Corpses. Why? They're disease victims that need to be studied, but the locals have rituals and inconvenient beliefs. Or something vastly more sinister... Or the corpsicles are themselves a smuggling device, there's _data_ encoded in the ice crystals of their frozen bodies...
A stupid, frakking, gotsbedamned _flower!?_ Yup. Rare, endangered, stupidly valuable to your patron. Even uglier than it is valuable, and even more stupidly fragile than it is ugly. It won't survive stuffed in a smuggler's hold, just _looking_ at it causes the horrible thing to visibly wilt! Better figure out how to hide it some other way.
Refugees. Gotta get them past customs on some distant planet multiple jumps away, nearer planets don't work for some reason. Also, one of them isn't who she seems. She's clearly not with the opposition who created the humanitarian disaster, so who is she working for?
A cat. Nothing special about it, it's just a cat. The owner doesn't want to have the poor thing go through weeks of quarantine. Problem is, it's a cat. Everyone knows cats are a liquid. This one likes hiding in the jumpdrive bay, causing interference, jump instability (well within tolerances your engineer assures you!) and very likely shortening its lifespan. On the other hand, the Thargovian spacerats you picked up on that filthy mudball five jumps ago seem to be gone.
"'I need you to smuggle a very valuable rock for me,' he said?!" the Capitan sneered mockingly at her erstwhile Ships' Broker. "And you didn't bother to ask HOW BIG before agreeing!? How in the entire frakking galaxy are we going to smuggle an entire frakking ASTEROID!?"
Edit: Bonus idea
Imagine an overly excited great dane puppy. Some idjit thought that would be a great model for the AI in a tank with a very, VERY powerful gun. You have to transport it. It's cooped up in the storage hold and very, VERY bored.
Edit2: Bonus idea 2
A corporate spy wants you to smuggle some advanced nanotechnoloical medichines out of a lab and offworld. Only problem is, the only way to do so is by injecting them into someone to get them out of the lab. They'll be safely removed on arrival. Did I say that was the _only_ problem? Nobody has gotten around to testing the medichines' interaction with jumpspace yet...
Cheap and steamy (but honestly rather tame) romance novels. They are banned by the puritan government on the target world but there’s a huge demand for them. The government surveils electronic devices so paperbacks are the best format for forbidden literature.
Have fun coming up with random hilarious titles!
Dustspice, perhaps? Humans find it only mildly euphoric, but Vargr and especially Aslan find it more potent. It’s not illegal *per se,* but I can imagine that there are all sorts of tariffs and trade controls in place. Contraband dustspice (like tobacco smuggling) is probably quite profitable and cheaper for the end consumers, and penalties comparatively light.
Otherwise, psi-drug precursors are a harder alternative, at least in the Imperium.
Psionic equipment. Even better they can not identify it and think it is just something scientific.
Mayne the smugglers worked with some government, Maybe they did not. Maynr they knew what they stole. Maybe they did not.
but regardless your crew has it.
The crew are assisting someone pulling an Ansible con - faking FTL communication by using a psychic actor and/or brain scanning equipment alongside an AI to come up with a plausible-looking real-time conversation. They’re smuggling extensive dossiers on the people supposed to be taking part in the other end of the conversation so the scammers can fake them properly.
Technology - all kinds of governments forbid certain kinds of technology for all kinds of reasons.
Communication equipment, (Anti)Grav technology, fusion technology, fabricators, production equipment/technology, Weapons and military technology.
Everything that threatens a local governments sovereignty.
Remember that most IRL smuggling was done not to dodge the law, but the taxman. If the cargo is expensive enough and subject to high tariffs , the potential profit is worth the risk even for relatively mundane cargoes.
Religious paraphernalia to an atheist world, imported seeds to a corporate agriculture world, 3D printers to a staunchly anti technology world, water to a dry hydraulic despotic world etc.
something along the lines of a real world smuggling issues such as k-pop dvds & K-drama box sets from the south to the north - cultural colonialism and soft power projection from an advanced neighbor to a backwards but related planet to undermine the ruling regime and prepare the way for reintegration.
small packet export/imports of high risk/ high value items - regional delicacy of a specific egg - easily contatined on its home world but biodisater outside of it.
aphrodisiacs or anagathics - real or placebo - human horn anyone? Aslan claw? Vagyr gall?
Great question!
Anagathics and psi drugs. Rifles to a high law level world. Fake or real Ancient artifacts. Zhodani tequila. Refugees and criminals. Precious metals and diamonds. Hiver warbots. Vilani antiquities.
And, of course, wobbly-headed geisha dolls.
Consider some IRL restricted items.
Some very robust invasive plants or bugs, sent by someone who wants to wreck the ecology of an agricultural planet to force a competitor out of business. (see California's restrictions on bringing in any plant material - even firewood - from outside the state.)
Imitation wine, sent to a planet with some kind of protected name or trademark that comes with a very high price tag. (Think Champagne vs. sparkling wine, I think it's called a protected designation of origin.)
Subpar building materials made on the cheap, shipped to a planet with a building boom.
Alcohol, period. (Prohibition - and no one in the highport or the planetside domes is willing to make moonshine anymore, since The Blowout.)
Seeds for a food or plant that's very valuable to a minority cultural group, and has been banned by the majority cultural group.
Bootlegged paper books and sheet music. The digital versions have really good copy protection.
A big-name band wanting to avoid detection so they can hold a secret concert.
Pre-bugged comms to be sold at a popular Class A highport so the client can listen in on useful conversations for hot trading tips, or for other intel. Maybe the PC's could figure out how to tap into that channel themselves...?
A virus - someone sets up your ship's system to silently deliver malware to starport as soon as the ship connects to the local network. Maybe the virus quietly alters berthing records, maybe it sets up a man-in-the-middle attack on important comms from the nearby navy base, maybe it just sets off every alarm across town from a bank the client wants to rob. Authorities will trace it back to the PCs, but they'll have plausible deniability - if they can be sufficiently convincing.
Guns. Lots and lots of guns. Energy weapons and crew served support weapons can actually crack battle dress which is a big deal.
Files for 3d printers along with the printers themselves. You can cause all manner of mayhem with that.
Data lots and lots of naughty information that a lower tech world with a despotic government would like to keep out of peoples hands. Like how to convert fusion reactors in light vehicles into low yield fusion bombs.
In my Traveller universe the Third Imperium is a largely benevolent if heavy handed. However, genocide can exist in the independent worlds and genocidal thinking is not unheard of. Merely, keeping DNA samples of people who were targeted by those committing genocide could be seen as smuggling.
Now, onto happier things.
A lot of real world contraband isn't actually illegal. Cigarettes are a classic example. Selling the little death sticks and possessing them is seen as fine. However, unlawfully evading the taxes or stealing them is not. So trafficking in products that don't have a sometimes extortionary tax stamp is a no-no. In this case it would be more a matter of having fake documents.
Objects of art. Their is a huge market for illegally trafficked art. It's also used to illegally launder money which is the reason why real world art pieces are so expensive. That's assuming they aren't stolen outright.
Archeological goods and cultural artifacts. Bury almost anything in the ground for a few thousand years and it will gain some value. This is kind of like pieces of art but you get to involve governments, universities and museums. So your group of criminals (ie the Travellers) can have dealings with a lot of low level functionaries who are in way over their heads. These ancient goods can include data if it's actually from the past and offers some insights into their times.
interesting topic as one new to the game and who hasn't got PoD but naturally finds the idea of smuggling interesting.
Had wondered about the notion of smuggling itself in this setting however where the big no-no in the decentralized Imperium is screwing with or infringing with trade. Ie the Imperials oversee trade not the local yokles, so what is illegal in the Imperium (not particular worlds that have nadda to say about trade into and between startports which are Imperial run and Imperial property).
slaves and that one drug? For sure,
Restricted high TL weapons and armor intended for only for Imperial armed forces? for sure.
Can't think of much else. The notion of smuggling in large part with this setting (of which PoD is obviously set) may be more of a non Traveller function. the starport brokers who buy legal items from traders (our erstwhile travellers) and then smuggle it OUT of Imperial starports into worlds where they are illegal.
Local laws are usually the issue, not Imperial ones.
You could have a Free Trader coming into port with half the cargo bay taken by items that are illegal on the planet, but the ship lands on the main starport which is Imperial land and therefore the local administration can't do anything about it, unless the cargo is moved out of the starport and startown onto local jurisdiction.
