Smooth Criminals...

Seeing that we're heading back toward the Imperium I thought it may be a good idea to discuss how we plan to evade authorities concerning the host of less than legal bits and pieces we have on board at the moment.  Things on board I think may ( or may not? ) get us into trouble if we were ever boarded. Nukes Particle Accelerators Ancient artifacts Artificial Intelligence. (?) Psions maybe a character with Legal skills can wrangle up a legal way for us to be toting this stuff around?

Colonel Lloyd Robertson was friends with the Duchess of Mora.  For the nukes, it was possible he purchased license to load nuclear missiles on a ship at the time was to be a registered Mercenary unit for hire.  Same for the Particle Accelerators. It will vary by world and by Tech Level as to the legality of Artificial Intelligence, though self-aware, sentient Robots have little in the way of precedent. Psions, our Psi-Corps 'guests' are technically registered and licensed Naval Intel operatives.  The Navy would vouch on their behalf, if we fessed up to having taken them off-mission.  More questions abound follow that madness.  Also, keep in mind that Psion Career does not equal a simpler person tested and trained in psionics Talents.  Example:  Gevaudan, with his Teleportation and Clairvoyance Talents is not a Psion, though the layman can assume so. We can always argue that we found an Ancient artifact outside the Third Imperium and its jurisdiction.  But in bringing it into the Imperium, we'd have a courts task , (tying us up for months if not years), in trying to keep it especially due to its Pandora's Box nature.

Firstly, we are Mercenaries ; it’s legal for us to carry bigger and badder weapons than the usual run-of-the-mill Traveller. Whether this applies to nukes in particular has yet to be determined. As for PGMPs and FGMPs, I would guess “yes”, but I’m not sure. Once the ship is fixed, we need to be on a dead run to that Black Hole. Avoiding complications in the meantime is pretty critical. Beyond hiding the Artifact in a fish tank, I myself have no ideas. I don’t have enough context to evaluate Artificial Intelligences and the general case of Psions... In the case of Zenobia and Bob specifically , Bob is criminally insane ; he is clearly a threat to himself and others; but he has intel we can’t afford to get out. Zenobia is a much more nebulous case... What she has done clearly falls into the case of “Involuntary Manslaughter”; she behaved irresponsibly, even though she was obligated not to, and people died, even though she didn’t intend them to. Even if it could be said that she was “just following orders”, which we have her on record as saying she wasn’t , the military still expects its soldiers to defy strategically reckless orders, and they would likely be forced to send her to a military prison, while documentation of her crimes exists. But, if we give her to the wrong people, and the evidence gets swept under the rug, she either gets away with it, or some scumbag uses it as blackmail over her for the rest of her life to force her to do the worst of the worst psionic black-ops stuff; possibly as bad or worse than letting them get the Artifact itself. The best we can do there is to keep her under wraps until we can find someone trustworthy to give her to. There may be a case to be made of allowing her to stay on board under “House Arrest” so she can make up for what she’s done, since we generally are a bunch of good guys doing good guy things.

As far as the weapons go, I agree that if we aren't already licensed to have the particle accelerators and man-portable stuff, that should be relatively simple. If the nukes are categorically illegal, there probably is no way to get around that. Considering the many downsides of having them without ever having used them, I'd be for getting rid of them.  I'm going to avoid going in to the Artifact and its disposition here. We do need to find out what the legalities around AI's. It might be as simple as having Sebastien make a roll, or do a little research. Of course, keep in mind that nobody aside from us knows that we do have an AI aboard, and even we didn't know for quite a while. Finally, as far as I know, neither of our Psi-corps guests have ever specifically asked to leave the warm embrace of our hospitality before they laid themselves down for theie long winter's rest. Remember that we did rescue them from a catastrophe of their own making and we haven't even blown the whistle on them. That's Sebastien's story, and he's sticking to it. ;)

We could probably get away with calling them refugees, at least for a while.

I probably should mention that I'm not talking about local laws here. More thinking about the sweeping Imperial laws that apply everywhere. Being a mercenary doesn't necessarily mean all weapons are on the menu. Some weapons are illegal for governments within the imperium to own and use. I figured if governments can't use them then wandering mercs even less so. Nukes are the obvious ones. I get the feeling that ship weapons like particle and meson weapons are illegal for the same reasons nukes are. CSC p22 says particles accelerators are "prohibited", while p 176 of the Main Rulebook says weapons like this are "strictly controlled, although they are not subject to the sweeping restrictions placed on nuclear weapons." I guess "strictly controlled" means hard to get papers?  When you think about it, PAs are more powerful weapons in space combat than nukes are (3d6+radiation vs 2d6+rads). I haven't seen a Mongoose write up on Particle accelerators, but in the Classic High Guard book it had a section on planetary defenses and how starship weapons could be used to attack ground targets from space. According to that book, particle accelerators were totally ineffective against targets under an atmosphere. But "targets on trace or vacuum planet should surrender." Not much detail, but by the sounds of it PAs in a vacuum are like guns that can fire an unlimited number of nukes! The issue seems to be the rads. Anything that can irradiate an area seems to be off limits. 

In Law, as in Science, never assume that there is a restriction or limitation without clear proof.

Wolfen said: In Law, as in Science, never assume that there is a restriction or limitation without clear proof. Fair to say.  Well nukes are prohibited. That much seems pretty clear.  EDIT: Only just noticed Pakkrat's post. must have missed it before. "Colonel Lloyd Robertson was friends with the Duchess of Mora. For the nukes, it was possible he purchased license to load nuclear missiles on a ship at the time was to be a registered Mercenary unit for hire. Same for the Particle Accelerators." That's kind of what I was looking for. Some kind of high up imperial hand wave is what we really needed, and there it is.  So the only headache now is the crystal and our psions.