 April 21, 2012 - 5:56am | Prengular system has not indigeonous militia but obivously banks on the fact that Space Fleet has a major base and fleet here. Add to that the fact that Star Law is headquartered here and its mandate is to interdict sathar agents and interplanetary criminals, and smugglers certainly qualify as interplanetary criminals. All of that adds up to smuggling being a lucrative in Prengular. Space Fleet will be death on pirate activity in Prengular as it would besmirch its reputation if pirates got away with hitting ships in its backyard. However, it's not going to be so focused on catching smugglers as its not a system militia. Star Law has a lot to do and they certainly do go after smugglers but its a matter of resource allocation as it cannot be the default militia for the system. No doubt there are police/ customs agents at port loren but they wait for shuttles to land. In the midst of all this a lot can fall in between the cracks and a smart smuggler that doesn't draw attention to himself can make a deceant profit. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 21, 2012 - 6:40am | TRUANE'S STAR: a large militia would make you think that this system is not the best location for smugglers to operate but I would beg to differ. 1. The militia's size can be partly attributed to the system being at the mercy of the sathar during SW1. 2. The militia & or planetary military were involved in a police action on Cygnus Omicron IX according to the Volturnus series which would be a problem if CO9 was a member of the UPF's Council of Worlds. I generally re interpret CO9 as the ninth moon of a gas giant in system and freshly conquered and renamed New Pale. I also write into my version of the setting an unfortunate clause in the UPF charter that only planet can be members of the Council of Worlds, not moons. This sets up room for resistance groups on New Pale looking for smugglers to run guns for them. Also the fact that this system is the gateway system for the Rim and CFM to access the Frontier as well as the headquarters for a megacorp means its a high volume of traffic in system. Combined with suppressing independence movements on New Pale and the militia is very busy. Smugglers find plenty of contacts and business here though penalties for being caught can be tough. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 21, 2012 - 7:43am | Cassidine has no militia and its government was set up as a sociologist's wet dream of social engineering. Founded after first contact of the humans with the dralasite and vrusk, hence the planetary name Triad, to promote inter species understanding and cultural exchange. Its government is a mess bending over backward to accommodate everyone even including its very small yazirian lobby. Combine that with two megacorps headquartered here and the doubted preference of smugglers departing Dramune to route through here since the explicit planetary footnote for Terledrom states they are death on smugglers, and you get a high volume system with no militia, an ineffective government and a popular port of call for smugglers and corporate espionage agents ( in light of the high tech economy). I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 21, 2012 - 8:17am | DRAMUNE: a notorious and infamous pirates and smugglers haven. Two antagonistic planetary bodies with armed militias (though a loose definition of militia is called for in the case of Outer Reach). Just the presence of a government favorable to smugglers and pirates makes this system a haven for criminals. No doubt the right fees (bribes) will gain a smuggler a militia escort ensuring that Inner Reach ships cannot stop you or board you. Plus the Inner Reach militia is probably more concerned most of the time with suppressing pirates then interdicting smugglers (though events in the Dramune Run mod will impact that). Interesting that Terledrom is said to take smuggling very serious and the most notorious smugglers haven is one jump away. Over time smugglers will tend to route themselves through Cassidine. FROMELTAR is the only system government said to control two systems as the next vrusk colony in the jump chain is its colony and both systems have militia ships making the Fromeltar's militia the biggest in number of hulls. Since the political will is there to build a large militia and aggressively pursue smugglers Fromeltar is not a good place for smugglers to operate. Though some do just not stupid or unlucky smugglers. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 21, 2012 - 8:39am | TIMEON SYSTEM, Lossend: small farming planet with a megacorp headquartered here, some tourism, no militia but an armed space station. I interpret the station as financed and administrated by the megacorp since its sandwiched in between two systems with space fortresses and heavy naval presence each. This makes Lossend favorable for smugglers especially since farm produce makes a good cover cargo. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 21, 2012 - 8:55am | WHITE LIGHT, Clarion: everybody's favorite militia and a system government with a strong political will, plus steep penalties for gun running the system is not a popular port of call for smugglers though some activity does go on and smuggling to and from the vrusk colonies does pass through here as Fromeltar has made its end of the vrusk jump chain hot for smugglers. Only the terminally stupid get caught smuggling weapons in White LIGHT. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 21, 2012 - 10:11am | MOONWORLD: discovered by the vrusk and turned over to Space Fleet, under the pretext that Space Fleet needed an ultra secret base from which to watch for the sathar on the southern approaches of the Frontier or the Great Expanse. An outpost with a subspace radio would have been sufficient for that but what ever the true reason for the total military use of Moon world the fact remains that civilian commerce is for all intents and purposes non existent in this system making smuggling on private ships a non issue. That is not to say that some wiggling of contraband doesn't go on on military vessels because it does. Always someone willing to attempt to bring in small amounts of banned intoxicants, hard core dralasite porn, and other creature comforts not normally carried in the post exchange. Smuggler just don't come here lest they want to be boarded, detained and questioned and that sort of thing they prefer to avoid. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 21, 2012 - 10:51am | Having thought through the write ups on a half dozen worlds I am now considering a classification system : haven, regular, bane. Places like Dramune, Dixon's Star, and Prengular are havens. Terledrom and Hentz and possibly White Light would be bane systems and most other systems falling into a middle ground whether because of political factors, astrographic location factors, military factors (presence of a militia), or economic factors all things balance out to makinging most system average. Bane systems will bring a higher price, haven systems drive the price down. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 April 21, 2012 - 7:29pm | OUTER REACH: a notorious and infamous pirates and smugglers haven.
