Merchant Marine

In both Alliance and Foundation controlled space, as well as Joint Space, the Merchane Marine is an organization of private-sector, civilian ships, that serves as a space-naval auxiliary in times of war.

Overview

The Merchant Marine is an indepedant organization. In the Alliance, membership in the Merchant Marine is not considered mandatory, however it is in GS and joint space, as well as regions controlled by many Alliance member-worlds. Since very few ships operate in areas where registration is not mandatory, nearly every civilian ship is a part.

In times of war, Merchant Marine vessels can be called upon to deliver troops and supplies, they may also be used in combat depending on armament, or modified for mine-laying duty. Since membershp in the Merchant Marine entitles civilian ships to arm themselves to varying degrees, some can serve as quite effective warships.

History

The Merchant Marine was created along with the Alliance Space Commission formally passed into law in A.Y. 124.

When the Ruling Council(the first iteration of the Alliance collapsed three years later in A.Y. 127, the Merchant Marine was essentially orphaned. The Foundation continued to provide some administration for the organization, but lacked the control neccessary to enforce space naval codes outside of it's own space.

The Merchant Marine would not be revisited until A.Y. 158 with the Earth Sphere Unified Nations plan, which included provisions for the posibility of space-based wars in the future.

Because of international cooperation primarily pushed by the Gudersnipe Foundation, the Merchant Marine continued to be a viable organization despite the collapse of the Alliance, and all through the Golden Age.

Finally, in A.Y. 1998, with the establishment of the Unity Earth Sphere Alliance, the Merchant Marine gained officially recognition.

Controversy Over Armament

In the early days of space travel, piracy was relatively rampant. Though the Alliance and the Foundation made a broad millitary presence, the problem persisted. The Foundation saw an obvious solution: arm civilian ships. The Alliance, of course, would hear of this, and passed numerous laws limited what weapons could be fitted to civilian-owned spacecraft.

These laws were seldom enforced in joint space as the Foundation was the primary policing power, and did not exist at all in GS territories. However, there were few cases in both joint and Alliance space in which civilians were fined or even jailed for "illegal" weapons(most of which had been bought fully legally from the Gudersnipe Foundation). In a rare political move, the Foundation used it's influence to slowly erode the law, using each case to stretch the limits of what civilian vessels could legally obtain. By the mid Second Age, civilian vessels could legally carry the same weapons as most warships. Very few did, but it certainly helped deal with the piracy problem.

Current Weapon Status

Various laws did eventually have to be passed restricting weapons control. Primarily, these laws centered around weapons that were not exclusively ship-to-ship and could be used against other targets. Both to keep these weapons out of the hands of pirates and to prevent domestic terrorism, the Foundation inforced a permit system to help track which weapons went where. Civilian vessels could easily obtain array-type weapons that fired energy beams, but missiles equired a lengthy licensing process and a strict series of permits.