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Jonathan_S wrote:

cthia wrote:But, can simply a new design be enough to assert probable cause? I got the feeling that customs inspections can't just be ordered willy nilly. Hauptman was outraged when Honor did it. It is an inconvenience and a potential waste of the time and resources of the freighter who is on a tight schedule.

Reminds me of when I got pulled over while driving a Lamborghini in California. The cop pulled me over simply so he could have a look under the hood. He was very apologetic. "I'm sorry, you weren't speeding or anything. I'm simply curious."

I was certainly speeding after he was done drooling, trying not to be late for work, even though the car belonged to the son of the company's CEO.

At any rate, the superfreighter would only become a Trojan horse after the galaxy has become accustomed to seeing it.

Hauptman was outraged for 2 reasons.
First because in practice Basilisk had not been performing the legally permitted customs inspections; and so his ships (and schedule) had gotten used to not having that delay. So he was a little pissed off that customs inspections spot checking started back up.

But the main thing that pissed him off is that after some smuggling was found on his ships Honor began treating all ships of his shipping line, fairly publicly, as likely smugglers. And as such instead of the randomized spot checks that customs inspections normally entail she ordered the maximum inspections supported by law on every single one of them -- full inspection of all cargo on each ship.
This take far longer than more routine spot inspections (and Basilisk had been unable/unwilling to perform even those).


But a customs inspection doesn't require probably cause. It's not a police search. (though you're still likely to get pushback if the inspections are applied arbitrarily or discriminatorily unless there's good reason to support it. Honor wasn't breaking the law by ordering Hauptman's ships to be searched most thoroughly, while not applying the same to other ships. But if she hadn't had good justification, both from the results of the more routine spot inspection and the additional finds turned up by the deeper scrutiny, then she'd have likely gotten into trouble, through the Admiralty as they bowed to political pressure to reign in someone who would have appears to be following a baseless vendetta.


But like I said, you don't need probable cause. Exactly what ships are subject to customs inspection would be controlled by laws we don't know the full details of. But almost assuredly any ship (other than those covered by diplomatic protections) that picks up or delivers cargo, personnel, passengers, or supplies within a nation's territorial space can be inspected by that system's custom agents. The part we don't know is whether simply using a nation's wormhole legally allows them to perform a customs inspection. (Nor do we know if simply passing through their territorial space without stopping would permit a customs inspection; however this would only apply in n-space, and except for using a wormhole - covered above - there's no legit reason for a freighter to drop out of hyper to drive through someone's system unless they were there for cargo, passengers, or supplies [all of which are accepted reasons for customs inspections]

Basically if a superfreighter was in somebody else's system they're either there for something that itself permits customs to inspect it, or else the fact that they're there without any legitimate business is suspicious enough to justify either the system defense force ordering it to leave, or else stopping and inspecting it as a suspicious vessel.

Another point that was mentioned in the text was that most of the merchies in the Verge were older, smaller ships (Tramps) - simply because a 8.5 Mon ships wasn't profitable (or required) for the verge.

Remember, the Evergeen ship that just got stuck in the Suez is, when fully loaded, a shade smaller than a Warrior CA - and the EverGiven is one of the largest container ships in the world. Now consider that all the ships backed up by the Suez incident might carry the same cargo as 1 or 2 8.5Mton freighters. Even that "normal" ship represents a massive quantity of freight.

So in a lot of systems, where the flow of interstellar goods is low, even a normal 8.5Mton frieghter is going to stand out. A Superfreighter? - Think a C-5 galaxy landing at a small town airport. You'll be lucky if the high school band isn't involved.

Apparently the crew size and operating cost of a 6+ mt freighter isn’t significantly less than a 2 mt freighter. And the cost of constructing the physical ship doesn’t scale linearly. You still need a fiendishly expensive engineering section, it just needs to be a bit more expensive.

So like today, where most container ships built at 15,000+ TEU vessels, big ships dominate trade. 3000 TEU ships are not that much less expensive to operate as a 20,000 TEU ship.

