NiS/Background
Member of The Necromunda Ring
[ Join Now | Ring Hub | Random | Previous | Next ]
Warp Travel
Although warp travel always carries some residual risk, under the psychic light of the Astronomican, it is a relatively safe and almost routine occurrence. Navigators are able to take massive trade barges across tens-of-thousands of light years in a single jump, and still manage to return to real-space within close proximity to their designated arrival point. Although it happens, it is only the few and exceedingly unlucky who are the last crew for the graveyard hulks which are occasionally found drifting through imperial space.
On the Eastern Fringe, however, warp travel is a much more dicey proposition. Near the boundary of human space, the Astronomican's light is dim, and flickers like a near gutted flame. Sometimes, it winks out all together, causing havoc to those who happen to be traveling the shipping lanes. Navigator's often refer to this event as a "Soul Eclipse," and Navigators who are used to basking in the light of the Emperor are often disorientated by the Astronomican's sudden absence. It is not common, but not unknown, for a weak willed Navigator to die, or go insane, when he experiences his first eclipse. When this happens, he usually takes his crew with him.
With the dim to non-existent Astronomican, the Navigator's natural abilities are severely impaired. Although they still have an edge over normal humans using only the warpdive to navigate the currents of the warp, their safe operating range isn't all that much greater than what a normal humans can achieve. Typically, near the fringe, a Navigator or normal human can safely jump 5-10 light years, and even these jumps are more risky than the many-thousand light year jumps in the segments surrounding Terra.
By making these short jumps, or "skips," a ship can reorient itself and navigate effectively, but each skip increases the time and danger of the journey, because the most dangerous portion is entering and leaving warp space. When doing either, one can never be exactly certain what conditions will be like on the other side, and many of an unlucky captain has skipped up into a warp eddy, or skipped down into an asteroid shower. To make matters worse, pirates know as Skip Raiders often wait at popular drop points to ambush ships as they come in out of warp space. Although they are hunted relentlessly, they usually avoid capture, because after making their raid they flee to the other side of the Ultima line, past which Imperial vessels wont travel.
Privateers
One of the interesting side effects of the weak Astronomican is that it has created a Niche market for independent traders on the Eastern Fringe. In the Imperium, warp travel is safe enough that the economics favor massive barges to transport good from one side of the galaxy to the other. However, no sane investor is willing to risk hundreds of men and billions of Imperial Eagles (IEs) in cargo on a single jump. Instead, it makes the most sense to spread the risk over a large fleet of small ships, so if the warp swollows any one of them up, the losses are trivial. So often, smaller intra-system transports are refitted with warp drives and turned into what are called "Fringe Runners." These ships are cheap enough that it is within the means of an enterprising individual to raise enough money to put together a ship and crew to head into the Fringe in search of fame and wealth.
However, all that would be for nothing anywhere else in the Imperium, because warp trade is restricted to those merchants who can secure a Charter, which is usually hereditary, and always fabulously expensive. However, after the Heresy, none of the major trading cartels were willing to become involved in the fringe trade, because they didn't think the profit would be worth the risk. Afraid that the lack of trade would erode the Imperium's eastern boarder, the Ultima Segmentum's first High Lord, Maxwell finix al Tarkain instituted the Charter Privatus Licens, which means, roughly, "Private man, Unrestrained." And thus the Privateer was born.
The Charter Privatus is available without cost to anyone who owns a warp capable ship, and allows the bearer to travel unmolested over the eastern half of the Ultima Segmentum. However, even though the Charter Privatus is free, it is not unconditioned. If a ship commits piracy (attacking a ship in space under Imperial Charter), Heresy (communion with Chaos or an unsanctioned psyker), or Treason (fratranizing with xenos), then the charter can be revoked. Without a charter, a ship will be attacked on sight by any Imperial patrol and denied permission to land on any Imperial world, and if the ship is stranded, it is considered treason for another imperial ship to lend aid. Furthermore, since the ship is no longer chartered, raiding it is no longer piracy, so an unchartered ship attracts a lot of unwanted attention. In fact, some privateers specialize at hunting down and looting Skip Raiders and other pirates operating on the Fringe.
Another interesting feature about the Charter Privatus is that it is not within the power of a planetary governor to revoke, except for one of the aforementioned offenses. This means that for any misconduct or crimes committed within the atmosphere, the greatest sanction a planetary authority can levy on a ship is a denial of future landing rights. However, this protection doesn't extend to the cargo or crew, so the governor can still confiscate cargo, imprison the crew, or execute the captain, but it cannot stop the ship from lifting off.
This may seem like a horrible rule of law, but there was a method to Tarkain's madness. Given the relatively loose Imperial grip on the Eastern Fringe, Tarkain was afraid that corruption, double dealing, and greed would cripple his privateer fleet as planetary governors gobbled up his privateers. This way, he at least assured the privateer crew would have a chance to escape to spread the world to the other privateers to avoid the system.
Of course, some less than scrupulous privateers have used this as a license to touch down, commit all sorts of crime, and burn off-planet and out of the reach of the law. Several assassin groups are known to be doing just this. However, rather than cripple planetary governments (as many detractors suspected it would do), this law has created a lucrative bounty-hunting trade to collect the prices on these privateer's heads.
