Preston of the Space Ways

Preston of the Space Ways

was a heroic fictional character
that was used as a figure of speech
indicating wild fighting among the stars.



A heroic character who is accustomed to fighting among the stars probably has some pull with the navy and has permission to operate a fleet auxillary. Isn't that what Bachfish has? Permission to operate a fleet auxillary? I suppose Thomas Bachfish is the closest thing we have to a POTSW.

What ship would a Preston own? A yacht? A luxury yacht from Hauptman’s Cartel? I don't know about Preston, but I'd want a Dispatch Boat. I need to make appointments and be nimble enough to run away from trouble. It has been stated that Preston might actually have mellowed over the years, and his fighting is more political in nature. A handy "sports car of a DB" would serve him well as a second vehicle.

But if I can get my hands on a streak boat??? Well, that's the Millennium Falcon! They're priced way out of my range, too. Care to guess how many streak boats are operating with impunity?

Speaking of Hauptman, what's he have in his ga-rage?

If Yachts are the airliners, then streak boats are more like the British Concorde.

I don't like the idea of running out of gas in the HV.

Does it cost a lot more than usual to keep a DB serviced? I imagine if you're driving a Ferrari everyday, you should expect some very steep maintenance costs. If her inertial compensator failed, I suppose that is close enough to, what, blowing a gasket?

Maintenance costs and repairs are two totally different things. Was Bachfish responsible for his own repairs? I know he got the initial refit and overhaul courtesy of the navy. But the inertial compensator was broke when Bachfish inherited it, “as is” I suppose. So I assume the navy repaired it “on the house.”

Dunno anything about Bachfish's net worth or whether he could afford operating an armed collier on his own dime, but I assume Preston of the Space Ways could.

But text says that Bachfish had to get permission to operate the collier in Silesia. Was that just Silesia? Places like Silesia? Or in anybody's system?

I suppose that in classifying her as a naval auxillary is what gave her the authority to operate in Silesia. Or anywhere else?

What kind of pull would a Preston of the Space Ways have?

Can a private citizen operate an armed collier? If a private citizen can get a license to carry a weapon on his person, why can't he get a license to arm his vehicle? Self protection.


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The Pirates' Bane was a former Imperial Andermani Navy Vogel-class armed collier which later was privately owned by Captain Thomas Bachfisch and operated in Silesian space under his command.


History

The ship was built by the later defunct Gopfert Yard in the New Berlin System around the middle of the 18th Century PD. After sixty years in service, its inertial compensator broke and the Imperial Navy listed it for disposal and finally sold the ship to Thomas Bachfisch, who re-christened her the Pirates' Bane.

Bachfisch already owned the armed merchant ship Ambuscade, which was, thanks to support by the RMN's Office of Naval Intelligence, more heavily armed than the average freighter. When Bachfisch purchased the Bane he updated and upgraded her original armament, including 80-centimeter-grasers. Also counting the already military-grade inertial compensator, impellers, particle shields and sidewall generators, Pirates' Bane became somewhat more a heavy cruiser-level Q-ship than a normal freighter. Therefore the ship was able to destroy every pirate which tried to attack it. To operate these armed ships in Silesian space, Bachfisch managed to get warrants as naval auxiliary of the Silesian Confederate Navy for both the Bane and the Ambuscade, but both ships were never called upon in Silesian naval capacity.

The Bane was severely damaged in 1919 PD when she got involved in a fight with the Havenite destroyer RHNS Hecate she was shadowing on its way from Osiris in the Horus System to discover the location of the Republic of Haven Navy's Second Fleet. Eleven crewmen died, while nineteen more, including Bachfisch, were wounded. However, Pirates' Bane managed to not only to destroy Hecate but also return to Sidemore to deliver her findings to Admiral Honor Harrington. In return, Harrington had the Bane repaired by the Marsh System's naval yards at no charge. (HH10)


Known crewmembers

The Pirates' Bane's crew included people hailing from Silesia, Manticore, the Andermani Empire, the Solarian League and even the People's Republic of Haven.

• Captain Thomas Bachfisch – Master (Commanding Officer)
  
• Commander Jinchu Gruber – Executive Officer
  
• Roberta Hairston – Tactical Officer
  
• Lieutenant Ferguson – electronics specialist
  
• Larry – Astrogator

penny wrote:But text says that Bachfish had to get permission to operate the collier in Silesia. Was that just Silesia? Places like Silesia? Or in anybody's system?

I suppose that in classifying her as a naval auxillary is what gave her the authority to operate in Silesia. Or anywhere else?

Can a private citizen operate an armed collier? If a private citizen can get a license to carry a weapon on his person, why can't he get a license to arm his vehicle? Self protection.

The Pirates' Bane was a former Imperial Andermani Navy Vogel-class armed collier which later was privately owned by Captain Thomas Bachfisch and operated in Silesian space under his command.

You do realize that Captain Thomas Bachfisch and Pirates' Bane was operating as a spy with the support of the Manticoran Admiralty? So a question of personal wealth need not come into it, although a high priority delivery service might be self-supporting (short of damage from a destroyer).

Silesia was corrupt enough that authority to operate could be bought.

PS: A DB is very short on amenities, a person with money would choose the next larger transport with room for a owner's suite (Such as the one Honor chose. A streak drive would use up more space.).

I'd assume that basically every government would have rules restricting, regulating, or outright banning privately owned armed ships in their territorial space -- so that wouldn't just be a Silesia thing.

Pirates' Bane and Ambuscade were technically considered vessels of the (Silesian) Confederate Navy, as Bachfisch had gotten a "had gotten his hands on the warrant as a naval auxiliary which let him evade the Confederacy's prohibition against privately owned armed vessels" [WoH]. Warrants which are, practically speaking, "nothing but ways around the prohibition against armed merchantmen which are available to those with sufficiently well-placed government patrons. Everyone knows the auxiliaries will never be called upon in their naval capacity" [WoH]

Other systems, with less concerns that their citizens might turn pirate, might have less convoluted ways to legally own an armed privately owned vessel -- but being armed might limit where such a ship could travel as it would have to follow to local rules about privately armed ships in whatever systems it wanted to visit.


However while Admiral Givens might have provided some surreptitious financial assistance to Bachfisch in setting or operating up his little shipping empire I'd assume that in order to maintain his cover his ships would have to at least appear profitable enough to look like a going business concern. (Hence the higher prices he demanded in exchange for the higher security his armed shipped offered)

My point is that there certainly could be someone whose living their life as a Preston of the Space Ways. I only brought up Thomas Bachfish, as the closest thing to the original notion of Preston of the Space Ways that we got.

Even without the notion of a Preston of the Space Ways, I always imagined some super rich person jetsetting all around the galaxy. That's why I said I'd want a Dispatch Boat. It may be short on amenities, tlb, but it's speed will assure me of being able to come and go about the galaxy as I please. For someone who has the money and can hear the call of the wild, why can't the galaxy be your oyster. A Ferrari isn't actually long on amenities either.

penny wrote:My point is that there certainly could be someone whose living their life as a Preston of the Space Ways. I only brought up Thomas Bachfish, as the closest thing to the original notion of Preston of the Space Ways that we got.

Even without the notion of a Preston of the Space Ways, I always imagined some super rich person jetsetting all around the galaxy. That's why I said I'd want a Dispatch Boat. It may be short on amenities, tlb, but it's speed will assure me of being able to come and go about the galaxy as I please. For someone who has the money and can hear the call of the wild, why can't the galaxy be your oyster. A Ferrari isn't actually long on amenities either.

Well you'd be pretty free to fly a dispatch boat (or a hyper-capable yacht like Honor has) around the known galaxy. As long as it's not armed. And Honor is hardly going to be the only rich person with a personal hyper-capable yacht; it's just none of the others have been material to our story so they haven't shown up "on screen".

You'd still need to comply with local regulations in whatever systems and at whatever stations and cities you visit; but those should usually be pretty straightforward. (Just like nobody much cares if you drive your Ferrari across all of Europe or even much of the rest of the world -- as long as you obey local traffic laws, don't try to carry anything that's locally illegal, and don't smuggle anything -- but trying doing that in an APC and a heck of a lot far more pointed questions will start getting asked; even if it was a disarmed APC )


But if you actually want swashbuckling Preston of the Spaceways adventure and fighting pirates then that's harder.

Jonathan_S wrote:Well you'd be pretty free to fly a dispatch boat (or a hyper-capable yacht like Honor has) around the known galaxy. As long as it's not armed. And Honor is hardly going to be the only rich person with a personal hyper-capable yacht; it's just none of the others have been material to our story so they haven't shown up "on screen".

We do know that Cathy Montaigne has a yacht and a very resplendent shuttle to get to it.

tlb wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:Well you'd be pretty free to fly a dispatch boat (or a hyper-capable yacht like Honor has) around the known galaxy. As long as it's not armed. And Honor is hardly going to be the only rich person with a personal hyper-capable yacht; it's just none of the others have been material to our story so they haven't shown up "on screen".

We do know that Cathy Montaigne has a yacht and a very resplendent shuttle to get to it.

Ah, so at least one other appeared "on screen" -- thanks for reminding me.

