least make things difficult for the Orion. Yes, a certain number of pirates in or around Romulan space have cloaking devices. But I'd bet that there's even fewer cloaking devices in the Hydran Kingdom cartels than there are Gatling Phasers in the Romulan Empire cartels. Most pirates aren't going to have access to them.
And my point about last minute changes was that the Orion has to accept that he can never completely control the situation. Parking in orbit over a planet while waiting for everyone to "gather up" only works if you've got lots of spare time on your hands. Maybe you do. But you don't know that for certain. And as a result, you can't afford to hang around in orbit waiting for the colonists to start playing your game. The Romulans got caught off-guard by three different ship redeployments by Starfleet on the Day of the Eagle, and they probably used the exact same methods that you're describing to gather intelligence.
It's get in, get the goods, and get out as quickly as possible.
The pirate only has to get "unlucky" once in order to bring his career to a very final finish. It's smart to limit the number of chances that need to be taken.
Quote:A small colony is presumably part of a much larger star nation. If it's in Federation space, then there's a Federation presence of some sort not too far away. Same with Romulans, Klingons, or anyone else. Small colonies don't exist all by themselves...
Actually, they could in Fed space. And the Fed regulations (and morons in the colony itself) limit what they can do to assist/patrol the colony. Yes, in the other Empires, the Orions pretty much always have to do a "smash and grab" (or just grab), but the other nations are EMPIREs and some colonies have probably been forcibly established (like Australia or the USA).
The Orions are not stupid, and will adjust their operations accordingly, and that doesn't mean a leisurely round-up and processing will not turn into a quick grab mission in the middle of the operation.
My point, though, is that there's no such thing as a leisurely round-up. It's all smash and grab. You can't risk anything else. Even a moron in the colony won't discourage Federation help if an Orion raider is spotted at the last instant making a run for the colony. It's one thing to quietly chat about it over a diplomatic table. It's another thing when the pirate is actually RIGHT THERE!
And I would imagine that even the Federation has exceptions in the rules regarding starship actions when disasters - especially pirates and space monsters - are involved. If a volcano blows up and threatens the colony, well... the Federation may offer to help, but it doesn't affect the Federation itself if the natives are stubborn and refuse aid. But a pirate or monster is a danger to the rest of the Federation, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Feds had rules on hand that allowed Starfleet and Police officers to temporarily ignore the treaty if a distress call was received from a colony that just two weeks earlier had told the Federation to take a hike.
Once again - time is not your friend. It's ALL smash and grab.
No, it's not ALL smash and grab. If you smash everything the colony may never start back up, and then you will not be able to steal from it again. A lot of "grab" and some "smash and grab", but not ALL "smash and grab".
And some people are psycologically incapable of accepting help regardless of if they need it or not. If you have watched the latest "Die Hard" movie there were 2 men in it from the NSA that did not tell the rest of the "good guys" about the computer files that the villain set up when he was with them. I actually know someone that does things like that. It isn't pleasant, he hasn't changed in the 20 YEARS I've known him, and it doesn't look like he's going to change anytime soon either. If someone like this was in charge he wouldn't send the distress call until after the Orions were already stealing things from his pocket and smacking him around, and that would only be because he couldn't do anything else to tick them off. BTW, this guy works for the STATE.
Michael Lui,
If the pirates are jamming communications, that jamming itself would be detectable and would alert whoever was monitoring those communications channels of hostile activity. Jamming or no, the pirates do need to get in and get out quickly.
Micheal -
You missed my second point regarding "they don't want us there" diplomatic garbage. And that is that even the Feds probably won't care about diplomatic niceties if pirates or monsters are involved. If a house is burning in the middle of a crowded suburb, then the fire department is going to show up. It doesn't matter whether the owner tells the firefighters that they're not allowed to set foot on his property. The firefighters are going to show up and put out that fire because it threatens the other homes in the community.
I think it's fair to say that it's the same with a pirate or monster. It doesn't matter what the local system thinks. The local empire's forces are going to make a beeline for that system the moment that they realize that there might be a pirate or monster there because such things threaten the entire EMPIRE, and not just the idiot colonists in one system.