And one TEU is a 20 foot container equivalent.

kzt wrote:Apparently the crew size and operating cost of a 6+ mt freighter isn’t significantly less than a 2 mt freighter. And the cost of constructing the physical ship doesn’t scale linearly. You still need a fiendishly expensive engineering section, it just needs to be a bit more expensive.

So like today, where most container ships built at 15,000+ TEU vessels, big ships dominate trade. 3000 TEU ships are not that much less expensive to operate as a 20,000 TEU ship.

And one TEU is a 20 foot container equivalent.

The difference is a 2 Mton ship was built (and originally paid off) 200 years ago, while the shiny new 8.5 Mton ship rolled out of the factory jest a few years ago, and is still being paid off.

It's the same reason you see some businesses only use 10 year old trucks - their initial cost is far less, even though they have higher monthly upkeep costs.

However, a supermassive would be a different beast all together. No comp means massive grav plating everywhere to absorb all ship's thrust, or else all the cargo would need to be protected against 100 gs of accel. It probably effects every aspect of the ship's design. (like the ship can be wider, because you don't need to worry about the comp field, but negative aspects as well.)

Theemile wrote:

kzt wrote:Apparently the crew size and operating cost of a 6+ mt freighter isn’t significantly less than a 2 mt freighter. And the cost of constructing the physical ship doesn’t scale linearly. You still need a fiendishly expensive engineering section, it just needs to be a bit more expensive.

So like today, where most container ships built at 15,000+ TEU vessels, big ships dominate trade. 3000 TEU ships are not that much less expensive to operate as a 20,000 TEU ship.

And one TEU is a 20 foot container equivalent.

The difference is a 2 Mton ship was built (and originally paid off) 200 years ago, while the shiny new 8.5 Mton ship rolled out of the factory jest a few years ago, and is still being paid off.

It's the same reason you see some businesses only use 10 year old trucks - their initial cost is far less, even though they have higher monthly upkeep costs.

However, a supermassive would be a different beast all together. No comp means massive grav plating everywhere to absorb all ship's thrust, or else all the cargo would need to be protected against 100 gs of accel. It probably effects every aspect of the ship's design. (like the ship can be wider, because you don't need to worry about the comp field, but negative aspects as well.)

And a supermassive is unlikely to fit well with existing cargo handling infrastructure.

I guess it's possible that cargo (how ever it is containerize or grouped) is normally floated out loose in zero-g using handheld or small vehicle mounted tractor/pressor units; but I tend to doubt it.

No doubt there are systems where the ship's equipment and shuttles are the only things they can use to load / unload cargo; but most places seem likely to have some more efficient cargo handling infrastructure (which can't be a flexible about ships far larger than it was designed to accommodate)

Which would imply that while it carries far more cargo it'll be slower (read less economical) loading and unloading each container - resulting in more time losing money in "port" and less time getting the cargo delivered and getting paid.

Theemile wrote:

kzt wrote:Apparently the crew size and operating cost of a 6+ mt freighter isn’t significantly less than a 2 mt freighter. And the cost of constructing the physical ship doesn’t scale linearly. You still need a fiendishly expensive engineering section, it just needs to be a bit more expensive.

So like today, where most container ships built at 15,000+ TEU vessels, big ships dominate trade. 3000 TEU ships are not that much less expensive to operate as a 20,000 TEU ship.

And one TEU is a 20 foot container equivalent.

Jonathan_S wrote:The difference is a 2 Mton ship was built (and originally paid off) 200 years ago, while the shiny new 8.5 Mton ship rolled out of the factory jest a few years ago, and is still being paid off.

It's the same reason you see some businesses only use 10 year old trucks - their initial cost is far less, even though they have higher monthly upkeep costs.

However, a supermassive would be a different beast all together. No comp means massive grav plating everywhere to absorb all ship's thrust, or else all the cargo would need to be protected against 100 gs of accel. It probably effects every aspect of the ship's design. (like the ship can be wider, because you don't need to worry about the comp field, but negative aspects as well.)

And a supermassive is unlikely to fit well with existing cargo handling infrastructure.

I guess it's possible that cargo (how ever it is containerize or grouped) is normally floated out loose in zero-g using handheld or small vehicle mounted tractor/pressor units; but I tend to doubt it.

