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The ship doesn't have a big sticker saying "stolen" on it, and it reads like a secret project by the Company.
As for nobody, that is spelled out who all notices in the Concluding the Adventure section.
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As the writer of the second volume, I know we discussed it, and sometimes some details that could be helpful get cut for space. My interpretation as a freelance writer is that EJ is scared of how public acknowledgment of the Oliphaunt’s theft could hurt their stock shares. Sinjin, as a notorious crime boss, prefers to handle matters of revenge on his own rather than utilize law enforcement. So my interpretation is that the theft was never reported, though that does mean no one is looking for it. It just means that the PCs don’t have anything to worry about from Absalom station security. Again this is just my impression, but one I know I’ll be using when I GM this. I’m sure the developer, Jason Tondro, could speak more specifically. I know at least in my adventure there was text that addressed this specifically, but I believe it was removed for copyfit. At the end of the day, there’s only so much room on a page.
I think going to Absalom is pretty risky, but only with regard to avoiding notice of the Company and the Golden League. I encourage GMs to encourage their players to consider how they plan to stay under the radar. But in general, they should still be able to go where they want.
What licenses are required for a ship from any random near space or vast system to dock at Absalom Station?
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"Its secret so it is never reported stolen" is imo a very lazy cop out.
There is no need when reporting the theft that the ship is in any way special.
And even if its not reported, the PCs do not have any licenses for that ship so any routine check would show something strange.And if you still want to use the "No one mentions the theft of the ship excuse", the company could simply report them as having stolen freight and get the police to track them because of that.
Also, how to the PCs know that the ship is not reported stolen and thus completely safe to fly everywhere except metagaming and trust in the railroad?
1) This all hinges on whatever space popo finding the ship and turning it back over without an investigation and no questions asked, which isn’t gonna happen.
The Company wants as few people as possible knowing about what they’ve been working on, that’s not a cop out at all.
2) what licenses?
3) They don’t know. They don’t have any other options though, hence why they head to Absalom Station.
This, just like every other grievance you hold against Starfinder, is just another case of you not liking it, not something being bad or lazy.
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I think this the problem here is more or less, that Starfinder is "Pathfinder in Space" and that many people try to make something else of it by adding real world "mechanics" like licenses or interplanetary police forces.
It's more like Star Wars. Did you ever see a policeman ask Han for the license of the Falcon (which he, depending on your point of view, had stolen from Lando)? Did they were ever stop for carrying weapons?
Don't overthink things (Licenses are nowhere mentioned in any book).
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I believe the licenses being referred to in this instance are in regards to Item Level/Starship Tier. It justifies PCs gaining access to more and more powerful gear over time and not having access to said gear fresh out of character creation as getting licenses that allow vendors to sell them items at that licenses level.
That being said, I think the Oliphaunt won't set off alarms because for all its state-of-the-art magitech, it's still the kind of starship the PC'S are licensed to fly, and any higher licensing they get will simply allow them to upgrade the Oliphaunt as they see fit.
It's not like Starfinder forces you to roleplay the act of GETTING these licenses anyway. It's generally assumed to be something that happens during a downtime montage in-between adventures. Besides that, Absalom Station sees a TON of starship traffic, so if the PC'S are discreet, which the module strongly encourages, the idea is they get lost in the shuffle and since the people after them are going to be discreet too, by the time they sift through all that data to learn the PC'S visited AS, they'll probably be long gone.
I'm pretty sure that unless a ship is specifically reported to whatever authority (Stewards for absalom), said authority assumes that ship's operators are also it's owners unless they do something to draw attention to themselves.
An important note: The abstraction isn't always licenses. It also includes contacts among corporate entities, organizations like the starfinders, blackmarket dealers, etc.
Mostly, it's a way of moving away from the whole PC: 'I want [specific item]', GM 'Oh, well let's see, this merchant doesn't have that, but they have [list of useless items the PC doesn't want]'. Besides that whole mechanic being boring and annoying, starfinder just has too much stuff for there to be any random list of items. That's on top of the fact that sellers probably fabricate items on demand out of UPBs instead of having a stock.
I'm still reading the book, but I'd assume the person directly responsible for the stolen ship might want to keep it under wraps, so she can try to recover it herself without losing her job.