Remember the Kobayashi Maru scenario? Remember how there's no "wrong answer" for it? Now imagine that you were dealing with the same basic set-up (i.e. something in distress, in an area that you weren't supposed to be in for diplomatic reasons), but without the possibility of a war starting with a nearby hostile empire (which, by definition, means no endless waves of enemy warships to wipe you out). Every last captain in Starfleet is going to ignore the diplomatic niceties and race to that colony's rescue.
And finally, colony administrators that decline that sort of aid from their local empire don't tend to last long. The local population removes them through a natural process somewhat akin to evolution...
As for not doing smash and grab to encourage the colony to grow back?
1.) There are a lot of small colonies out there. A pirate isn't going to make much of a dent in them, or else EVERY colony would have at least enough defenses to drive away a pirate raider. The reason that a colony wouldn't have defenses is because they think that it's near impossible for the pirate roulette to land on them. And that only happens when there are a lot of colonies for the pirates to choose from.
2.) Your reason for the pirate waiting for everyone to group up was, iirc, so that the pirate could collect them all more easily as slaves. You're talking about depopulating the colony, which is a much faster way to end a colony than merely smashing stuff and taking anything and everything of value.
Once my post about stars, stellar density, and planets and such got somewhat long, I decided to post it in the Real World Space Exploration topic so as not to clutter up things here. But stop by if you like.
et al:
Yes, given a few hours of notice even a mob armed with little more than farm tools might be able to fend off an attack from a lone raider. The caveat is that magic word ``warning''.
Since small colonies usually don't warrant those pesky and expensive naval patrols to be permanently anchored in orbit, and since civilians are usually too busy doing civilian things (like growing crops, mining uranium, weaving baskets, shooting porno holovids, watching porno holovids, et cetera) to bother with doing military things (like operating a GWS, or operating the AGO with active fire control 24/7, or using the admin shuttles for 24/7 CAP, et cetera) I suspect raids in the Neutral Zones happen quite often. In the present day, pirates operate almost unhindered at the Horn of Afrika and South East Asia (they take a break when a major power's navy floats through, like the Russian Federation, United Kingdom, or United States), but as soon as the coast is clear (those guys usually have a mission to perform someplace, so anti-piracy is a ``standing order, target of opportunity'' rather than a ``full-time mission assignment'') those darn pirates are back to work.
In other real world examples, consider the south Afrikan frontier from 1800-1900, or the United States frontier from 1700-1900. Even with a network of forts, fortified towns, and ``look-outs'' regularly posted, raids on settlements routinely happened and concluded before any relief force could arrive on the scene. Despite the look-out, comparable resistance often could not be mustered before the raid was under way. The Wyoming and Colorado territories, as well as most engagements of the Boer Wars, are perfect examples of militia-supported settlements with observers/look-outs being successfully raided by an undersized force.
S6(?) dictates no one operates above WS-0 (for safety above all else!) unless they have *reasonable* expectation of conflict, and being a small colony on the rim is not ``reasonable'', since there are many such colonies and being the ``lucky winner'' is akin to a lottery with low payout and high ante. That blip on the POL's sensors could be an unscheduled FT looking for trade, or it could be the scheduled F-TS simply arriving 6 hours early, or it could be an unscheduled raider arriving late. The AGO, OTOH, is too busy doing farming things to bother with assigning crews to action stations (how often does your office perform evacuation drills? how often does your town conduct air raid drills? how many murders were reported in your county this previous year? why is the last number bigger than the first two numbers combined?) and therefore they would have no such blip. So, in SFB terms, I'd start all civilian ground units not currently supported by a police or navy patrol as ``Inactive/Surprised'' since they are busy working. Any colonies so supported would start at WS-0 (at most), again because they are busy doing work. If there is an actual war going on just down the street, the colony would be better protected if it continued at ``Inactive/Surprised'' status and let an FF or DD be the eyes-and-ears (WS-1 under such conditions).
I never meant to imply kidnapping was the only means of revenue. I certainly would have come off as a lark if I did.
