Sneaking onto a planet at TL 10

[Extrarius]

Is there a reason that there couldn't be "black market gates" (constructed by organized crime groups on developed planets) that will pair with any "properly synchronized" gate on a smuggler ship (or maybe only with the crime group's transport ship so you hand off the cargo in space)? If I wanted high volume smuggling, that seems like a good way to get it, and you can also easily ensure you get your cut of everything coming in or out because you control the best ingress/egress point for black market goods.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Extrarius

Is there a reason that there couldn't be "black market gates" (constructed by organized crime groups on developed planets) that will pair with any "properly synchronized" gate on a smuggler ship (or maybe only with the crime group's transport ship so you hand off the cargo in space)? If I wanted high volume smuggling, that seems like a good way to get it, and you can also easily ensure you get your cut of everything coming in or out because you control the best ingress/egress point for black market goods.

Yeah, the bypass to any kind of gate-based security is to obtain a substitute gate without the security.

There could easily be multiple competing black-market gates.

A somewhat brazen but perhaps effective cover for a black market gate would be as a transshipment facility. A space warehouse parked outside of customs where goods can be held for transfer between ships or other purposes. Certain cargos get diverted through the illegal gate to ground-side and replaced with dummies of some sort.

[Langy]

Another, more exciting, option is to bypass the space-based security entirely by pulling an Adama and jumping straight into the atmosphere. Then you can use normal air-based stealth tech to hide your ship while you drop your goods off and make your escape.

[Wanderer]

Or you could go with the old fashion 'blockade runner' way. If the smuggled goods are lucrative enough it would not be unconceivable for the smugglers to have specially build ships with at least equal performance (as in acceleration and mps) to police/border guard/patrol designs which might offer nice way in - especially if the smuggled goods are not considered excessively harmful, somewhat akin to prohibition era. Of course if the smuggling involves often more harmful goods (say narcotics instead of tobacco and booze) then the resources - and capabilities - of the patrol would be likely to be greater.

[ArcLocke]

This discussion just puts me in mind of the "Trash" episode of Firefly. In the opening scene, Mal meets an old army buddy on a less-populated planet where they exchange goods they're working together to smuggle. It would take some work, but if the smugglers are taking part in these "relay runs," it's just a matter of working with a legitimate on-planet front to sell their goods on legal markets.

It is kind of the social engineering method you were trying to avoid, but with the limitations you've put on interplanetary travel, it's going to be difficult to come up with some kind of technological answer that won't be countered by planetary LEOs. In a high-tech setting, low-tech solutions are sometimes the easiest to work out.

A positive side-effect of running it this way is that you can have story hooks involving the Smugglers Guild: different crews are fighting over high-paying contracts, the fences are being rounded up by the law, the cargo your crew just picked up is a lot more dangerous than they were told, etc.

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by Diomedes

In that case, I suppose I need to come up with suitable limitations on cloaking devices to prevent them from being common in naval doctrine.

How about Cloaking Devices have a severe size limitation - only a fighter or small shuttle could fit inside a cloaking field. Add in a power limitation, so that those same fighter/small shuttle can't carry sufficient power to use a cloak for any length of time (or even at all).

The technology seemingly becomes useless - nothing big enough to have enough power is small enough to fit inside a cloaking field.

BUT!

Big ships can have internal Cloaking Fields which can be used to Cloak a Cargo Bay (or similar internal area) from external sensors. Hide the contraband not the ship ?

The smugglers still need to be allowed to fly in and land on a planet, but their ships won't set off any contraband detectors?

[jason taylor]

We will assume you are mere tax-dodgers and not contraband smugglers because drugs and arms are to evil for most PCs unless the arms are for a Glorious Fight For Freedom or whatever.

Under this hypothesis:

The possession of the goods desired is not illegal.

Neither is the possession of the money exchanged for it.

Therefore what is illegal is conducting this exchange within the territory of the state which controls the planet without paying taxes.

Under this scenario the exchange can take place in a smuggler's camp in the outer worlds. They are still claimed by the offended state(otherwise it would not be smuggling). But the offended state hasn't the resources to do more then the most miniscule patroling.

Alternatively you dock in space and conduct the exchange.

Once the on-planet merchant who desires your goods has obtained them and paid for them he is safe. It is perfectly legal to possess the goods. He may need muscle to threaten his crew if there is a possibility of blackmail. And he may need a skilled launderer in case bookkeeping looks suspicious. But that is his problem. The traders are home free and can speed off to the next system with their illegal gains.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

We will assume you are mere tax-dodgers and not contraband smugglers because drugs and arms are to evil for most PCs unless the arms are for a Glorious Fight For Freedom or whatever.

There's plenty of contraband available to moderately moral PCs.
-Wanted persons.
-Identifiable stolen goods (including things like the marked ration bricks in Firefly).
-Goods of various sorts (information, medical, technological, or leisure) banned on grounds of local 'moral' or safety concerns the PCs don't share.

...for instance.

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Under this hypothesis:

The possession of the goods desired is not illegal.

Neither is the possession of the money exchanged for it.

Therefore what is illegal is conducting this exchange within the territory of the state which controls the planet without paying taxes.

...that's not how smuggling works, generally speaking.

Smuggling evades barriers or taxes on import, not on sales. Transferring the goods outside of the customs threshold means you're a legitimate merchant, and leaves your buyer to either pay tariff or smuggle the goods.

What you're talking about might be black marketeering, but not smuggling.

EDIT:
Well, depending on the legalism, you might be doing the smuggling by bringing the cargo into the transfer location, and the buyer not smuggling anything. But they'd probably be chargeable as an accessory. And maybe some other things too.

That said, handing stuff off to a ship that isn't subject to customs scrutiny is a valid smuggling method, if there are such ships.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

We will assume you are mere tax-dodgers and not contraband smugglers because drugs and arms are to evil for most PCs unless the arms are for a Glorious Fight For Freedom or whatever.

Heh. PCs I've encountered tend to turn into a European's vision of the NRA when you try and take their weapons off them, so you could even make a case for them having to smuggle their own weapons onto the surface, let alone to sell.

And 'drug smuggling' is a good values-dissonance plot: the whole "flying booze (or, for that matter, Bibles*) into Saudi" allows you to run a contraband smuggling scenario without players getting squeamish. Not that I've had many squeamish players...

*Unless one considers these "arms (are) for a Glorious Fight For Freedom " ... but perhaps we'd best leave the lid on that tin.

[Jürgen Hubert]

The easiest way is always to lie about who you are, or what you are carrying.

If there is lots of traffic, then local traffic control simply might not have the resources to double-check everything. Especially if you can arrange for a timely distraction to divert their attention so that they will just wave you through...