[TML] Off The Books In A Lawless Startown

[Richard Aiken]

Jerry, ol' chap, I don't think you read what I wrote correctly . . .

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 12:08 AM, Jerry W Barrington
<jerry.barrington at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/19/08 11:47 PM, "Richard Aiken" <raikenclw at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Letting law enforcement lapse is the easiest way to show their
> > independence.  Since the Imperium can't control anything past the
> > extrality line (save for transports to/from the port itself), it can't
> > make them provide enforcement.  In the view of local politicians,
> > letting the Imperials suffer from a lawless regions right on their
> > doorstep gives them a little of their own back.  One can easily
> > imagine local politicos thinking: "If the off-worlders in the startown
> > can't handle their own problems, they can just go back onto the
> > starport where they belong."

See?  I'm talking about the startown being out of Imperial control,
not the starport.

> The locals don't *decide* to not enforce law on the starport.  As you said,
> it's extraterritorial.  They *can't* enforce law there, it's out of there
> jurisdiction.

Yep.

> The law there would be a branch of Imperial law, plus local starport
> regulations.

Actually, I'd say the law there - on the starport - is THE Imperial
law.  The civil law, anyway.  I don't see very much other territory
where it would apply.  The "local regulations" would be those of the
Imperial Starport Authority (or whatever the applicable bureaucracy is
called IYTU) and these probably wouldn't vary much from world to
world.  As the Imperium doesn't care about local regulations, why
would it's own starport regulations change much from place to place?

> There may be some Imperial law officers stationed there, if
> the Imperium thinks it's worth the cost.  And the locals may hire their own
> out of whatever tax/services money it has.

Are you talking about the starport or the startown?  Given your
initial mis-reading, I'd say you're meaning the starport.  But I'm
confused, as you also seem to have the locals putting law officers on
the *port.*

If the subject is the starport, the Imperium (more precisely, the High
Noble in charge of that world) would appoint someone as Imperial
Marshal.  This person needn't be a trained law officer, although such
would probably get preference.  On smaller ports, this post would
probably be just another hat worn by the starport manager.  In either
case, the standard starport security forces (usually Imperial Marines)
function as the actual beat cops.  If the subject is the startown, the
Imperials would have no official law enforcement presence there
(although they'll probably have need for unofficial enforcement on
occasion . . . enter the PCs).

As for the locals, they wouldn't have ANY official presence (law
enforcement or otherwise) on the starport, unless the Imperium let's
them put up an embassy or consulate, in which case their jurisdiction
would only apply within its walls.  I can see such an installation if
the starport is inconveniently far from the planetary capital (local
tech level would determine how far this is), but otherwise not.  Out
in the startown, the presence of local law enforcement would be minor,
for the reasons already stated.

> And while the Imperium can't *officially* tell the local or planetary
> government what to do, it *does* control the starport and the space to get
> elsewhere.  That's a pretty big carrot/stick!

Well, that would depend upon how significant interstellar trade is to
the local economy.  If it equals (say . . .) what the U.S. economy
does relative to the rest of the real world, then the Imperium does
have a large degree of unofficial influence.  If, on the other hand,
it equals the economy of East Timor, then the Imperium is (locally) a
voice howling in the wilderness.  In my campaign area - District 268
and immediate environs - Imperial economic clout tends toward the East
Timor end of this scale.

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein