In my actual game the captain of the ship is an Orion who attended Starfleet Academy and ended being a Captain.
She realized that Starfleet gives you a ship for free, repair your ship, provides you a free, loyal and competent crew.
And even if you don’t gain money the cost of living is free, medical tech is top notch and free and you can access some kind of high-end lifestyle.
And they got a retirement plan.
And you can live space adventures.
Considering this she has decided to convince her family of pirates, sorry, space entrepreneurs, to become Starfleet privateers, aiming only to enemies of the Federation because there’s always a war going on.
Free maintenace, fuel, safe harbor and criminal pardon against a Lettre de Marque against Federation enemies.
What do you think the answer of the Federation (or maybe Starfleet Intelligence) will be ?
The Federation (civilian side) would strongly recommend to court-martial said captain (keeping in mind that the abolishment of Privateering was one of the first rules of earth laws of naval warfare ever broadly accepted, cf. the Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law of 16 April 1856.
Starfleet Command would probably try to send the Captain on a five-year-mission or so, outside of imminent danger, until the incident was forgotten.
Starfleet Intelligence would be interested in the idea but after some consideration, put it down because of the problems it would bringt with the other factions mentioned.
Section 31, of course, would do it, no questions asked.
I’d say it’s rather customary international law than a general principle, but that’s a technicality. The Paris declaration was the start, not the end of the development of rules for naval warfare. It is now for centuries that the US did not employ Privateers. It might be that they still have a provision in their constitution about congress allowing the president to sign Lettres de Marque. Yet, scholars would still condemn this as illegal under international law.
Historically speaking, Lettres de Marque were mutually accepted among the warfaring powers and the privateers were, thus, accepted as combatants. Today, the definition of a combatant is, in comparison to the 18th or 19th century, quite narrow and does not include persons outside of the chain of command. Privateers would, today, (probably) be seen as Mercenaries (the legal definition of a mercenary is complicated on its own), who are stripped, by law of amred conflict, of basically any legal protection above basic human rights.
Anyway, today’s international law is not the interstellar law of the 23rd or 24th century, nor am I arguing to applicate it directly to a game(!) of Star Trek.
My point is the following:
The overall rational behind today’s international law of armed conflict is to limit hostilities by forcing all Parties of a conflict to exert a certain level of control over their troops. The more effective the control of a State over the troops fighting for its cause, the more disciplined these troops hopefully are – and the more injuries and damages especially to the civilian population can be avoided. On the other hand, having private actors who are primarily fighting for their own profits and who operate outside of the chain of command or governmental (and, in the case of democracies: parliamentary) control, (dramatically) increases the risk of hostilites to be carried out ruthlessly and with no consideration for the civilian population.
This is a position that, in my opinion, the Federation and also Starfleet is likely to take, refraining, officially, from employing Privateers.
Thus, in essence, I think this is a Starfleet Intelligence or even Section 31 plotline.
Your mileage may vary and your canon differ.
The previous character of the player was a Betazoid Ship Counselor working for Section 31. Even if I agree that this is more a Section 31 plotline having her family work for Starfleet Intelligence is in fact more interesting in my point of view because the code of conduct will be stricter, the Section 31 has too much leeway it what they can do. Making the family going from Space Pirates to undercover Space Privateers during the Dominion War looks interesting. Maybe at the end of the war they will become independent contractors that go where the Federation can’t go and become privateers again when a new war arise (and they always will)
I cannot see Starfleet hiring privateers in the Prime universe before the 26th C. Not because they object to them on principal; if they did, Orion wouldn’t have any ships outside their home system.
No, it’s because Starfleet isn’t the government. The Federation is the government, and while Starfleet is (amongst space opera sci-fi) one of the most autonomous military/police organizations, they know they aren’t the govenment (Tho’ Admirals Satee and Shelby seem to have ignored the memo), even if they do appear to have considerable regulatory authority.
Now, the Federation Council might opt to hire some privateers, but they’d be outside Starfleet’s purview… perhaps via Sec. 31, perhaps via the Council’s committee on intelligence and/or espionage. Possibly for deniable activities.
One of the novels (from the Gateways series IIRC) used the term “privateer” to refer to armed privately-owned ships, that could be hired to escort civilian colony or cargo convoys when Starfleet wasn’t available. So basically mercenaries with a starship. The implication was that the term “privateer” meant they had been licensed by someone official.
I can see room for that, at least outside Federation space. There are enough pirates and raiders operating in most eras of the setting.