Naturally it does boil down to what is easy. The Basic Set does indicate that raiding is not the only means of revenue for the cartels; but a CR can't earn a living shipping freight simply because 1) all navies have standing orders to engage such vessels on sight (it's not good Public Policy to encourage foreign warships or known pirates to operate within your borders), and 2) the monthly revenue of an F-L can't even cover the monthly operational costs of a CA, let alone a CR pay for itself through purely legit operations. I'm sure those operators not directly engaged in a raid are making their living by fencing the produce of such raids.
Let's also not forget extortion often makes for a fine living (``You will immediately sign a contract giving BreakYourLegsCo the exclusive right to export your Maltuuvian Godmasks, or I'll send down ``negotiators'' via drone rack.''), as would ``discrete courier'' (``I need someone to take this unmarked package [or my ``kid sister''] to Monostat VII, no questions asked and no patrols please.''). While I doubt many individuals could afford such prices, bear in mind a few million bucks is nothing to a nation or corporation. For those who have ever played Chris Crawford's ``Balance of Power'' computer game, this might very well be how the majority of subversion and destabilization is carried out in the SFU.
Of course there are also mercenary contracts and I'm sorry if I'm insulting anyone's intelligence by pointing out what should be obvious, but I'm including it for completion's sake.
So what is my point? Kidnapping *does* happen. There seems to be a new race of hard-working primitives on every other rock in the SFU, and new colonies are always being developed according to sanctioned SFU (http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sft/colony_evolution.htm). Such colonies are indeed quite vulnerable unless they happen to be rich enough to warrant a garrison from their inception (particularly dense and easily obtained mineral veins, extremely fertile soil with a year-long growing season and gentle climate, alien artifacts from extinct civilization, etc. It should be accepted, however, once a colony starts turning a profit one can expect police and militia to be on the list of Purchase Orders.
I am aware of the final paragraph of the section ``Establishment'', but if we are on the lookout for easy-to-get slaves then there could be few better targets (they are concentrated in one GCL, have almost no defense, and relief might take as long as a day to arrive). If one is looking for valuables (hi-tech doo-dads and gee-gaws, luxury items like vintage Blorpian Wine, or those uber-rare never-been-opened Tragic:The Garnering expansion packs which are mysteriously found in almost every long-extinct civilization's ruins) then one will most likely be required to visit patrolled space where there are police units on site and naval reinforcements are only minutes away, because that is where manufacturing centers are located. Or raid a convoy and settle for pot-luck.
I really only raised the issue (and I'm going to ignore it henceforth since I'm just not eloquent enough to pose my point w/o sounding incoherent via text, or w/o writing an entire book on the subject) because ``neat'' and ``interesting'' battles make for some very ``good'' fiction if the creative writer is indeed ``creative''.
``Captains Log: The F5 /Demon's Blood/ has been ordered to locate the SLV which raided Colony K-212. They have a head start of 28 hours, and if we don't overtake them before they enter Federation space we will have to break off pursuit. The men are eager to avenge the colony, and the engineer reports all systems are ready for action at my command.'' (Translation: The F5 engages the SLV using NVC on a ``running battle'' (three maps, the SLV must attempt to disengage by leaving a specific map edge, and the SLV is free to use NVC or not at his liesure. For balance, change the F5 to a D5, or the SLV to a BR, or use 4 or 2 maps instead of 3. Orion is reminded he must self-destruct to avoid capture (standard racial rules), Klingon wins tactical victory if he rescues the hostages, and Decisive victory if he also destroys the SLV, and Astounding if he captures the SLV instead of destroying it.).
Bonus Points: Actually perform a similar raid. In Y170 the Federation, fearing the status quo of continuous dogfights and shipping harassment might devolve into actual war, attempted to kill two birds with one stone. The Foreign Intelligence Agency, on learning of a scheduled shore leave for an entire batallion of troops, hired Orion mercs (Capital Cartel) to raid the recreation area and kidnap all marines as possible. The incapacitation of a Klingon battalion would necessitate a delay in any invasion plans the Empire had, and by using Mercs the UPF could maintain plausible deniability.