No doubt there are systems where the ship's equipment and shuttles are the only things they can use to load / unload cargo; but most places seem likely to have some more efficient cargo handling infrastructure (which can't be a flexible about ships far larger than it was designed to accommodate)

Which would imply that while it carries far more cargo it'll be slower (read less economical) loading and unloading each container - resulting in more time losing money in "port" and less time getting the cargo delivered and getting paid.

I can't agree with less economical. Increasing the carrying capacity of a freighter increases the bottom line and saves time and resources overall. As opposed to two smaller freighters on the same route to deliver the same amount of goods. Time significantly affects the bottom line. It is the same economics which governs 18 wheelers today. Which is one reason those SOBs are packed to the gills.

Do recall this topic the post I made about the long distance experience I had with an 18 wheeler. Some stops cannot be made because they are literally inaccessible to those huge rigs. And some of the stops which are accessible simply don't have the available manpower or equipment to handle certain rigs.

In the HV, per that thread, Captain Clayton talked about stevedores at a time when pure muscle was the norm until automation saved the day. I suspect some port of calls in the HV wouldn't be able to accommodate superfreighters, but then superfreighters wouldn't waste time on poorer systems. Regardless, certain affluent systems should be able to load the superfreighters easily. In fact, they should be easier to load, since they are so cavernous and accommodating. Plus, some of today's big rigs carry their own equipment, I imagine a superfreighter would come with its own accoutrements. At any rate, although big rigs take more time to load, they are certainly more economical in the long haul. Pardon the pun. So much so that it becomes feasible to hire extra workers.

Customs has a lot of rights and leeway to inspect. They aren't just looking for contraband goods, they are looking at the paperwork and the state of the engineering. Not sure if Astro Control is also performing inspections as the U.S Coast Guard does here but somebody has to do it and the people doing ship inspections for Customs would at least be able to look and check records. Massive freighters in the honorverse are going to take a lot of care in loading to both essentialy balance the load and to set up cargo so that there isn't the need to sort through the holds for any particular delivery. They will set up to put cargo is some coherent fashion to expedite unloading at ports (or transfer stations) on the route. Given that there is crew and they could use time in transit though hyperspace to shift cargo in advance of delivery they aren't exactly going to be "chipping paint" between systems.

Had a friend who worked for a shipping line. One of his stories was having to go down to the docks in the NYC are as U.S. Customs had "informaton" and he described them calling for various containers to be placed on the pier and opened. Full of blocks of chocolate wrapped in whatever they were shipped in. Customes started by pulling out perhaps half the load and then taking a really big drill and boring into some....chocolate then bits of metal (described as lead) and then they hit white powder...yeah major drug bust. And a mess. There was also a load of Christmas decorations- that was even messier- because a lot of breakable still got broken getting at the contraband stuff hidden is some of the packing. Determining if the vessels crew knew what they were carrying is a different question but lets just say that there were "delays" while they did their work.

From what we see in the books, a fair number might just use the Junction and continue on without stopping if they don't have anything to deliver to Manticore. There are the various cargo facilities that will accept transhipments and if there is a call to do that, then they would probably also load cargo to be dropped at Junction facilities that has a delivery at Manticore and just go on their way. Things going in for transshipment further on in different directions would get covered by customer as would the goods that would then be going in-system. At the moments, a lot of stuff is getting shipped to Manticore but if it is comming from Beowulf and destined for the orbital reconstruction, they probably would be going directly in-system, and get delt with relatively near the orbitals.

At this point,thge only reason a major Haupman ship would be going in-system at Basilisk would be to deliver something as the situation there has change vastly from when Fearless was there. There should be mostly private warehousing at the Basilsik terminus now just for the normal transshipment needs and repairs etc could be handled out there. Where RMN now has both a terminus picket of some strength and Customs with LACS and other vessels to handle the work load. Even after the Peep raid on the orbital infrastructure, the terminus ended up being untouched. And Basilisk would have more Customs enforcement in the in-system area. You have to remember that Haupman did move to clean up the problems on his ships and that would take pressure off his ships. There is also more traffic going that way to and from Silesia. How much of it would need to stop after or before transiting the terminus would depend on what they were carrying and for whom.