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Otherwise, hacking your ship's transponder seems easy enough to do with a computers/engineering check:
CRB:
The starship’s frame is also built with a transponder that is essentially the ship’s “address” for standard system-wide and unlimited-range communications (see page 430); this transponder can be turned off, during which time the starship can’t send or receive messages, but neither can it be tracked down by conventional means.
Thus many criminal enterprises maintain virtual mail drops or black-market relays, trade in counterfeit transponders, or simply turn off their transponders and run dark. These transponders are standard on all starships and function as a primary means of ship identification
They certainly don’t seem the most secure or reliable system in a ship!
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On how Absalom Station handles ship traffic:
Pact Worlds
The Stewards, the Pact Worlds’ primary peacekeeping force, also maintain a headquarters on Absalom Station, and local laws allow corporations to employ private security in their holdings, so citizens sometimes find Absalom Station’s legal system a jurisdictional nightmare, while savvy criminals often manage to slip through the cracks. Those in the know often warn that the station is never more than one misstep away from chaos, as security contractors and militant zealots wage shadow wars with street gangs and each other, alien ambassadors negotiate world-shaking trade deals, and explorers go to any lengths to beat rivals’ claims to new planets. Still, station security does the best it can, and most denizens of Absalom Station live and work in relative safety—at least in the nicer neighborhoods.
[...]
Docks are assigned by Absalom Traffic Control, yet this is more than just a question of space, as different docks all have different characteristics. A ship full of gilled kalo, for instance, would likely prefer to dock near the flooded chambers of the Puddles, while most well-off merchant captains would rather fly into the sun than pay Little Akiton’s unofficial “docking fees” or watch their cargo walk away on its notoriously crime-ridden docks.
I mentioned in some other topic, the more "normal" Pact Worlds hardly seem to be police states - they are much closer to a classic liberal form of government, and just a couple of steps away from anarchy. Blame it on the Gap, I guess.
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Eline Reisora keeps the theft of the Oliphaunt secret because loss of the ship would ruin her career and, because she is a Kalistocrat, her eternal life. She sends bounty hunters and assassins after the PCs to get the ship back, so she can bring it back to the Horse Eye Orbital Plate in time for the EJ Corp Board of Directors to see it pass its tests on time (or at least, not so far behind schedule that she gets in trouble). The Oliphaunt is simply never reported as stolen.
This is not a "criminal AP." If we judge it according to that standard, it's going to fail. What kind of AP is it? It's an AP about working class characters who believe they should get an honest day's pay for an honest day's labor. Sometimes, they don't have enough money to pay the bills, and on those days, they have to make some difficult choices. Sometimes they have to do things they don't like. But they're not flying from planet to planet to "do crime," and honestly, I think what they want more than anything is just to be left alone. And that's harder than it sounds, as I think a lot of us understand from just living in the world.
Your campaign may vary.
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Better try failed states like Somalia. No gun control, no control over who enter and exits, an ineffective police, etc.
Sure, criminals have their ways to bypass security. And are the PCs career criminals? Do they spend the first half of the adventure to make criminal contacts, doing favours for them in preparation for stealing the ship so that they can then bypass the security measures and not get instantly tracked?
You forget that docks is more like an airport. No matter how chaotic it is inside the station, there is no way that people can dock on a station without control taking a good look at their ships and their IDs. If you want to bypass this you need to know people, either those who look away on purpose or people who can forge you all you need.
Is a dock really like a modern airport?
Or is it more like driving into a city on earth, or perhaps an airport pre-9/11. Where there's no checkpoints, no searches, a bare minimum of security that really only responds to a problem, and does not search for problems.
Will station control really take a good hard look at random ship X that arrives? Or will they only take a look if their systems flag is as stolen or from a hostile power?
I think the answer tends towards the second scenario.
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Looks like you're projecting waaay too many of our current preconceptions into the setting without much basis to do so. This isn't even Earth's future.
More on ship's behaviors on Absalom Station:
The Armada
Absalom Station’s unofficial fifth sector isn’t actually on the station at all—it’s the so-called Armada, a vast and shifting swarm of ships, both transient and permanent, that constantly orbits the station. By spurning the station’s docks but still remaining nearby, the crews of the Armada’s ships can gain many of the benefits of living on Absalom Station without being subject to more than the most basic laws and taxes. Ships constantly raft together to make black-market deals, and some of these conglomerations have become permanent, forming tiny space stations in their own right. Still, the majority of Armadans are simply independent ship crews who feel safer keeping to themselves or aren’t interested in paying recurring docking fees. The government of Absalom Station is content to let ships remain in the Armada indefinitely so long as their crews don’t cause trouble, as they appreciate the convenience and safety of having some of their less savory elements separated from innocent citizens by a mile of hard vacuum.