The defender places three AGO and one GMS (all considered ``Inactive/Surprised'') on any two adjacent faces of a Class-M planet. Their locations are known at all times. The defender also has one troop variant of their nation's Frigate (WS-0, standard orbit). All troops (except ONE and only ONE BP) and ½ of the CU are deployed on the ground for shore leave at this tropical paradise recently colonized, at GCL's of the defender's chosing, which are not known but instead committed in writing before the scenario begins. Only the personnel are enjoying shore-leave; any vehicles are still aboard the transport, and HWS are considered normal BP unless and until they can return to the frigate for one full turn to retrieve their phaser-bazookas and transporter-rocket-launchers from the ship's arms locker. The raider may learn the contents of all GCL's on given facing by achieving TacIntel level M on that facing, by overflying that hex with a shuttle (S&D anyone?). The raider may learn the contents of any given GCL by actually transporting someone (at least one CU or BP) to that GCL. The raider's goal is to capture as many marines as possible using NVC for BP combat, and may use or may not use NVC for his vessel as he desires. The turn in which the raider beams anything/anyone down/up to an occupied GCL, or enters standard orbit, or fires on any ground structure counts as the defenders first turn for all activation dice rolls. Each hostage BP/CU occupies either one BP position in a BAR, or one drone space in CGO (fitted for livestock transport). The raider's victory is computed by how many BP he captures using the formula ``CountCaptured ÷ 20''. Players should read up on BP combat. The raider approaches with one SLV, and one LR, both at max speed and WS-3. Can be balanced by adding one VIK to the raider, upgrading the LR to a CR, adding 1-3 defsats to the defender (their activation and/or destruction also counts as the defender's Turn #1 for dice rolls), increasing the Frigate's weapon status, adding a bonus of one or two pips to the defender's activation rolls, or adding a penalty of one or two pips to the defender's activation rolls, or using a troop-FF.
Now those sound like interesting scenarios, which usually proves to be interesting fiction! The LR and the SLV might out-gun the FF (and they start with all their weapons hot), but if the FF can survive for five turns the Cocaine Rule will dominate. The defender has plenty of shuttles, so there should be more than enough reason for the Orions to double even while enjoying standard orbit. One may be the loneliest number, but five is the magic number.
Anyway... I'm just some nut on the internet, so there's no need to actually take any of this seriously; ll just 1's and 0's about a /game/.
</RANT>
et al:
ECM has unlimited range. ECCM has a range 100 for ships, and 150 for Scouts with an active channel. ECCM requires active fire control, which may or may not impact your story/scenario/campaign. Consult the ``Silent Running'' rules in the TacIntel section if sneaking up on someone is desirous. Also consult the ``Prolonged Observation'' section, and scout channels and labs powered up for TacIntel purposes.
I think it is agreed by all that kidnapping is rarely a ``liesurely'' activity, but some situations may be easier than others may be the point under contention.
I agree a garbaled transmission from a colony directed to the sector's police HQ would most likely be treated as an incoherent call to (for those in the United States) 911: units would be immediately dispatched to the location under the assumption that something terrible is happening, and ``better safe than sorry''. The colony might be close enough to receive support wihtin a few minutes, an hour, or possibly even whole day away. This is my point here: there is no guarantee two POL and an FF will *always* *always* show up in 1D6 turns. Shunk (Pennsylvania) is over 30 minutes from the nearest State Trooper on a *GOOD* day (google-map that for fun); imagine if someone decided they needed more ``actors'' for their porno film company (I'm auditioning for female leads, btw). Shunk is not ``out of the ordinary'' because it has 1) people, 2) industry, 3) no cops. Does this pattern sound familiar? Only a moron would shout ``ARRRR, me hearties! Let's go raid New York Harbour and see if we can seize twenty bottles of rum!'' when they know full well NYC anchors 1) cops, 2) navy, 3) armed civilians, 4) armed nut jobs, 5) non-smoking laws in all public places (including taverns, ale houses, and other drinking houses!).
