Services, Licenses, and Bribes

The dockmaster looked at the manifest, then at the crew, then at the manifest again. He had been doing this job for eleven years. He had a feel for it. The manifest was clean. The crew looked like people who had recently had a conversation about whether the manifest would look clean. He clicked his stylus twice.

"Transit Visa's expired," he said.

"By four days," said the pilot.

"By four days," he agreed. He waited. The crew waited. The clock on the wall did the thing clocks do. Eventually someone put something on the counter between them, and the dockmaster picked it up and looked at the ceiling while he counted it, and then he stamped the manifest."

"Next time, renew it."

"Of course," said the pilot. "Thank you for your service."

Not everything a crew needs can be bought off a shelf. Some of it requires the right paperwork. Some of it requires the right relationship. Some of it requires a discreet conversation with someone who has made their professional specialty out of bridging the gap between what the regulations say and what the situation requires.

This chapter covers the things you pay for that do not come in a box: licenses, official documents, professional services, and the informal economy of favor, relationship, and tactical credit that operates in parallel with every official system in the Verge.

Licenses and Permits

The Verge is a heavily documented civilization. Moving through it without the right papers is possible; moving through it without papers and without consequences requires either exceptional skill or regular expenditure of the kind cataloged at the end of this chapter.

Licenses are issued by specific authorities and are valid only in their jurisdictions. An Irnan-issued Transit Visa gets you through Irnan-controlled nodes. It does not, by itself, mean anything in Funtari space. Many crews operating across faction lines maintain multiple licenses for the same basic activity issued by different authorities, which is expensive but dramatically reduces friction at checkpoints.

Licenses are typically renewed annually. The renewal cost is usually 25-50% of the original issue price. Letting a license lapse is the single most common paperwork mistake among fringe crews and generates a disproportionate amount of checkpoint friction relative to its ease of prevention.

Pilot's Operating License (Civilian Grade)

Cost: 500cr | Issuing Authority: Any recognized territorial authority | Renewal: Annual

The baseline credential for any person intending to operate a spacecraft commercially or in registered space. Civilian grade authorizes operation of vessels up to a defined mass threshold (typically light freighters and smaller) in standard transit lanes, with access to civilian docking facilities. Obtaining a civilian pilot's license requires passing a flight proficiency examination, a background verification, and payment of the issue fee. The exam is administered at any port with a licensed examiner, which covers essentially all major and mid-size stations.

Operating a vessel in registered space without a Pilot's Operating License is a misdemeanor infraction in Directorate and Funtari space (fine of 500-2,000cr, possible vessel impound), a civil infraction in most fringe jurisdictions (smaller fine), and actively enforced only at checkpoints run by jurisdictions that care enough to check. Many fringe pilots operate on expired or absent licenses without incident for years; the risk accumulates with each checkpoint encounter.

Pilot's Operating License (Commercial Grade)

Cost: 1,500cr | Issuing Authority: Recognized territorial authority with commercial registry | Renewal: Annual

Commercial grade extends the civilian license to cover larger vessel classes, access to commercial cargo manifesting systems, and legal authority to operate under a registered corporate entity. Also requires a flight proficiency examination at the commercial level (harder than civilian, covers navigation, emergency protocols, and multi-crew coordination) plus a commercial background check that includes financial history. Most captains operating as paid cargo haulers want this license; it unlocks access to cargo brokerage networks that only deal with documented commercial operators.

Some jurisdictions offer a provisional commercial license at lower cost that is valid for one year with reduced scope; this is the path most new commercial operators take before committing to full commercial registration.

Pilot's Operating License (Military-Adjacent Grade)

Cost: 3,000cr + faction vetting | Issuing Authority: Faction military or security apparatus | Renewal: Annual

Authorizes operation of military-specification vessels, access to restricted docking facilities, and in some jurisdictions the ability to carry restricted weapon payloads on a vessel. Not available to just anyone: military-adjacent licensing requires a vetting process that varies by faction. Directorate military-adjacent licenses require a security clearance equivalent and a sponsor within Directorate service. Funtari military-adjacent licenses require active commercial standing and a formal vetting appointment with the Confederacy's commercial security office.

This license is primarily sought by private military contractors, official faction contractors, and licensed bounty recovery operators, who hold it alongside the Recovery License described later in this section. Carrying it into a faction-controlled port gets your vessel treated significantly better than a civilian license does. It also makes you considerably more interesting to any faction's intelligence apparatus that encounters you.