Seems like just the place to lay low, if you don't feel like becoming a space pirate. Doesn't seem to require one to be a career-criminal to join in the fun/freedom.
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Or is it more like driving into a city on earth, or perhaps an airport pre-9/11. Where there's no checkpoints, no searches, a bare minimum of security that really only responds to a problem, and does not search for problems. Will station control really take a good hard look at random ship X that arrives? Or will they only take a look if their systems flag is as stolen or from a hostile power?
Based on what I quoted from Pact Worlds, definitely.
Absalom Station strikes me as more of a space bazaar than anything else.
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Eline Reisora keeps the theft of the Oliphaunt secret because loss of the ship would ruin her career [...]
As I expected!
Looks like you're projecting waaay too many of our current preconceptions into the setting without much basis to do so. This isn't even Earth's future.
I am applying a minimum of common sense to the setting.
1. Docking bays are in short supply, thus its not a unrestricted coming and going like the car analogy. Instead they have to be handed out. And to do that Absolom would need to know whom they are giving them to2. Every nation wants control of their borders, only failed states do not have that. So a single point of entry is perfect for identity checks
3. Licenses and IDs are necessary for a modern society. How otherwise do you know who own which starship for example?
4. The technological base exists to conduct many of the checks mentioned above automatically. Transponders, cameras, genetic scanners, ID checks, etc.
5. Absolom is not a pirate haven which flaunts the checks to attract people who are wanted. So those checks would be in place.
1) Source for this claim in reagrds to Absalom Station?
2) Actually that's mostly an American thing. And Absalom Station isn't a nation, it's a system wide trading space port.
3) Again, source for this claim as applies to Starfinder ships?
4) Absalom station is a merchant hub, not a police state.
5) It's a merchant hub, actually read and provide what checks they do enforce rather than making up what they do.
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Thank you Jason Tondro for clarifying that. My question is answered and I look forward to the bounty hunters going after the PCs.
First one is in volume 2, and he’s a doozy!
1) they said nothing about them being in short supply. The most those posts show is pay your docking fees and your good. And that’s even assuming they dock inside the station and in the Armada or stash the ship and go in another way.
2) Having a passport and “control our borders” are two very different things. Again, where’s this “have to prove they’re a Pact World citizens” requirement come from?
3) Yes Ragi brought up the Transponders, which are basically identification/gps unit for the ship itself, not a paper trail of ownership. It’s says ship A is ship A, not ship A is owned and insured by pilot B and may only be flown by pilot B.
4) excuse you?
5) Again, actually provide what checks they do beyond basic fees rather than assuming and making things up.
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Based on what's written in the PAct Worlds book and quoted here I would go with The Ragis interpretation (more "wild west" then "USA today").
At the end it's more of a fantasy setting/world then a hard scifi/near future setting.
But that is the fun/good thing on P&P RPGs, everybody can make the setting/world how (s)he like to play it. ;)
Well, the ship was never reported as stolen, so the PCs don't have to worry about flying completely under the radar to access Absalom Station. This discussion became off-topic for this subforum.
How they know it wasn't reported is another thing, but I suppose there might be a public database for such things, to consult when you are purchasing a new ship or something.
And I guess they can count with the station's protection against the golden league somewhat, as long as they stay in the safer areas.
When the central plot point of the AP is stealing a ship, then the PCs should actually steal it and have to deal with the consequences.
... you do realize there’s 5 more books in this adventure, right?
The PCs are victims of the criminals! And the system.
The criminal AP will probably be the Space Pirate AP.
The criminal AP will probably be the Space Pirate AP.
I hope they think about how piracy changes because of the drift and how hard it is to track down a ship outside of civilized space (near a planet or station).
Space Pirate AP is where they introduce rules for space shanties.
My interpretation of the pact worlds always likened them more to the European Union, including the freedom of movement between citizens of the member states, which would include Absolom Station.
So I'd imagine that as long as the PC's are pact worlds citizens or can at least pass themselves off as such they can dock while avoid raising any red flags & drawing unwanted scrutiny onto the ship.