I can't imagine anyone refusing naval assistance when there is a raider RIGHT THERE and your kid brother is being raped by the pirate's hamster. Especially since 1) all navies have standing anti-piracy orders, 2) that isn't one of those cute, little *Earth* hamsters I'm talking about...
Besides, since ``The Red WYN Express'' was described as a fluke we must assume they don't usually raid fortified places, which means they raid those out-of-the-way places oft-described as ``quaint'', ``mostly harmless'', or ``worthless mudball''.
"all navies have standing orders to engage such vessels on sight..." You get this from WHERE? I have always wondered why there WASN"T such a policy, but the SFU fiction is clear that there isn't. IMHO, there MUST be special fast orion merchant ships that have the same profile as the varied pirates so that the pirates can "blend."
"the monthly revenue of an F-L ..." You are confusing the monthy REVENUE (ie profits from transporation) with CAPITAL. Yeah, the F-L might only be making .1% of its purchase price AFTER paying salaries, fuel, docking, taxes, insurance, rent on the container pod.
BUT, the pirate gets to KEEP the entire darn Freighter at best (complete with pods) or at least steal the cargo without paying for it.
Example: The Weary Donkey picks up fruitcakes at $10,000 a cargo space and can sell them over there for $11,000 a space. so I have $50 thousand in profits minus interest payments oin the ship, salaries for a couple weeks, fuel, docking fees, storage fees on a COMPLAT, and insurance. The Love Ewe STEALS 2.5 spaces of fruitcake so he is making $25000 in one day! If he can make one "give it up" a week he is sitting pretty. If he CAPTURES my ship, he is now $500,000 in fruit cake richer PLUS the value of my entire ship. So even if he only makes one successful strike a month he should be doing alright...
Scale up as needed. If you read the Last CL about the Klinks/ Pirates/ and Mutineers you will note that there are a LOT more ships getting pirated than that. If you read closely you see that this is a BACKWATER sector at that!
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This is my point here: there is no guarantee two POL and an FF will *always* *always* show up in 1D6 turns.
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Given that planetary raids happen, I think that this is reasonable as well. If the local navy always responded almost immediately, then raids would be too risky to be worth doing.
However, the pirate captain can't guarantee that it won't happen. And as a result, he needs to keep his time in orbit at a minimum. Maybe the local frigate is two days away. But maybe he's had a change in orders for some reason, and he's only half an hour out. Get in, get what you want, and get out. And don't take unreasonable risks (of course, the bigger the prize, the more leeway "unreasonable" provides).
And the sooner the raider can leave, the colder the trail will be when someone does eventualy come to investigate.
Quote:But I'd bet that there's even fewer cloaking devices in the Hydran Kingdom cartels than there are Gatling Phasers in the Romulan Empire cartels.
Of course all cloaking devices come from Romulan space originally, but my guess is that the majority of them are immediately sold to the highest bidder. Since it's certainly possible for Orions to operate without a cloak, and most don't have them (even in Romulan space), it seems that Orions will just send the cloaks to whoever wants to pay for them and/or whoever's special mission requires one.
I think there is precedent for this. For instance I expect the Capital and Cluster cartels, between them, build 90% of the Orion ships. But the ships go wherever the buyers are.
It's funny, because the cloaking device is, at least in the rules, not restricted to the Romulan cartels in any way. As a practical matter, gatling phasers seem pretty similar - they are fairly rare even among pirates operating in Hydran space, so it seems that most of the gatlings captured by the Hydrans get exported. Whereas, an F-torp is not enough better than a disruptor to justify shipping it all the way across the Federation.
so, anyway, now that I've fuddled up anything I might contribute to hostages and what not...
I'm pretty certain any fiction involving a raid on a convoy containing a Q-ship would be ``stale'' at best.
Raids against a CPL may have already been written to death.
