Soldierly Honesty (and spies)

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by SuedodeuS

A spy is breaking the laws of the country he's in, but that's OK, as this is a hostile country to his own.

Actually it's not OK. Look at it again. The part about obeying the laws of your home country in an area of little or no law makes it pretty clear if you are Honest you must obey *both* the laws of where you are and of your own nation.

Of course it then goes on to contradict itself with all that stuff about fair trials and it being OK to steal at great need but not murder, even though a lot of places have harsher laws against stealing than against murdering the peasants....

I think the problem is Honesty got written with a modern American bias and never revised to a generic form. It can't quite decide which of two different disadvantages it is - Compulsion (obey any laws that apply to you) and Code of Honor (good citizenship of a liberal state). I think these are about -15* and -5 flat points respectively. A spy could not have the first (just the [intent] to spy is a crime most places), the second would be at worst slightly inconvenient, constraining you from using the more intrusive tactics against targets who might possibly be innocents.