Fixed that for ya, Inner Reach has a rather sizable militia, only Theseus' array of ships out classes it (thanks to adding an extra assault scout to the list). Come to think of it, any system with two worlds would be a smuggler haven, at least on the world that doesn't have the fleet of militia/spacefleet etc vessels. Take Truane's Star for example, Pale has a militia equivilent to that of Clarion, but New Pale has nothing. All sorts of riff raff can come through New Pale with little resistance, until they try bringing their "small packages" to the other world (Pale). Then again, what with Streel's* history of hired smugglers transporting their goods to Clarion, even that might not meet such a big resistance... * lest we forget, Streel has headquarters in Pale |
 April 22, 2012 - 3:53pm | Smuggling is supplying a demand for items or services which are against the law. So while we know where the stuff is going to we should come up with a list of things which are smuggled and where they come from. One important thing would be whether it is illegal to manufacture the items at the place of origin. We should not forget intellectual property either. Family of One material may not be welcome everywhere or possibly certain types of music? Also counterfeit material is a large part of smuggling. So are those PGC sensor modulators really from PGC? Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 April 22, 2012 - 6:35pm | Don't forget, a second category of smuggling is goods which are evading taxes and/or customs duties. The stuff can be thoroughly legal, but money needs to change hands first. Whether that money is to the government, or to a crooked customs inspector is an open question.  One of my favorite D&D campaigns started off with us PCs as "evil"-- some of us were crooked customs officials, and the others were our unwitting lackeys. Our first session took us after some law-breaking smugglers, that is, ones that had paid someone other than ourselves.  (I'm sorry to say there never was a 2nd session, we had a lot of fun making up those characters.) |
April 23, 2012 - 4:36am | Conterfit goods, wanted persons, stolen materials- information or actual hard property avoiding taxes, tariff or bans are all possibilities. One half of a smuggler's game could easily be developing new contacts. Interestingly I just watched Lord of War with Nicolas Cage. The whole part where Nick's character is trading on family relations with his uncle to obtain former Soviet arms while the competing gun dealer is trying to offer his uncle better terms could be a basis for adventure in game. If certain heavy weapons are not legal for purchase in general and players are forced to travel all the way to Outer Reach or Volturnus with Volturnus just being a pain to get to an the local ifshnit a bit of a nudge vs Outer Reach having high overhead because peeps like the Malthar feel they should get a cut and other peeps feel like they can reduce their overhead by simply taking the PC's goods after they leave Darkworld station. Then there is Laco where its not certain you'll find what you're looking cleans asking too many questions on Laco is bound to draw the attention of the local Star Law Marshal. In that situation it would be very desirable to develop a contact within the military establishment in Prengular. Finally on the issue of illegal goods , as a simple default pick a cadre or criminal organization and have them looking for heavy weapons or explosives. Also under recent thoughts that I've had concerning the Fo1's mission to recreate Hentz in the image of lost Yazira, certain plants only grow on Hentz but are crucial to the highest quality Yazirian Brandy. Fo1 has banned the export of this plant and the brandy can only be exported on authorized shippers. Fo1 is concerned with the sanctity of the brandy officially- the ban has nothing to do with the fact that the clan chiefs controlling Fo1 have business interest in the major producer of Yaz brandy as well as the only authorized shipper. The brandy is insanely expensive because of the above and has high demand across the Frontier. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 11, 2012 - 3:18pm | Low-Profile Smuggling: Luxury Black Market Items, Basic Survey-&-Security Equipment, Personal Information & Counter R&D Data, Minor Political Slaves... err... I mean Undesirables, and even Non-lethal Past-time Products (minor intoxicants, recreational simulations, cybernetically compelled companions...) are going to be quite lucrative in otherwise strict controlled zones, and much more likely to be quasi-legitimate with official backing and Cloak-&-Dagger security, and effectively supported by the same organizations that "protect" the people and the economic main-trade logistics... and they hate competition... The existence of strong Government Espionage and Tight Security creates and maintains a necessity of it's own shadow, as it were. This includes: Prenglar Truane's Star Cassidine White Light Araks Athor Lynchpin (Moonworld) Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