I think the Orions just need the same thing anything else might need: a hook. Rather than the raid itself being the storyline, perhaps that's just the backdrop to something more interesting. Since the cartels are collections of many different races, and SciFi has traditionally been the social commentary, perhaps one might use a pirate's raid as one's opinion on the current ``War on Terror'', or ``War on Poverty'', or ``Mid-East Peace Stalemate'', or racial relations, or science-vs-superstition, or your own insight into cultural homogenization. Ex: immigrants to the UK are expected to conform British social norms (How to be British), whereas the United States is very polycultural (there are often debates springing up about legal documents being available in various languages).
One might also create a saga: consider Conan The Orion. He starts off with nothing more than his phaser and rugged good looks, then becomes Conan the Raider, and soon assumes supreme command and becomes Cartel Conan.
One might instead develop the heck out of a particular area, and simply re-use that zone for a series of shorts. Or develop the heck of an area and then set something akin to the ``Master & Commander'' series of books (hint: an atlas is *most* helpful when reading those).
I wish I had something more constructive to offer to Orion ideas than just those base kernels, but alas I'm an analyst when it comes to literature rather than a writer.
interesting read: http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=31411
The vessel pictured is a cargo vessel. I wonder how that story would have gone if she carried large-bore cannon and missile racks. I doubt it would have gone peacibly if she carried cannon, missiles, *AND* were caught within US waters.
A few comments.
First, Orions being involved in piracy pre-dates "the Mutiny". There is a specific scenario where the early years Orions attacked and destroyed an Early Years Civilian Base on the Federation-Klingon border while the nascent Star Fleet was involved in a war. Note that the Orion ships that were "patrolling" the area "arrived too late" to discover who had attacked the base.
Second, while the Cartels were started by Orions, by the time of the General War we know that at least one of the Cartels (Pharoah's) primary enforcer was captained by an Earth Human (Deth O'Kay), and many ships had multi-racial crews and captains from many different races.
Third, we know that pirates are expected to self-destruct their ships rather than surrender even more so than non-Pirates.
Fourth, What the "Cartel System" does, more than anything else, is provide the personnel checks on people who want to become Orion Pirates. The fact that Klingons, Feds, Romulans, and other races have people who command Orion Warships (some of them formal members of Cartels, some of them independent contractors), but the Cartel system is not heavily penetrated by law enforcement says that the personnel system works. Digging into that system, how and why it works, may be the most interesting thing about the Cartels. The Cartel system by definition provides the background checks, training (or verifies the training, e.g., Deth O'Kay was apparently kicked out of starfleet as a Lieutenant, possibly senior grade, before he became an Orion Pirate), and is the sole source of crew replacements.
Fifth, we KNOW the system has flaws (Cartel Lords are sometimes replaced by someone else within the Cartel, and not after they decide to retire but while they still think they are in charge of their Cartel), but the Flaws do not extend to Bridge personnel leaking information to governments or local police unless directed to do so by their Cartel Lord.
Sixth, we KNOW that majority of the crews of Orion ships have no idea where the ship is operating, where it just came from, or where it is going. That is part of the security system, i.e., the Orions have to minimize the chance that any given grunt marine or low level crewman can reveal the location of a hidden base or contacts that the ship uses, or other information relevant to the security of the Cartels.
Seventh, Orion Operations by their nature have to be efficient. The only scenarios are those where 'something went wrong', whether the ship stayed too long at a raid site, or (as others have noted) had the wrong information about when help might arrive, or underestimated the ability of the defenders to resist. The risk is always there, and damage potential is calculated against the potential gain. For an Orion, raiding a planet is not simply "I have ten boarding parties, and if I lose them all, no problem". It is "I have ten boarding parties, if I lose three of them, I can probably continue robbing freighters, but if I lose more than that, I may have to cut my voyage short and go to a hidden base to pick up replacements." The latter means time lost when he is not generating revenue, plus more fuel spent to go to the base and back to his franchise area.
