Slavers / SLAVERS

SOME OF THE TYPES OF CRIMINALS:

PIRATES

Piracy is a growing epidemic in the UEE. Pirates can work solo or in groups (known as packs). As far as criminals go, pirates are the most diverse. Each pack generally operates by a loosely specified set of rules but there’s little camaraderie between pirates, as they will steal from each other as often as they steal from Civilians or tip the law on their competition without a moment’s hesitation. Some operate by a code of one sort or another, but others couldn’t care less.

SMUGGLERS

Transport of illegal cargo has become a great way for haulers and shippers to earn Credits on the side. The types of cargo that fall under this category can be anything from stolen merchandise to illegal drugs to contraband weapons to slaves. Sometimes they might not even know what they’re transporting, just another crate slipped in among the legitimate cargo.

Professional smugglers often use all manner of technological subterfuge to slip their product past the eyes of Customs, Law Enforcement, or Advocacy personnel. They will have counterscan technology, forged ship-tags, dummy crates or even concealed cargo holds to avoid detection.

SLAVERS/SENTIENT TRAFFICKERS

Trafficking Sentient cargo is a risky proposition. Even among criminals, slavers are generally regarded as scum.

Even so, slavery still exists in corners of the UEE. Sometimes it’s dressed up with names like indentured servitude, but it is slavery, nonetheless. Some incredibly unscrupulous Corps will hire slavers to “recruit” employees for sledge camps (distant mining settlements that use manual labor to dig through rock). Slaves are also purchased to fight in gladiatorial rings or for off-grid scientific experimentation.

Slaves can come from any culture: Human, Banu, Tevarin, or Xi’An. Some Traffickers have even been known to abduct aliens from developing worlds.

There are two phases to any slave’s introduction to servitude. Traffickers can handle one or both of these phases. First they are snatched. This can happen in the largest cities or most remote settlements. Then they are transported. Different trafficking outfits have different methods (this will usually indicate how sophisticated their operation is). Some throw them in a cage like any other live cargo, while others will anesthetize their products and transport them in scan-shielded coffins. Sometimes tracking studs are embedded into their bodies (usually as a visible marker on the wrist), coded so their owner can easily locate them but also to indicate that they are enslaved.

SYNDICATES

Whoever said crime doesn’t pay clearly wasn’t thinking on a macro level. Crime can be incredibly lucrative if you have the resources to not get caught. Syndicates include any group of people bound together as a single entity for the purposes of criminal enterprise. There are probably hundreds of syndicates of various sizes throughout the UEE. The larger syndicates can handle a wide variety of illegal services (drugs, slaves, and smuggling) while others are specialized (hit squads, for example). Even though any group of like-minded criminals could classify as a Syndicate, the name has a connotation of a Mafioso-type organization (in composition/influence, not appearance).

While we have alluded to the existence of syndicates in the lore but haven’t really introduced any, so the sky’s the limit for your own fiction. Treat them like any other character and ask yourself questions about how they’re able to function outside of the law: do they own the local police? Maybe they only steal from other criminals? How public are they? Some syndicates want their name to carry weight while others prefer to stay out of the public (and even criminal) consciousness.

INFOAGENTS

More of a personality than an official position, a good infoagent is the nexus of local news and information for his or her planet and system. They keep their ears to the ground and their eyes open, trying to keep abreast of what’s going on around them: who’s got work, who’s looking for work, who’s flying into the system, who’s on their way out …

We have already described infoagents in an earlier dispatch. Most pertinent to our discussion here, there are also the illegal ones. These shadowy information brokers are the local fixers for the criminal element. They can either represent a local syndicate or they can be freelancers, but these infoagents are the ones to talk to if you’re looking to make a smuggling run or you’ve got some boosted product to offload.

My information is sketchy on the new rules, but it’s clear the main point is keeping your mouth shut about who is on payroll and who isn’t