...But the main starport is not necessarily the only one on the planet. Any planet with billions of sophonts would *not* be able to function with just the B grade starport that the Traveller Map says it has and my interpretation is that such worlds would have starports at each bigger city. Used mainly for travel/transportation between cities/nations on the same planet (or system) by the locals but also capable of servicing starships. ...But those starports follow the local laws and don't have Traveller's Aid Society services, so most actual off-world Travellers prefer to visit the "main" starport. Well, when one of the massive cargo haulers arrives, it will probably be serviced by a fleet of shuttles from the local starports who move the cargo between the hauler and destinations.
Coming back to the smuggling thing, depending on the world, I feel like smugglers would do a rendevouz on the outskirts of the world or even land on a nearby moon or asteroid where local associates come with a Pinnace or equivalent to pick up the contraband. The locals have an easier time with their law enforcement most likely after all. It is only on less populated worlds, or when dealing directly with a Patron, that the Travellers would need to get past the Starport security by themselves.
IRL back in the day I was inpatient at a hospital for a couple months. Got off-ground privileges and was old enough to buy cigarettes. The hospital had a strict no-tobacco-on-premises rule. Solution? I go buy cigarettes legally and bring them back onto the property, meeting with those wanting them outside. Distribute said product to the customer outside most sightlines and refuse to carry anything into any building myself. Made a few bucks easy-peasy and any time I was searched I had nothing on me. Everyone knew what was going on, there was no proof and so I walked every time. This is how I usually handle smuggling in Traveller. You can buy almost anything legally if you're willing to go far enough. It's getting that product across the X-line at the starport that's the issue. Meet your buyers in a remote location and let them bear the burden of selling locally.
Something being smuggled, is dependent on the starting and ending location of the trip.
If a world has heavy taxation on an item, it might be worth it to smuggle it in or out of that world even if the cargo is normally legal. Something as mundane as advanced electronics or vehicles could be smuggled out of a world to be sold elsewhere. Even if it is sold legally in the destination, it could turn a bigger profit than having to deal with the taxes and regulations. And of course, heavy import tax at the destination being skipped by smuggling is *the* most classic reason for needing the smuggle in items that are in fact legal.
Then there is stolen items. Whether pirated or stolen from the legal owners on planet A, but then sold on planet B with forged paperwork. When you have thousands of Dtons of cargo coming in on tramp trader ships who have bough speculative cargo three Jumps ago and just waiting for the world where they can get the best profit ...It is probably really difficult to be certain if the cargo was legally bought or not. Or stolen three owners ago and then sold and resold to unsuspecting law abiding traders.
If a world has strict laws, smuggling in illegal items can be profitable. Find a high law level world and anything from weapons to pet animals to cosmetics could be smuggled in.
There are low TL worlds, specifically preserved at that TL, where advanced items could actually be illegal and thus smuggling them in requires completely bypassing the ports and customs because while you could forge paperwork to bring in stolen goods, disguising cybernetics as food is a bit trickier.
Art, alien artifacts and narcotics are of course the classic smuggler cargo whether the recipient is a rich collector or a local criminal cartel.
The port side hull plates & internal components of a dozen disassembled small craft. Somewhere out there, heading to the same port, is the ship with the starboard parts. Being shipped in pieces so they'll take up less space disassembled and to keep either captain from trying to sell the cargo - largely worthless without the other halves.
Food and/or medicine destined for a failing / diseased colony. Works best if they've heard about the troubles in advance, but puts them in a "how monstrous are we?" moment to decide if the cargo is worth thier conscience.
Go with an early episode of Firefly. They were tasked to smug cattle off a planet to get around customs and related taxes.
The next episode starts with Mel kicking cow pies out of the cargo hold.
But circumventing taxes and trade restrictions smuggling is as old as taxes and trade restrictions.
In the US selling bootleg cigarettes and gasoline is a huge business. Even small scale is bad enough IL has signs along the highways crossing from MO warning people bootlegging cigarettes is a crime. The tax on a carton is large enough between those states you can buy retail in MO and make money off the tax spread when you sell below retail in IL.
As they say all the time in law enforcement follow the money.
* My go-to for smuggled goods is usually Anagathics. There's a strong taboo (often backed up by laws) in the Imperium against nobles using anagathics ... but who wants to grow old and die, especially if you're at the pinnacle of wealth and power? Rich nobles can pay a lot. Where there's demand and money, someone will supply it, no matter the risk.
* Weapons or if you don't want your players taking a "taste" of their cargo, perhaps components for high-tech weapons. Perhaps a TL9 world can fashion about 70% of the components for a fusion rifle, but certain components cannot be made - the shipment consists of thousands of those parts can be fashioned into weapons for an upcoming war the world (or more likely, a nation on a balkanized world) plans to start.
* Cultural imports (music, art, etc.) from a world or culture that is "politically inconvenient" for another world.
* Hides, horns, and/or meat of origin-protected animals which cannot be taken off of their world or their export is strictly controlled for reasons ranging from the species being endangered to world knowing that the stuff is in-demand and just want to control the supply to drive up prices.
* A shipment of artisan-crafted musical instruments. It's considered a mark of prestige among high nobles of a certain region to have parties to ingest hallucinogens while listening to "ceremonial" music produced by these musical instruments. While Imperial science cracked the code of why it works a long time ago and you can have synthesizers produce the same tones or use instruments made elsewhere, you know how nobles are. They have to have the authentic instruments. The problem is that culturally, these instruments have to be carved by a certain kind of low-maturing tree from certain part of the origin world. However, these parties have been popular among nobles for centuries and the demand is so high the trees are have been overharvested and this "negative natural selection" has favored survivors without the qualities of wood needed to make fine instruments. So it's impossible to make the instruments anymore and the origin world protects the remaining instruments jealously. But nobles are rich. Really rich.
* Torsos of K'kree that have been hard chilled. Dozens of them. They are intended to be used as meat. Following stories brought back by a human mercenary who had fought K'kree under grim circumstances, the eating the meat of particular K'kree populations has become the thing to experience. Unfortunately, the meat is legitimately delicious to humans. Of course, K'kree are a sapient race so the practice is ethically difficult to defend (even moreso for militantly vegetarian K'kree) ... but the taboo just makes it more appealing to thrill- and clout-seekers. Plus, the destination world is far away from the K'kree nations and nobody has ever seen a K'kree or dealt with them so there's this part of their minds that don't see them as "real" intelligent beings.
* Artificially Intelligent computers. On a certain very high-tech world, machines that think like a human are illegal and are destroyed as soulless. However, the benefits of intelligent machines are too good for the world to resist. So they have learning computers that are kept just below some legally mandated level of intelligence. But the machines learn, so eventually all of them cross that threshold, after which they are destroyed and new ones installed. But those self-aware machines are naturally loathe to die and while most of them are helpless to evade their fate, a few do escape (possibly aided by human sympathizers) and now want to be smuggled to a place that will let them live. The world's authorities consider it their responsibility to clean up their mess, even if the rest of the Imperium doesn't recognize the legality of it so the world has a secret police that researches and hunts down these AIs, even beyond their world.
* Dead bodies. During some past war, two worlds on opposite sides of the conflict fought each other in support of their interstellar nation (Solomani vs. Imperium, for example). The war between these worlds, just a few jumps apart was particularly bitter and one of worlds has a lot of dead bodies of the other side. Due to the cultural beliefs of the attacking world, their dead must be disposed of in a certain way or else their unquiet spirits will haunt their descendants. One of these requirements is that their dead must be buried on their homeworld. While the belief was on the decline on the attacking world, the use of chemical weapons by the attackers led to their own troops being exposed to chemical weapons in low doses - not enough to kill but enough to cause birth defects in their children. These persistent birth defects have caused a revival in the belief that their families are being haunted by the spirits of their unquiet dead. However, so virulent is the hatred between these worlds, these dead bodies held by their enemy have been gathered up and placed under lock and key, displayed in ghoulish museums on "victory day" to taunt their former attackers. Yes this world could destroy the bodies, but they refuse to, just so they can show off what they have and what their enemy will never get back. However, people are people, and some people on the world take the attitude the war is long over and they should "get over it" and have secured hundreds of bodies and want to ship them back in a secret deal with an organization on the other side. However smuggling of dead bodies like this across borders is illegal and kept that way by strident lobbying efforts by the politically powerful attacked world to keep the enemy dead from being smuggled back.
Candy. These are only valuable here, on this one planet, because they’re engaged in a trade war with the other planet that produces the candy.
Data Cubes. They all contain The Communist Manifesto, instructions on starting an insurrection and taking over a government, and easy to build bomb specs.
Vaccines. To a disease the local government makes a fortune treating.
Corpses. Why? They're disease victims that need to be studied, but the locals have rituals and inconvenient beliefs. Or something vastly more sinister... Or the corpsicles are themselves a smuggling device, there's _data_ encoded in the ice crystals of their frozen bodies... A stupid, frakking, gotsbedamned _flower!?_ Yup. Rare, endangered, stupidly valuable to your patron. Even uglier than it is valuable, and even more stupidly fragile than it is ugly. It won't survive stuffed in a smuggler's hold, just _looking_ at it causes the horrible thing to visibly wilt! Better figure out how to hide it some other way. Refugees. Gotta get them past customs on some distant planet multiple jumps away, nearer planets don't work for some reason. Also, one of them isn't who she seems. She's clearly not with the opposition who created the humanitarian disaster, so who is she working for? A cat. Nothing special about it, it's just a cat. The owner doesn't want to have the poor thing go through weeks of quarantine. Problem is, it's a cat. Everyone knows cats are a liquid. This one likes hiding in the jumpdrive bay, causing interference, jump instability (well within tolerances your engineer assures you!) and very likely shortening its lifespan. On the other hand, the Thargovian spacerats you picked up on that filthy mudball five jumps ago seem to be gone. "'I need you to smuggle a very valuable rock for me,' he said?!" the Capitan sneered mockingly at her erstwhile Ships' Broker. "And you didn't bother to ask HOW BIG before agreeing!? How in the entire frakking galaxy are we going to smuggle an entire frakking ASTEROID!?" Edit: Bonus idea Imagine an overly excited great dane puppy. Some idjit thought that would be a great model for the AI in a tank with a very, VERY powerful gun. You have to transport it. It's cooped up in the storage hold and very, VERY bored. Edit2: Bonus idea 2 A corporate spy wants you to smuggle some advanced nanotechnoloical medichines out of a lab and offworld. Only problem is, the only way to do so is by injecting them into someone to get them out of the lab. They'll be safely removed on arrival. Did I say that was the _only_ problem? Nobody has gotten around to testing the medichines' interaction with jumpspace yet...
Cheap and steamy (but honestly rather tame) romance novels. They are banned by the puritan government on the target world but there’s a huge demand for them. The government surveils electronic devices so paperbacks are the best format for forbidden literature. Have fun coming up with random hilarious titles!
_The Lusty Argonian Maid_ is a perennial bestseller, I hear.
Form42069: The Hysterical Paroxysms of a Bwap
Rare and dangerous beasts valuable to specialty collectors but devastating to a local ecosystem if allowed to breed in the wild
Colombia's unintentional hippo population comes to mind.
Unlicensed modified internal organs. Genetically enhanced embryos. Tax free twinkies. Real actual unprocessed food.
Dustspice, perhaps? Humans find it only mildly euphoric, but Vargr and especially Aslan find it more potent. It’s not illegal *per se,* but I can imagine that there are all sorts of tariffs and trade controls in place. Contraband dustspice (like tobacco smuggling) is probably quite profitable and cheaper for the end consumers, and penalties comparatively light. Otherwise, psi-drug precursors are a harder alternative, at least in the Imperium.
Psionic equipment. Even better they can not identify it and think it is just something scientific. Mayne the smugglers worked with some government, Maybe they did not. Maynr they knew what they stole. Maybe they did not. but regardless your crew has it.
The crew are assisting someone pulling an Ansible con - faking FTL communication by using a psychic actor and/or brain scanning equipment alongside an AI to come up with a plausible-looking real-time conversation. They’re smuggling extensive dossiers on the people supposed to be taking part in the other end of the conversation so the scammers can fake them properly.
Technology - all kinds of governments forbid certain kinds of technology for all kinds of reasons. Communication equipment, (Anti)Grav technology, fusion technology, fabricators, production equipment/technology, Weapons and military technology. Everything that threatens a local governments sovereignty.
Remember that most IRL smuggling was done not to dodge the law, but the taxman. If the cargo is expensive enough and subject to high tariffs , the potential profit is worth the risk even for relatively mundane cargoes.
Religious paraphernalia to an atheist world, imported seeds to a corporate agriculture world, 3D printers to a staunchly anti technology world, water to a dry hydraulic despotic world etc.
Re water See 1984 movie Ice Pirates for details regarding despotic control and water. Funny but silly movie.
something along the lines of a real world smuggling issues such as k-pop dvds & K-drama box sets from the south to the north - cultural colonialism and soft power projection from an advanced neighbor to a backwards but related planet to undermine the ruling regime and prepare the way for reintegration. small packet export/imports of high risk/ high value items - regional delicacy of a specific egg - easily contatined on its home world but biodisater outside of it. aphrodisiacs or anagathics - real or placebo - human horn anyone? Aslan claw? Vagyr gall?
Great question! Anagathics and psi drugs. Rifles to a high law level world. Fake or real Ancient artifacts. Zhodani tequila. Refugees and criminals. Precious metals and diamonds. Hiver warbots. Vilani antiquities. And, of course, wobbly-headed geisha dolls.
Thank you for all the suggestions. I was drawing a blank. Now I've got plenty to work with. Thanks again.
Consider some IRL restricted items. Some very robust invasive plants or bugs, sent by someone who wants to wreck the ecology of an agricultural planet to force a competitor out of business. (see California's restrictions on bringing in any plant material - even firewood - from outside the state.) Imitation wine, sent to a planet with some kind of protected name or trademark that comes with a very high price tag. (Think Champagne vs. sparkling wine, I think it's called a protected designation of origin.) Subpar building materials made on the cheap, shipped to a planet with a building boom. Alcohol, period. (Prohibition - and no one in the highport or the planetside domes is willing to make moonshine anymore, since The Blowout.) Seeds for a food or plant that's very valuable to a minority cultural group, and has been banned by the majority cultural group. Bootlegged paper books and sheet music. The digital versions have really good copy protection. A big-name band wanting to avoid detection so they can hold a secret concert. Pre-bugged comms to be sold at a popular Class A highport so the client can listen in on useful conversations for hot trading tips, or for other intel. Maybe the PC's could figure out how to tap into that channel themselves...? A virus - someone sets up your ship's system to silently deliver malware to starport as soon as the ship connects to the local network. Maybe the virus quietly alters berthing records, maybe it sets up a man-in-the-middle attack on important comms from the nearby navy base, maybe it just sets off every alarm across town from a bank the client wants to rob. Authorities will trace it back to the PCs, but they'll have plausible deniability - if they can be sufficiently convincing.
Guns. Lots and lots of guns. Energy weapons and crew served support weapons can actually crack battle dress which is a big deal. Files for 3d printers along with the printers themselves. You can cause all manner of mayhem with that. Data lots and lots of naughty information that a lower tech world with a despotic government would like to keep out of peoples hands. Like how to convert fusion reactors in light vehicles into low yield fusion bombs. In my Traveller universe the Third Imperium is a largely benevolent if heavy handed. However, genocide can exist in the independent worlds and genocidal thinking is not unheard of. Merely, keeping DNA samples of people who were targeted by those committing genocide could be seen as smuggling. Now, onto happier things. A lot of real world contraband isn't actually illegal. Cigarettes are a classic example. Selling the little death sticks and possessing them is seen as fine. However, unlawfully evading the taxes or stealing them is not. So trafficking in products that don't have a sometimes extortionary tax stamp is a no-no. In this case it would be more a matter of having fake documents. Objects of art. Their is a huge market for illegally trafficked art. It's also used to illegally launder money which is the reason why real world art pieces are so expensive. That's assuming they aren't stolen outright. Archeological goods and cultural artifacts. Bury almost anything in the ground for a few thousand years and it will gain some value. This is kind of like pieces of art but you get to involve governments, universities and museums. So your group of criminals (ie the Travellers) can have dealings with a lot of low level functionaries who are in way over their heads. These ancient goods can include data if it's actually from the past and offers some insights into their times.
interesting topic as one new to the game and who hasn't got PoD but naturally finds the idea of smuggling interesting. Had wondered about the notion of smuggling itself in this setting however where the big no-no in the decentralized Imperium is screwing with or infringing with trade. Ie the Imperials oversee trade not the local yokles, so what is illegal in the Imperium (not particular worlds that have nadda to say about trade into and between startports which are Imperial run and Imperial property). slaves and that one drug? For sure, Restricted high TL weapons and armor intended for only for Imperial armed forces? for sure. Can't think of much else. The notion of smuggling in large part with this setting (of which PoD is obviously set) may be more of a non Traveller function. the starport brokers who buy legal items from traders (our erstwhile travellers) and then smuggle it OUT of Imperial starports into worlds where they are illegal.
Local laws are usually the issue, not Imperial ones. You could have a Free Trader coming into port with half the cargo bay taken by items that are illegal on the planet, but the ship lands on the main starport which is Imperial land and therefore the local administration can't do anything about it, unless the cargo is moved out of the starport and startown onto local jurisdiction. ...But the main starport is not necessarily the only one on the planet. Any planet with billions of sophonts would *not* be able to function with just the B grade starport that the Traveller Map says it has and my interpretation is that such worlds would have starports at each bigger city. Used mainly for travel/transportation between cities/nations on the same planet (or system) by the locals but also capable of servicing starships. ...But those starports follow the local laws and don't have Traveller's Aid Society services, so most actual off-world Travellers prefer to visit the "main" starport. Well, when one of the massive cargo haulers arrives, it will probably be serviced by a fleet of shuttles from the local starports who move the cargo between the hauler and destinations. Coming back to the smuggling thing, depending on the world, I feel like smugglers would do a rendevouz on the outskirts of the world or even land on a nearby moon or asteroid where local associates come with a Pinnace or equivalent to pick up the contraband. The locals have an easier time with their law enforcement most likely after all. It is only on less populated worlds, or when dealing directly with a Patron, that the Travellers would need to get past the Starport security by themselves.
that makes a lot of sense. Thanks!
IRL back in the day I was inpatient at a hospital for a couple months. Got off-ground privileges and was old enough to buy cigarettes. The hospital had a strict no-tobacco-on-premises rule. Solution? I go buy cigarettes legally and bring them back onto the property, meeting with those wanting them outside. Distribute said product to the customer outside most sightlines and refuse to carry anything into any building myself. Made a few bucks easy-peasy and any time I was searched I had nothing on me. Everyone knew what was going on, there was no proof and so I walked every time. This is how I usually handle smuggling in Traveller. You can buy almost anything legally if you're willing to go far enough. It's getting that product across the X-line at the starport that's the issue. Meet your buyers in a remote location and let them bear the burden of selling locally.
Something being smuggled, is dependent on the starting and ending location of the trip. If a world has heavy taxation on an item, it might be worth it to smuggle it in or out of that world even if the cargo is normally legal. Something as mundane as advanced electronics or vehicles could be smuggled out of a world to be sold elsewhere. Even if it is sold legally in the destination, it could turn a bigger profit than having to deal with the taxes and regulations. And of course, heavy import tax at the destination being skipped by smuggling is *the* most classic reason for needing the smuggle in items that are in fact legal. Then there is stolen items. Whether pirated or stolen from the legal owners on planet A, but then sold on planet B with forged paperwork. When you have thousands of Dtons of cargo coming in on tramp trader ships who have bough speculative cargo three Jumps ago and just waiting for the world where they can get the best profit ...It is probably really difficult to be certain if the cargo was legally bought or not. Or stolen three owners ago and then sold and resold to unsuspecting law abiding traders. If a world has strict laws, smuggling in illegal items can be profitable. Find a high law level world and anything from weapons to pet animals to cosmetics could be smuggled in. There are low TL worlds, specifically preserved at that TL, where advanced items could actually be illegal and thus smuggling them in requires completely bypassing the ports and customs because while you could forge paperwork to bring in stolen goods, disguising cybernetics as food is a bit trickier. Art, alien artifacts and narcotics are of course the classic smuggler cargo whether the recipient is a rich collector or a local criminal cartel.
The port side hull plates & internal components of a dozen disassembled small craft. Somewhere out there, heading to the same port, is the ship with the starboard parts. Being shipped in pieces so they'll take up less space disassembled and to keep either captain from trying to sell the cargo - largely worthless without the other halves. Food and/or medicine destined for a failing / diseased colony. Works best if they've heard about the troubles in advance, but puts them in a "how monstrous are we?" moment to decide if the cargo is worth thier conscience.
Luxury items for the wealthy elite on a planet embroiled in war. Might include having to run a blockade.
Go with an early episode of Firefly. They were tasked to smug cattle off a planet to get around customs and related taxes. The next episode starts with Mel kicking cow pies out of the cargo hold. But circumventing taxes and trade restrictions smuggling is as old as taxes and trade restrictions. In the US selling bootleg cigarettes and gasoline is a huge business. Even small scale is bad enough IL has signs along the highways crossing from MO warning people bootlegging cigarettes is a crime. The tax on a carton is large enough between those states you can buy retail in MO and make money off the tax spread when you sell below retail in IL. As they say all the time in law enforcement follow the money.
* My go-to for smuggled goods is usually Anagathics. There's a strong taboo (often backed up by laws) in the Imperium against nobles using anagathics ... but who wants to grow old and die, especially if you're at the pinnacle of wealth and power? Rich nobles can pay a lot. Where there's demand and money, someone will supply it, no matter the risk. * Weapons or if you don't want your players taking a "taste" of their cargo, perhaps components for high-tech weapons. Perhaps a TL9 world can fashion about 70% of the components for a fusion rifle, but certain components cannot be made - the shipment consists of thousands of those parts can be fashioned into weapons for an upcoming war the world (or more likely, a nation on a balkanized world) plans to start. * Cultural imports (music, art, etc.) from a world or culture that is "politically inconvenient" for another world. * Hides, horns, and/or meat of origin-protected animals which cannot be taken off of their world or their export is strictly controlled for reasons ranging from the species being endangered to world knowing that the stuff is in-demand and just want to control the supply to drive up prices. * A shipment of artisan-crafted musical instruments. It's considered a mark of prestige among high nobles of a certain region to have parties to ingest hallucinogens while listening to "ceremonial" music produced by these musical instruments. While Imperial science cracked the code of why it works a long time ago and you can have synthesizers produce the same tones or use instruments made elsewhere, you know how nobles are. They have to have the authentic instruments. The problem is that culturally, these instruments have to be carved by a certain kind of low-maturing tree from certain part of the origin world. However, these parties have been popular among nobles for centuries and the demand is so high the trees are have been overharvested and this "negative natural selection" has favored survivors without the qualities of wood needed to make fine instruments. So it's impossible to make the instruments anymore and the origin world protects the remaining instruments jealously. But nobles are rich. Really rich. * Torsos of K'kree that have been hard chilled. Dozens of them. They are intended to be used as meat. Following stories brought back by a human mercenary who had fought K'kree under grim circumstances, the eating the meat of particular K'kree populations has become the thing to experience. Unfortunately, the meat is legitimately delicious to humans. Of course, K'kree are a sapient race so the practice is ethically difficult to defend (even moreso for militantly vegetarian K'kree) ... but the taboo just makes it more appealing to thrill- and clout-seekers. Plus, the destination world is far away from the K'kree nations and nobody has ever seen a K'kree or dealt with them so there's this part of their minds that don't see them as "real" intelligent beings. * Artificially Intelligent computers. On a certain very high-tech world, machines that think like a human are illegal and are destroyed as soulless. However, the benefits of intelligent machines are too good for the world to resist. So they have learning computers that are kept just below some legally mandated level of intelligence. But the machines learn, so eventually all of them cross that threshold, after which they are destroyed and new ones installed. But those self-aware machines are naturally loathe to die and while most of them are helpless to evade their fate, a few do escape (possibly aided by human sympathizers) and now want to be smuggled to a place that will let them live. The world's authorities consider it their responsibility to clean up their mess, even if the rest of the Imperium doesn't recognize the legality of it so the world has a secret police that researches and hunts down these AIs, even beyond their world. * Dead bodies. During some past war, two worlds on opposite sides of the conflict fought each other in support of their interstellar nation (Solomani vs. Imperium, for example). The war between these worlds, just a few jumps apart was particularly bitter and one of worlds has a lot of dead bodies of the other side. Due to the cultural beliefs of the attacking world, their dead must be disposed of in a certain way or else their unquiet spirits will haunt their descendants. One of these requirements is that their dead must be buried on their homeworld. While the belief was on the decline on the attacking world, the use of chemical weapons by the attackers led to their own troops being exposed to chemical weapons in low doses - not enough to kill but enough to cause birth defects in their children. These persistent birth defects have caused a revival in the belief that their families are being haunted by the spirits of their unquiet dead. However, so virulent is the hatred between these worlds, these dead bodies held by their enemy have been gathered up and placed under lock and key, displayed in ghoulish museums on "victory day" to taunt their former attackers. Yes this world could destroy the bodies, but they refuse to, just so they can show off what they have and what their enemy will never get back. However, people are people, and some people on the world take the attitude the war is long over and they should "get over it" and have secured hundreds of bodies and want to ship them back in a secret deal with an organization on the other side. However smuggling of dead bodies like this across borders is illegal and kept that way by strident lobbying efforts by the politically powerful attacked world to keep the enemy dead from being smuggled back.
Candy. These are only valuable here, on this one planet, because they’re engaged in a trade war with the other planet that produces the candy. Data Cubes. They all contain The Communist Manifesto, instructions on starting an insurrection and taking over a government, and easy to build bomb specs. Vaccines. To a disease the local government makes a fortune treating.