And, yes, the people doing ship inspections for RMN/Astro Control are going to want to look at anything differnt in construction or routine.

I think the problem of the cargo being under significant acceleration is a huge issue for giant ships. Nobody builds aircars to handle 20g for days. Nobody packs aircars into shipping containers expecting 20g loads. They expect them to be under maybe 1.some to zero g. If you hit them with a 20 g load you’d deliver a lot of expensive scrap.

If you are shipping something absurd like iron ore maybe that’s not a big deal. Of course the 10 million tons of iron ore hitting the structure at 20gs might be a tiny little problem...

Modern big ships have 20,000 or more containers. HV big ships have 200,000 much larger containers, which are also probably vacuum tight and packed in very tightly.

The idea of trying to inspect something like this is fairly absurd. You’d need literally a square km of land or deck to unload them all just to start the process.

kzt wrote:Modern big ships have 20,000 or more containers. HV big ships have 200,000 much larger containers, which are also probably vacuum tight and packed in very tightly.

The idea of trying to inspect something like this is fairly absurd. You’d need literally a square km of land or deck to unload them all just to start the process.

Which is probably why Harrington asked the Bosen to recommend an "experience" (heavy on the possibly shady side) to be paired up with Scotty on those checks. Horace Harkness had lots of experience and knew things so he was a great way to teach the young officer and get the job done. Scotty learns and everybody is happy....except the people they catch doing things wrong. Like the customs tags that had been fiddled with.
Mostly when your doing stuff like this you are looking for what doesn't look quite right or out of the ordinary. Does that paperwork match what you can look at? Why are they doing something "this way" rather than that. Little stuff. And blatant stuff.

Basilisk had been a long time without effective -if any- actual inspections and the people who were smuggling knew that and perhaps were not as careful as they should have been. There is also a tendency for people to accept what has been cleared by someone (anyone) earlier as ok and once that ship left Basilisk and that particular group of containers was transshipped off at the Junction or somewhere else they may not have gotten the scrutiny that Horace provided.
No, you can't check everything but you can do more than just go through the motions and sign off. If nothing else, having diligent, honest, inspectors will help cut down on the people trying to slip stuff through and as you gain experience you start to get a feel for what might not look quite right. Where did stuff come from? Where is it going? How in hell did someone route what is listed on the manifest though here? Details. And there is one hell of incentive to actually catch a smuggler or a contraband shipment even if the crew doesn't have any knowledge of it and it's just more cargo.

kzt wrote:Modern big ships have 20,000 or more containers. HV big ships have 200,000 much larger containers, which are also probably vacuum tight and packed in very tightly.

The idea of trying to inspect something like this is fairly absurd. You’d need literally a square km of land or deck to unload them all just to start the process.

Which is probably why Harrington asked the Bosen to recommend an "experience" (heavy on the possibly shady side) to be paired up with Scotty on those checks. Horace Harkness had lots of experience and knew things so he was a great way to teach the young officer and get the job done. Scotty learns and everybody is happy....except the people they catch doing things wrong. Like the customs tags that had been fiddled with.
Mostly when your doing stuff like this you are looking for what doesn't look quite right or out of the ordinary. Does that paperwork match what you can look at? Why are they doing something "this way" rather than that. Little stuff. And blatant stuff.

Basilisk had been a long time without effective -if any- actual inspections and the people who were smuggling knew that and perhaps were not as careful as they should have been. There is also a tendency for people to accept what has been cleared by someone (anyone) earlier as ok and once that ship left Basilisk and that particular group of containers was transshipped off at the Junction or somewhere else they may not have gotten the scrutiny that Horace provided.
No, you can't check everything but you can do more than just go through the motions and sign off. If nothing else, having diligent, honest, inspectors will help cut down on the people trying to slip stuff through and as you gain experience you start to get a feel for what might not look quite right. Where did stuff come from? Where is it going? How in hell did someone route what is listed on the manifest though here? Details. And there is one hell of incentive to actually catch a smuggler or a contraband shipment even if the crew doesn't have any knowledge of it and it's just more cargo.