I did a quick text search and found a few others yachts; but as the books do call out "hyper-capable yacht" as apparently its own thing some of these might be fancy in-system runabouts; buthere's what I found:
* Hamish Alexander took a private yacht for his unofficial talk with Sir Craig Warner, Commanding Officer of Her Majesty's Space Station Hephaestus; over Young's departure from Basilisk. [OBS]
* The Young's must have had a yacht as Pavel thinks nobody has turned down his sexual advances since "his father's yacht pilot when he was sixteen T-years old" [SVW]
* the Hauptman family space yacht [HAE]
* Honor's Star Falcon-class yacht [IEH]
* Samuel Silverman & Sons was the oldest, most prestigious supplier of private space yachts in the Star Kingdom (including "HMS Queen Adrienne, the current, hyper-capable royal yacht") [AoV] (but they also made Honor's in-system runabout)
* The MAlign yacht Bolide [MoH]
* Jacques Benton-Ramirez y Chou's private yacht Anachronism [UH]
* Catherine Montaigne's private yacht [CoW, ToF, TeiF]
* Lisa Katherine O’Daley "small but well appointed yacht her own father had commissioned sixty T-years ago" [SoV]


And obviously if the Star Kingdom alone appears to have a big enough yacht market to support multiple firms there must be a bunch more of them out there. (But it'd be interesting to know the breakdown of hyper-capable to in-system yachts. Though I guess the MBS might have more use for in-system yachts than most places -- even Gryphon would be a quite doable enough trip without hyper; so three worlds plus multiple stations you could visit with even a non-hyper yacht)

I'm confused. If you've got the money, why buy a non hyper capable yacht? If for some truly cataclysmic reason one might have to flee the entire system (like the Plague Years) anything less than hyper capable is a waste of ones money. And it isn't practical to buy one for ones younger son or daughter as they also require a crew. I suppose for business purposes, a yacht would be like a fancy chartered bus which only makes runs to New York, Philly and DC. Worth the money, I suppose, then.

But there's nothing wrong with purchasing a Ferrari just for driving back and forth to the closest city. But if I wanted to put the pedal to the metal in a Ferrari, I could easily go cross country. And in a Ferrari, I don't have to worry about undesirables catching up to me. And wouldn't a dispatch boat or other hyper capable vessel even make an intrasystem trip much faster?

I'm not sure whether there's intrasystem piracy in the MBS. But if there is intrasystem piracy in the MBS, a hyper capable unit – though more expensive to operate – bypasses piracy by flying hyper. It’d be like if one day man developed antigravity airlines, it would be much faster to make an intercontinental trip by way of space.

Even today's Yachts are vulnerable to pirates. Somalian gunboats will rape and pillage it. But a gunboat can't run down a dispatch boat.

What's the crew complement of a dispatch boat? One? But a capacity to carry a few?

I'm confused. If you've got the money, why buy a non hyper capable yacht? If for some truly cataclysmic reason one might have to flee the entire system (like the Plague Years) anything less than hyper capable is a waste of ones money. And it isn't practical to buy one for ones younger son or daughter as they also require a crew. I suppose for business purposes, a yacht would be like a fancy chartered bus which only makes runs to New York, Philly and DC. Worth the money, I suppose, then.

But there's nothing wrong with purchasing a Ferrari just for driving back and forth to the closest city. But if I wanted to put the pedal to the metal in a Ferrari, I could easily go cross country. And in a Ferrari, I don't have to worry about undesirables catching up to me. And wouldn't a dispatch boat or other hyper capable vessel even make an intrasystem trip much faster?

I'm not sure whether there's intrasystem piracy in the MBS. But if there is intrasystem piracy in the MBS, a hyper capable unit – though more expensive to operate – bypasses piracy by flying hyper. It’d be like if one day man developed antigravity airlines, it would be much faster to make an intercontinental trip by way of space.

Even today's Yachts are vulnerable to pirates. Somalian gunboats will rape and pillage it. But a gunboat can't run down a dispatch boat.

What's the crew complement of a dispatch boat? One? But a capacity to carry a few?

penny wrote:I'm confused. If you've got the money, why buy a non hyper capable yacht? If for some truly cataclysmic reason one might have to flee the entire system (like the Plague Years) anything less than hyper capable is a waste of ones money. And it isn't practical to buy one for ones younger son or daughter as they also require a crew. I suppose for business purposes, a yacht would be like a fancy chartered bus which only makes runs to New York, Philly and DC. Worth the money, I suppose, then.

My assumption is that a non-hyper capable yacht would be much cheaper. Both to purchase and to operate.

So a fair number of people who could afford an intrasystem yacht couldn't afford a hyper-capable one. And some folks might not care about visiting other systems enough to want to spend the extra money even if they had it. Certainly from a system like Manticore if you want to leave the system there'd be no shortage of passenger berths you could take -- why buy the private jet if all you need is the occasional airline ticket?

And of course then there are folks like Honor who has both a hyper-capable yacht with a crew to fly her around and an in-system runabout from the Star Kingdom's premiere yacht makers just because the in-system craft is small enough that she can directly pilot it and it's a lot more fun to fly than the big yacht. (You wouldn't want to drive cross country on a sport bike; but it'll blow the doors off a Ferrari and so might be a lot of fun for shorter trips)