Let me make that plain, Orions are very interested in economics. Most Orions are independents operating in a franchise rented from a Cartel. If they fail to make their Franchise lease payments . . . "Bad things (tm)" happen. Everything they use they have to get from the Cartel Lord (need to refuel the ship, that will cost you. Need to replace those drones you used, that will cost you. Need to replace your admin shuttle? that will cost. Need to repair the engines because you were a little heavy on the doubling, that will cost you, and so on). A Successful Orion is one that does not double his engines in the act of Piracy (doubling the engines eats into the profits), does not take damage (eats into the profits), or lose crew (getting replacement from the Cartel is going to cost you), or use expendables (emptying drone racks and the reloads means going to the Cartel to get more, and that will cost you, same with using a T-bomb or anything else that is expendable).
Any idea on what sort of balance the Orions work out between "Legitimate Legal Work" and "Piracy"? Scouring my past fiction recently has found quite a number of stories were Orions were not fired on by police ships and national ships on sight. In fact, even protected sometimes, often with a mention of having licenses to operate in that sector, doing Salvage, running Intelligence for the local lords, Survey Work, actual legal trade, or other such tasks. As well I've noticed in one work, in particular, a backwater, out of the way sector mentioned having a mere 11 civilian ships disappearing. Which was "Much higher than normal". Extrapolated out that would suggest the average Orion Cartel might only take out as few as two frieghters to piracy in a sector, in a month's time. That being in backwater sectors in a time of war of course. There was probably even less in times of peace when the navy had fewer pressing duties and the police were spread a little less thinly, right?
As well I find if I look at the fiction most piracy seems to be target of opportunity work. They aren't too actively seeking targets but its more of a "Hey, this ship isn't out of the way by very much and it seems ripe for the taking". Scenarios seem different. But with the comments I've seen time and time again saying that the pirate scenarios are "When something goes wrong", I think its fairly safe to discount something like the organized ambush of the Sector Base in the early years as a once in a lifetime operation. Or that ambushing for a smash and grab on a convoy (Much less an escorted convoy, or worse a colony with DefSats and Ground Bases), is more the act of a desperate pirate. Probably trying to pay cartel dues before the enforcers come after him.
Even more you could factor in the chance that a freighter they pick off might have very low value goods. I doubt something like a load of rolled oats would get much on the Orion Market.
I could be wrong, and please, point out if I am. But I somehow get the idea that about... 40% of Orion Work Hours are "Legit" work. Cargo transport, surveys, working for the DSF Intelligence, or something else. Then you probably get another 50-55% that is "Shady" work. Smuggling for example, but doesn't put them in direct confrontation with much else other than some rabid Customs Agent that wants to inspect their cargo. Then you get the last 5-10% which is actually picking off those Target of Opportunity Freighters. Or perhaps putting in some work with the Cartel like fighting off some other cartel trying to steal franchise territory.
This question doesn't exactly go into a discussion about Orion pirates, but it is related.
Does any product or downloadable document here on the ADB forum have information about the hierarchy of the Federation Police?
Garth has done a wonderful job outlining the crew positions of a POL, but I'm also interested in who would be above the ship Commanders and, in turn, the hierarchy on up from that.
Mike,
I have a few ideas in my head about that, but nothing down on paper. I can throw some of them up here, if SVC doesn't mind.
But back to Orions for a moment: I don't think anyone has done a crew list for a pirate ship. I would presume that most of the crew are just "goons", what Star Fleet would call enlisted Boatswaain's Mates (kind of a Jack-of-all-trades general sailor), some of whom may have specility skills. Most of the critical positions (engineer, communications, shuttle pilot, etc) would be restricted to the most-trusted crew who would get trained for those jobs. As such, it might be pointless to try to do a by-job crew list like I did for the POL and FFG.
Garth L. Getgen
PD: Federation (any system) has a couple of pages on the Federation Space Police. I doubt it's been uploaded anywhere.
I have a copy of the original PD Federation, so I'll take a look in there. Thanks for the director, Ryan.
Garth, be sure to include at least one "crew unit" worth of cargo handlers on that pirate LR. They would be the lowest of the low, perhaps even conscripts who were pressed into service as needed.
Alas, the original PD Federation book says nothing about the Federation Police. There is a nice paragraph about the Police Cutter, but that's it. The two pages Ryan referred to must be in the post-Prime Team versions.