The transtellars in the verge and protectorates

So under the terms of surrender Honor gave the league, the OFS was to be disbanded, system governments were to be released from ofs "protection" and outworlder assets were to be nationalized. Obviously the disbanding of ofs will be (relatively) easy, after all, logistics and weapons will eventually become harder to find. But what's going to ensure the transtellars give up their cash cows? The GA isn't going to take over the ofs' patrols and enforcement arm, so what or who is going to make all those many many transtellar's nationalize their assets?

I suppose the GA can organize an information campaign via "word of mouth" that a new sheriff's in town, and send out task groups to "reason" with those holdouts, but after they leave the transtellars could just move back in.

Admittedly without the ofs backing them militarily home grown resistance groups MIGHT be able to push the transtellars out, but they're still going to need some support for weapons and such.

Maybe a roving band/task force from the GA could supply some of that, but there's still the question of how to identify who the planetary assets belong to.

Well, this is disappointing. I had hoped for some more input to this thread, I DO think there is sufficient food for thought in this idea that merits discussion. Anyone?

There are so many protectorates, vergers and transtellars that the answer is a mish-mash. Some will have sufficiently good working relationships with local regimes to continue doing business, albeit they may face difficult renegotiations and leaner profit margins. Others already used more independent or in-house mercenaries and will continue to do so until someone with a big enough stick hits them. The ones who relied upon OFS muscle are screwed.

It's a tricky subject to discuss in depth because the economics are largely written to support the plot. Age of Sail trading practices applied to interstellar scales don't quite add up!

Mycall4me wrote:Well, this is disappointing. I had hoped for some more input to this thread, I DO think there is sufficient food for thought in this idea that merits discussion. Anyone?

There has been discussion in the forum about who will now be responsible to combat piracy, which was formerly handled by Frontier Fleet (when they weren't acting as pirates themselves). Anyone on the fringes of territory controlled by a Grand Alliance member could appeal to them, but that still leaves a lot of territory uncovered. Maybe the SLN (which is now under more ethical command) might be given permission to do so.

tlb wrote:

Mycall4me wrote:Well, this is disappointing. I had hoped for some more input to this thread, I DO think there is sufficient food for thought in this idea that merits discussion. Anyone?

There has been discussion in the forum about who will now be responsible to combat piracy, which was formerly handled by Frontier Fleet (when they weren't acting as pirates themselves). Anyone on the fringes of territory controlled by a Grand Alliance member could appeal to them, but that still leaves a lot of territory uncovered. Maybe the SLN (which is now under more ethical command) might be given permission to do so.

Well, sorry I missed that particular discussion, but I was also wondering about the transtellars and their grasp on so many planetary econimies. Admittedly the worst excesses backed up by ofs won't (probably) be happening, but what's going to be done about keeping the transtellars from their greedy, unscrupulous behaviors?

I mean Honor specified in her surrender terms that all privately owned resources in the verge were supposed to be nationalized, (or something to that effect, anyways) but didn't specify how, or who would be responsible to see that it was done. I don't think that we could expect the transtellars to do any such things out of the good of their greedy black hearts.

Mycall4me wrote:I mean Honor specified in her surrender terms that all privately owned resources in the verge were supposed to be nationalized, (or something to that effect, anyways) but didn't specify how, or who would be responsible to see that it was done. I don't think that we could expect the transtellars to do any such things out of the good of their greedy black hearts.

The easy case is where everyone in a system hates the transtellar corporation, because then there is no leverage with OFS gone.

However the smart corporations will have long ago co-opted the main party and made it the ruling party. Then they just have to make contributions to that party to maintain their relationship, rather than paying the nation a fairer share of the profits. Depending on the measures that the ruling party needs to make to stay in power, there might not be enough opposition to change those arrangements. In the case a revolution is required to break the grip of the corporation and ruling party, is there anyone close that will assist in the regime change? That may depend on the actual distance involved.

As noted earlier, we've discussed the fall out from Honor's demands of the League.

For my 2 cents worth, I foresaw a few things. As bad as OFS was they did keep the lid on things, overall. Even the League didn't have enough ships in OFS to be everywhere they needed to be, but they still kept piracy down by sheer presences if nothing else. With the shutdown of OFS a few things are likely to happen.

