MgT 2E - Referees Briefing 1 - Companies And Corporations.pdf

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R E F E R E E S B R I E F I N G 1 : C O M PA N I E S & C O R P O R AT I O N S
CREDITS
CLASSIC TRAVELLER
Marc Miller
Loren Wiseman, John Harshman, Frank Chadwick, Darryl Hany,
Winston Hamilton, Tony Svajlenka, Scott Renner, Doug Poe,
David MacDonald, Wayne Roth, Paul R. Banner.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
COMMERCIAL & SHIPPING
INDUSTRIAL & MANUFACTURING
OTHER FIRMS
APPENDIX
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13
19
MONGOOSE TRAVELLER
Author
Editor
Martin J. Dougherty
Matthew Sprange
Layout and Graphic Design
Will Chapman
Interior Illustrations
Amy Perret, Nuno Nobre
3D Model Design
Sandrine Thirache
Special Thanks
Marc Miller, Robert Eaglestone, Loren Wiseman
Traveller
©2016 Mongoose Publishing. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this work by any means without the
written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden. All significant characters, names, places, items, art and
text herein are copyrighted by Mongoose Publishing.
This game product contains no Open Game Content. No portion of this work may be reproduced in any form without
written permission. To learn more about the Open Game License, please go to www.mongoosepublishing.com.
This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United Kingdom and of the United States. This product is
a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual people, organisations, places or events is purely coincidental.
Traveller is a trademark of Far Future Enterprises and is used under licence.
Printed in China
INTRODUCTION
Economics is one of the fundamental driving forces in
any society, and Charted Space is full of groups trying
to make a living – or better, a big profit. Companies
and Corporations presents some of these groups along
with their agenda, their methods and any dark secrets
they may have. These commercial bodies are much
smaller than the great Megacorporations, but some of
them are major players in their own field. They might
be encountered as patrons, allies, opponents or victims
of the Travellers’ schemes, adding depth and colour to
that generic row of starport cargo brokers and putting a
backstory to that pile of freight containers.
The companies and corporations in this book can be
used in a variety of ways. They can be used as a quick
means of filling in some detail when the Travellers
decide to go off script, or can become a regular part of
the game as opponents, allies, patrons or simply part
of the scenery. Little details like a company logo on a
shipping container can bring a game to life, and can be
worked into the plot of a game to show that something
is not right.
If the Travellers find the logo of company that only deals
in electronics and cybernetics on a container of guns,
they will suspect something is amiss. The referee could
just tell them they know this company does not sell
guns, but it may be better to let the Travellers realise
for themselves. If they have dealt with this company
before, even just as a passing incidental detail a couple
of starports ago, the mystery will come to life in a
subtler way.
In short, this book contains a number of commercial
entities which can be used by the referee as part of
the backdrop or a key part of an adventure. Since the
Travellers keep encountering detailed companies, they
will not be able to guess which one is important to the
plot and which are essentially red herrings.
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COMMERCIAL & SHIPPING
Interstellar commerce is big business. It is also quite
small business, and every size of business in between.
Commercial and shipping firms range from a loose
alliance of starport brokers to major shipping lines
operating numerous merchant vessels. Technically, a
Free Trader is a single-vessel ‘shipping line’ and many
style themselves as such, but this is seen as highly
pretentious by the more important players in this sector.
Most savvy Travellers can tell the difference between
a Free Trader captain trying to sound more legitimate
and an actual multi-ship concern, but in truth there are
more than a few single-ship ‘lines’ that are worthy of the
title due to their professionalism and excellent service.
There are also a number of outright crooks who hide
behind a shiny corporate façade.
reputation as ‘the Free Trader’s friend’. It is unlikely
that the firm makes enough on most of these deals to
do more than offset its costs, but there are other
benefits to a close relationship with Free Traders.
One such benefit is a steady flow of low-level
commercial information. Free Traders pick up a lot of
rumours in the ports they frequent, and see a side of
the interstellar commerce marketplace that a broker in
a three-piece suit does not. Most of this information
is useless on its own, but when fed into Starlink’s
extensive commercial intelligence analysis network it
provides data on the flow of trade that might not be
available elsewhere. Major-port brokers know what is
bought and sold there, but often have no idea where it
ends up or who the final buyer might be. Starlink makes
it a priority to know, and uses this information wisely.
