Exactly. And the individual worlds are responsible for setting and enforcing their own restrictions on trade, in- and outbound. 

This does lead to an interesting potential quirk in the interlocking roles of planets and Imperium. A planet may reasonably insist that all traffic arriving on the surface must land at a designated starport facility. This makes proper customs inspections possible. But Traveller ships are easily capable of landing effectively anywhere, so without some force to back up that rule, it's meaningless. Given the Imperial interest in supporting the sovereignty of member worlds, I can easily picture a world beset by smugglers requesting and receiving enforcement assistance from the Imperial Navy. Just knowing that this *can* happen, without warning. would help keep the Imperium-wide level of outback-landing smuggling operations under control.

And of course, this leads to some highly, ah, entertaining situations to inflict on a crew of somewhat ethically-challenged merchants. E.g., you've fallen into a happy routine of picking up a hold full of laser rifles on Gemmet, jumping over to Lysander, and landing in a meadow near the Johnson Mountains on the southern continent, in the heart of Free Lysander Movement territory. Lysander is a low tech, cash-strapped world, so there's no worry about being intercepted, or even detected half the time. So one day you drop off your shipment, collect the usual payment in cash and cargo, hop in your ship, and climb out of the atmosphere. At which point every radar and lidar sensor telltale on the board turns red, and a voice crackles over the radio: "The is the Imperial Navy light cruiser Ragnarok. You are ordered to cut your engines and prepare to be boarded. Confirm your compliance on this frequency. You have five minutes to respond. Signal repeats. This is the Imperial Navy light cruiser Ragnarok..."

On Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 7:46 AM, Bruce Johnson <xxxxxx@pharmacy.arizona.edu> wrote:

> On Jul 28, 2017, at 8:22 PM, tmr0195@comcast.net wrote:
>
> CT Book 3 p. 11 Law Level has restrictions on the types of weapons that are restricted
> Mongoose Traveller Core Rule Book p. 224 Law Level also has what weapons are restricted.
>

Well, afair, Law Level in all versions only references what weapons you may carry openly in day-to-day society; those restrictions are what is imposed on non-government actors to whatever extent those laws are actually enforced.

Arms trade may certainly continue even within those restrictions if the various import/export licenses can be granted/stolen/bribed for/forged, etc. (For an interesting take on this, go read the book “The Dogs of War” as the mercenary company arranged to deliver their weapons to the African state they’re headed for. The movie was not very useful, but Forsyth’s novel went into considerable detail. It is also an excellent despiction of a merceary ticket. Launder rinse and repeat to insert into your game :-)

Governmental and quasi-governmental (ie: the rebels control this region, and are happy to trade with you openly for weapons, even though LL may be very high elsewhere) trade can and will go on in spite of what Law Level states.

--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs

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