Systems are going to nationalize the transtellars' property. It's rarely described as a good relationship between the transtellars and any local system population. The local population general understands that the transtellars own the ruling party, or at least control them in some fashion. Rare is the case where the transtellar has made nice with the locals and is appreciated enough that they're going to retain the sweet deals they've had all along backed and protected by OFS and League patrons.

The OFS ships in a given area are likely to either go pirate or make arrangements with the local system to act as their defense force. Piracy is sure to rise, as there won't even be the thin veil of OFS protection any more.

Fireflair wrote:As noted earlier, we've discussed the fall out from Honor's demands of the League.

For my 2 cents worth, I foresaw a few things. As bad as OFS was they did keep the lid on things, overall. Even the League didn't have enough ships in OFS to be everywhere they needed to be, but they still kept piracy down by sheer presences if nothing else. With the shutdown of OFS a few things are likely to happen.

Systems are going to nationalize the transtellars' property. It's rarely described as a good relationship between the transtellars and any local system population. The local population general understands that the transtellars own the ruling party, or at least control them in some fashion. Rare is the case where the transtellar has made nice with the locals and is appreciated enough that they're going to retain the sweet deals they've had all along backed and protected by OFS and League patrons.

The OFS ships in a given area are likely to either go pirate or make arrangements with the local system to act as their defense force. Piracy is sure to rise, as there won't even be the thin veil of OFS protection any more.

Though a lot of the verge any rise in piracy is likely to be short lived.

Kind of like the fire triangle (heat, fuel, oxygen), there's kind of a piracy square. To sustain piracy you need:
1. Support base (someplace that can provide repair and replacement parts and ammo)
2. Buyers (a fence where you can convert your captures / loot into cash - may or may not be the sample place as 1)
3. Shipping to prey on
4. Lack of protection

Lack of protection is the obvious one - if nobody is hunting the pirates then they'll only go away if piracy is easier elsewhere.

But if the pirates can find a support base in an area they can't sustain presence there and will end up closer to where they can keep their ship repaired and functional. (Or their ship will break down and they die; solving the issue another way)

Pirates aren't going to want to take a 6 month trip to try to sell their loop - they'll hunt closer to where they can sell it.

And if an area is so poor that it only gets a few tramp freighters a year that's way too much idle time for a pirate - and if something happens and they miss that freighter then they get nothing for their time. They'll gravitate out of those areas and to ones which have more shipping to prey on.


In much of the verge it'd be easier, and probably more lucrative, to turn warlord and take over a system than to try to pirate its extremely infrequent shipping. And places that have a fair bit of shipping usually (baring weird external factors) have the capability to fund and support an antipiracy force to help protect it. There will be a brief 'happy time' for the pirates as OFS pulls out (or turns pirate) in the systems where OFS prevented them from having their own naval forces - yet are prosperous enough their shipping is good prey. But that should sort itself out over the next few years as some pirates discover its not the easy lifestyle they imagined, others run afoul of some patrol or other, and the systems start getting armed coast guards or naval ships into service to protect their shipping.

With the GA being responsible for the removal of OFS then they have at the least a small measure of moral responsibility to make up for their absence militarily until the locals can do it themselves.

Now how big a presence is actually needed is a much tricker subject, but probably nothing heavier than an Avalon CL or whatever replaces the Wolfhound (Wolfhound is a stripped to the bone warfighter as shown in Saltash?, they really aren't capable of much in the way of boarding actions, etc). Maybe some Sag-Cs if the pirates are rouge SLN with BCs.

Dauntless wrote:With the GA being responsible for the removal of OFS then they have at the least a small measure of moral responsibility to make up for their absence militarily until the locals can do it themselves.

Now how big a presence is actually needed is a much tricker subject, but probably nothing heavier than an Avalon CL or whatever replaces the Wolfhound (Wolfhound is a stripped to the bone warfighter as shown in Saltash?, they really aren't capable of much in the way of boarding actions, etc). Maybe some Sag-Cs if the pirates are rouge SLN with BCs.

Saltash were Rolands. The 19 Wolfhounds have a crew of 83 (20 more than a Roland), so they are not much better than a Roland in the Boarding/ground combat role).

The last we heard, there are at least 200+ Avalons (Most likely closer to 300 produced by Feb 1922pd), so those are most likely the ships we will see the most of in independant patrols, if not a handful of the 48 Kammerlings (the majority of which are probably in Silesia or attached to a Nodal Fleet command as a reaction force.) In addition, we'll probably see the survivors of the legacy light combatants pushed into such roles until they can be replaced.