In addition to its normal shipping and brokerage activity,
Starlink often charters merchant vessels to carry a
cargo for it, or offers a profit-sharing deal whereby it
subsidises a trade run carried out by an independent
vessel. Knowledge of the end-market enables Starlink
to put just the right shipload of goods into a backwater
port with a solid expectation of a reasonable profit. The
vessel transporting the cargo gets part of the proceeds
and will usually come out ahead, and of course the
transporting vessel bears little of the financial risk
inherent in speculative trade.
Starlink Merchant Factors, Incorporated
Starlink is a small (by interstellar standards) corporation
which operates in the interstellar trade and commerce
sector. It has brokerages in several major starports,
especially along the Imperial-Aslan Hierate trade routes.
These are large and well staffed, with a legal team as
well as negotiators and commerce experts. Offices are
always situated in a prominent position, with expensive
but understated décor and an extremely professional
demeanour.
Most of Starlink’s business is simple buying and selling
of cargo from passing starships, including the provision
of brokerage services to third parties. The firm is a little
unusual for one of its size, in that it is quite willing
to broker very small, low-profit deals for Free Traders
and other single-ship operators. This has gained it a
This practice generates a modest but fairly steady
income for Starlink, and has endeared the firm to many
of the local Free Trader captains. There is, however,
another side to this activity. Starlink quietly dominates
the offworld trade of several minor worlds. Its ability
to flood the local market with exactly what it needs
tends to make the same ports less viable as trading
destinations for independent ships that are not affiliated
with Starlink. Those that are not providing Starlink with
commercial (and sometimes other) information are
frozen out of this lucrative market and can find their
own speculative trade undermined. The result is that an
increasing proportion of local trade ships are essentially
in the pocket of Starlink Merchant Factors Incorporated.
Why the firm might want this remains an open question.
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not be made for a very long time. If the client wants
confidentiality, they can pay someone else a whole lot
more to carry out the same job.
TCA has found a niche in the local commercial sector,
and the Scout Service is apparently quite happy with
the situation. Presumably the flow of information from
TCA members is deemed useful enough to be worth
essentially subsidising private business on the part
of the scout ship operators. Although TCA is a loose
organisation, and not really a business firm in the usual
sense, it does fulfil a traditional meaning of the term
‘company’, i.e. an association of individuals engaged
in the same enterprise. Its members look out for one
another and will occasionally gather several ships
together for some purpose.
The most famous incidence of this was when sixteen
Scout/Couriers mustered and a cargo of valuable
artefacts was placed aboard one of them, with the others
acting as decoys while the principal ship made its run.
Hiring sixteen starships for several weeks was not cheap,
but the gambit worked well enough that it has been
used on a smaller scale on other occasions.
TCA
It is quite difficult to find out what ‘TCA’ stands for, but
those in the know may reveal that it is an abbreviation
for The Courier Alliance. This is more than likely true,
since the ‘firm’ (it is really more of a loose association)
exclusively operates Type S Scout/Couriers.
The vast majority of these vessels are operated by former
Imperial Interstellar Scout Service personnel who have
been assigned a vessel when leaving to go on Detached
Duty. This means that most of TCA’s ships are old and
battered but serviceable, and more importantly they are
maintained by the Scout Service and cost the operators
nothing more than life support and running costs. Many
people associate small ships like the Scout/Courier with
the ‘small package trade’, which is often a euphemism
for smuggling. In fact, with such a low overhead a
Type-S operator can make a reasonable profit entirely
above the law… though that does not preclude the
occasional piece of smuggling if the opportunity arises.
TCA specialises in small-cargo shipping and courier
work, to which its vessels are well suited. They can
also carry a passenger or two, though not in great
comfort, and undertake a variety of mapping, survey and
contract-science operations for independent clients.
There are many who resent the fact that The Courier
Alliance has essentially been provided with its vessels
for free and can undercut operators who have mortgage
payments and other overheads, but there is little that
can be done about it.
Competitors often try to discredit TCA by pointing out
that its personnel are detached Scouts with a duty to
provide intelligence to their active-duty colleagues back
at the nearest IISS base. TCA members are quite open
about this, however, which makes it hard to present as
a dirty secret. TCA ship operators will confirm that any
chart they make or scientific mission they carry out will
be included in their next report, but that report may
Halberd Salvage and Rescue
Halberd Salvage and Rescue is primarily a salvage and
starship-breaking company. It has small yards at various
Class C starports where old or damaged ships can be
dismantled for spare parts. These yards sell components
but do not undertake repairs. However, starfarers will
often take the components they have bought out of the
yard and the landing pad across to their own ship where
they install them with the assistance of a technician
from the yard. This practice puts a little legal distance
between the company and the ship if something goes
wrong.
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