You’re letting your analogies over ride the actual setting.
People don’t have to “prove” their citizens of the Pact Worlds to use Absalom Station, that’s not a thing in Starfinder.
You’re letting your analogies over ride the actual setting.
People don’t have to “prove” their citizens of the Pact Worlds to use Absalom Station, that’s not a thing in Starfinder.
I'd say it isn't baseline but it's a thing they anticipate some GMs wanting to put in, and have provided for it via the computers skill creating forgeries, and even an Envoy expertise talent that will let you whip up a license, citizen documents, passport, and/or visa in a full round action if you're playing out that sort of thing.
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Park in the Armada, take a shuttle in, done.
The GMs could, and a mandate across the board the setting adheres to are two completely different things.
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Except that because of how the Drift and the Starstone works, Absolom Station is the outside border which the EU also controls. So the PCs need to prove that they are Pact World citizens upon entry, meaning immigration and customs.
If you're familiar with the opening to Dead Suns book 1, you'd notice there doesn't appear to be much in the way of visible immigration and customs for arrivals on the station itself.
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I do agree that this is matter of opinion on how "close to reality" you prefer setting to be. However, that doesn't change that you keep presenting your opinion in manner that is very abrasive. Yes people should chill out in general when it comes to opinions, but if you keep saying things in manner that insults writers, that isn't going to make other posters respond to you in calm manner.
But yeah, fact is that Starfinder is Scifi Fantasy setting. And that means its more Star Wars than Shadowrun in term of things like "what kind of encounters you can have". And part of that is "cool fights in relatively public places without being put in space jail for week".
As for "why" for that is In the game, the there aren't setting books to explain daily life of the setting yet. Maybe we will eventually get flavor book on bureacracy/laws/cultures/etc, maybe we will not. I think one reasonable assumption might be that lot of it is side effect of the Gap and anarchy that followed it. Like when they got a working government again, they weren't able to put things like gun control or requiring licenses for all starships back in condition, after all it has only been 300 years since end of Gap and some of planets in pact worlds were already pretty chaotic in nature. Or maybe Pact Worlds in general just had strong martial and anti regulation culture.*shrugs* Its part of why I say comparing Starfinder to Star Wars is good example, none of characters in that either seem to have reason given for having weapons or starships or such and no space cops around to ask them for permissions.
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None of real life countries popped out of nowhere on clean slate without history though.
Also no, Shadowrun is Cyperbunk combined with Urban Fantasy. Yes, Urban Fantasy is different from Scifi Fantasy. And yes it is weird, speculative fiction has lot of subgenres.
Also there’s plenty of structured societies in Starfinder. It’s not complete anarchy.
Indeed. But more thought needed to be given to how to get around in a stolen super powered starship. I think most of this could have been handled with a sidebar, though.
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Ok, the reason why SF works is because it's a game and not reality. ;)
But back to reasoning:
I mentioned the wild west because I think it's a good example of a society which existeted in some sort of anarchy and working goverment at the same time.
Let me explain:
You have the big cities, with a working police force,military etc. and then a few hundered miles away you have cities like Tombstone or even some backwater villages where the law is represented by the one with the biggest gun or the preacher (who then call himself Sheriff). And everybody can openly carry a gun.
I see Starfinder in a similar way, just on a larger scale. You have a few densly populated areas (e.g. Verces or Absalom), but even more backwater towns, villages, stations etc.
So if a ship drops out at Absalom the flight control only coordinate where it can park and don't really care whos ship it is. Why? because one ship is no danger and why should they care?
And yes the crew may carry guns and have nuclear weapons on board, but so also have all the other hundred of ships and crew ("guaranteed mutual destruction").
And if two crews gunning it out on the streets of Absalom, station security doesn't care as long as no bystander or station equipment is damaged (similar to gang fights in Shadowrun).
Regarding the ship licenses, I see ships more like cars today. Sure you have to have a license but do the police ask for your license and search your car if you come into a new town (In the EU this also counts for entering another country). And guess what? It works, no problem.
So if a ship arrives at Absalom flight control simply assign them a landing dock and if nothing is obvious fishy nobody ask for any papers (why should they?). Maybe they submit a standard "Welcome this are our station regulation" data package and thats it.
This is how I understand the Starfinder world and what I mean with "Wild West" - I hope this shed a little light on it.
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Sometimes, as a GM, you'll have to think for yourself.