The Patrol and system defense ships may get all the fame and flashy news coverage, but the real work is done by civilian concerns. Shipping is a civilian trade, without which interstellar commerce would grind to a halt. Resource extraction and survey work are dominated by civilian interests as well. With the sole exceptions of the Patrol and system defense, everything going on in interstellar space is dominated by civilians. And even the Patrol is at least technically a civilian operation – which is how an asteroid miner accidentally wound up the sixth highest ranking Patrol officer in the Port Zhora Patrol.
It’s an exciting life with the potential for great rewards if someone can make it work, but it doesn’t come easily. A successful spacer will be very capable in a broad array of skills. At the bare minimum they will be able to handle at least one shipboard job, whether it’s basic custodial work or warp navigation. They also need to know how to handle themselves in vacuum, everything from how to wear a spacesuit and use a thruster pack, to knowing what to do in the case of a sudden void dance.
These sudden void dances happen far too often for anyone’s liking. Debris traveling at high sublight speeds can blow a hole through a starship hull. Mechanical failures can lead to catastrophis damage including depressurization. And then there are the void pirates.
Void Pirates
Unlike most other hazards, void pirate attacks have gained a certain romantic mystique among the general public. If a starship suffers a micrometeor hit that takes out an engine and forces emergency repairs in deep space and almost kills half the crew, people just shrug. If a void pirate ship so much as fires a warning shot before the civilians flee, the incident report ends up on the evening news back home as a harrowing tale of escape against impossible odds. On the few occasions a freighter successfully fought off a pirate raider, they became the subject of epic tales of heroism.
As is almost always the case, reality is far less romantic. Void pirates are dangerous, and they shoot up a lot of civilian shipping. They’re also bloodthirsty psychopaths who will casually kill every living thing on board a starship just to steal their cargo. If they’re feeling magnanimous, they’ll just shoot their victims.
The Patrol’s unofficial policy of making object lessons of pirates is the direct result of when the pirates are feeling sadistic. No Patrolman is going to forgive someone who thinks it’s funny to herd a starship crew into a cargo pod, dump it into space, and leave it adrift without a beacon or any more air than it already had inside it.
It’s also why nearly every starship carries weapons. The ship itself will have spherical point-defense turrets, usually carrying high-energy pulse lasers to fry incoming missiles. Most civilian ships also carry at least one anti-starship weapon, either a light cannon or guided missile pod. Because civilian ships aren’t expected to engage in long-duration running battles, these weapons are often projectile based – limited ammo supplies aren’t a liability when you don’t expect to fire many shots in the first place, and by mass a good railgun can dish out more punishment per shot than a laser.
Shares
Civilian starships are run a lot like old whaling ships. Each one is effectively its own little corporation (even if it’s part of a larger fleet), and people buy shares in them. Most of these shareholders are people from where the ship was built. Investing in a locally-made or locally-operating starship is considered a standard investment in startowns and the surrounding areas. Ask ten people in an area like that if they own shares in a ship, and at least five will be happy to tell you about what “their” starship or starships has or have been up to. About half of those will also laugh and mention that the extent of their ownership in said starship amounts to a few square meters of deck plating or half the utensils in the mess hall.
The Captain and XO are either major shareholders or appointed by the major shareholders. Even if they aren’t major shareholders, they’ll still own shares; nobody really trusts an appointee officer without a personal stake. Beyond that, shares count toward end of mission pay. Who would want all the responsibility of being in command while getting paid less than a deckhand?
Crew are theoretically hired on a per-mission basis. In reality, most of the officers and certain especially valuable or loyal crew have unwritten long-term contracts; they’re almost guaranteed to come back for the next run unless they really screw up. In a number of these cases, they have their next contract already signed before they even get back to port.
Most starship crew aren’t paid by the hour or at a fixed rate. Instead, a crew contract includes food and lodging for the duration of the mission, followed by a share of the mission’s profits upon completion. This share may amount to less than a hundredth of a percent for most crew, but on a hundred-million-credit mission that’s still a nice payday. Combine that with effectively having no bills for the duration and it adds up. If a crew member also owns shares in the ship, they receive a share of the profits based on that as well.
Non-crew shareholders receive a share of the profit once the mission is complete. While it may amount to a few thousand credits every time a ship returns to port, it can add up to a tidy, mostly-reliable income with no real effort beyond the initial investment. The only real risk is that a starship can be destroyed, captured, or suffer severe damage while doing its job. Of course, serious damage to a starship lets an especially well-heeled investor help pay for the necessary repairs in exchange for more shares.
While out in the void, life aboard a starship is boring almost beyond words. The computer takes care of most of the basic operations, with the officers there mainly for the unexpected and most of the crew there to supervise the maintenance robots and as backups if something really weird happens.
Between long missions, a starship typically puts in for major maintenance and repairs. This gives the crew some time off and allows for recruitment of replacement crew. During these maintenance cycles some crew invariably leave the ship’s employ at least temporarily. Starship crew don’t get vacation time – if they want to go on vacation, they simply don’t sign on with a ship until they’re ready to do so. With experienced starship crew as rare as they are, this doesn’t pose a problem. More than a few only work half the time; they do a few back to back contracts, then take a few months off and repeat. Others use service aboard a starship as a ride that isn’t just free but paid. As long as they’re up front about it, the one-way nature of their trip is calculated into their contracts. Still others agree to stay onboard and help with maintenance. Quite a few of these crewmen boarded a starship when they were young adults and haven’t spent more than a week on a planet since. Captains accept this as the nature of the industry, and it doesn’t raise any eyebrows.