Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Starships, page 3

On to page 3. The Traveller’s Aid Society gets another mention, then we move into some of the fun things that can happen during space travel, such as hijacking, piracy, accidents, and misjumps. We are assured that space travelers are always worried about these things. Okay, then.

Hijacking is done for fun and profit; starships can be useful anywhere in the galaxy, so there will always be lazy and bad people who want what someone else has built. Therefore, starships will generally have protections against such people, including anti-hijacking programs, personality profile scanners, armed guards, etc. And if you’re on someone else’s ship, hand over your weapons.

That still doesn’t stop the hijackers, of course; there’s always going to be somebody who thinks they can beat the system and take the really expensive ship over. In fact, there’s a 1-in-216 chance that someone will do that every time you board a ship; roll an 18 on 3D and there’s a hijacking attempt.

In that case, you get to create a hijacking party and figure out how they’re going to do it. I would imagine it would be a lot easier to roll up a potential hijacking party and have them ready to go on the chance that you do roll triple-sixes. Planning ahead is a good thing. If you do it right, you can run your own little Die Hard scenario on board, too. Those are always fun.

Next up is ‘skipping,’ which means not bother to make your monthly payments on the starship that you definitely don’t own outright. And that happens more often than hijacking, apparently; roll a 12 on 2D, or 1 in 36 odds. And best of all, the person stealing the ship is already flying it, which makes it more difficult to stop them.

Of course, if someone does skip out, they’re going to have collection agencies after them. And these ones don’t stop at nasty phone calls; heavy artillery will be available to them if necessary. That should spice things up. Hey, there’s an easy adventure idea: Hunt down the guy who stiffed your boss on seven million credits in owed payments and bring back the ship. Maybe you’ll get to take over the payments yourself; wouldn’t that be special? There are rules and modifiers included for determining if someone is going to repossess on any particular world, too; the farther away you get from the real owner, the more likely it is that you’ll get away with it.

Next up, piracy. We just get a brief discussion of that; everyone knows what pirates are, but it also includes customs agents and blockades as similar scenarios. More details will come later in the book. I can’t wait.

And of course, accidents happen in space. No details are given yet; maybe on the next page.

If you're enjoying this Let's Read, don't forget to check out my first science fiction anthology, Bard Conley's Adventures Across the Solar System, available now on Amazon in both ebook and paperback formats.