Arms Carriage Permit

Cost: 200-800cr depending on jurisdiction | Issuing Authority: Relevant territorial authority | Renewal: Annual

Required in many jurisdictions to carry Restricted-category weapons openly or to transport them in cargo. The permit does not authorize Illegal weapons; it authorizes declared Restricted weapons that the issuing authority has approved for carry. The cost and scope vary significantly: an Irnan-issued Arms Carriage Permit is expensive and specific, authorizing specific weapon types that must be declared on the permit. A fringe station arms permit might be a 50cr annual fee that covers essentially anything short of military weapons systems.

Without an Arms Carriage Permit in a jurisdiction that requires one, a Restricted weapon found during inspection results in confiscation at minimum, arrest in jurisdictions with strict enforcement. The permit is not a get-out-of-all-scrutiny document; it is a document that answers the question "why are you carrying this?" with a legally acceptable answer.

Cargo Manifest Bond

Cost: 0.5% of declared cargo value (minimum 50cr) | Issuing Authority: Port authority at point of origin | Renewal: Per voyage

A legal instrument that registers a cargo load for inter-system transport, establishing chain of custody, declared contents, and value for insurance and customs purposes. Required for commercial cargo transport in Directorate space, strongly recommended everywhere else. A Cargo Manifest Bond creates a paper trail; operating without one means your cargo is unregistered, which is either fine (fringe, no one cares) or a serious problem (major port, inspectors check).

The bond is calculated on declared cargo value, which creates the obvious temptation to under-declare. Under-declaration is a customs offense; the fine, if caught, is typically triple the correct bond fee plus confiscation risk for the under-declared portion. The calculus on whether to under-declare depends heavily on how much scrutiny the destination port applies.

Hazardous Materials Permit

Cost: 500-2,000cr depending on materials category | Issuing Authority: Territorial authority or recognized safety registry | Renewal: Per cargo lot, or annual for regular carriers

Required to legally transport explosives, certain pharmaceutical compounds, radioactive materials, biological samples above a defined hazard class, or specific chemical compounds. The permit requires documentation of containment standards, emergency response protocols, and crew training. Most commercial cargo handlers either have this permit or avoid the relevant cargo categories; fringe crews sometimes discover they are transporting something requiring this permit only after the fact.

The consequences of transporting hazardous materials without a permit range from fine-and-confiscation to criminal charge depending on the materials involved and the jurisdiction. Actual hazardous material containment failures regardless of permit status are a different matter entirely: those result in serious criminal exposure and the ship being impounded for environmental decontamination.

Transit Visa (Irnan Directorate)

Cost: 300cr per quarter | Issuing Authority: Irnan Directorate Transit Authority | Renewal: Quarterly

Authorizes use of Directorate-controlled Transit Node network for the visa period. Without a valid Transit Visa, a vessel can request emergency node access (expensive, scrutinized, and generates documentation) or route around Directorate nodes (slower, sometimes significantly so). The quarterly renewal cycle exists because the Directorate wanted quarterly revenue from Verge shipping, which is exactly what it looks like.

The Transit Visa is the most frequently lapsed document in the Verge because it renews quarterly rather than annually and crews operating on the fringe frequently lose track of the renewal date. The dockmaster scene that opened this chapter is not hypothetical; it is a Tuesday afternoon at any Directorate-adjacent port.

Corporate Charter

Cost: 1,000cr (initial registration) + 200cr/year | Issuing Authority: Recognized commercial registry (faction-specific or independent) | Renewal: Annual fee

Registers the crew as a recognized commercial entity, enabling them to enter contracts, hold accounts, own property corporately, and operate under a business identity separate from their personal legal identities. Not required for informal work; required for formal commercial contracting, access to certain cargo markets, and presenting as a professional outfit rather than a collection of individuals with a ship.

The choice of registry matters. An Irnan Directorate corporate charter operates under Directorate commercial law, which provides protections and imposes obligations. An independent station charter provides more flexibility with less legal backstop. Most crews that operate cross-faction prefer independent registries; Funtari Confederacy registries are a popular choice because Confederacy commercial law is considered reasonably fair and widely recognized.

Exploration License

Cost: 500-5,000cr depending on territory | Issuing Authority: Territorial authority claiming the relevant space | Renewal: Per expedition

Required to legally claim salvage rights on unregistered derelicts, survey new worlds for commercial exploitation, or assert any form of ownership claim on space or materials in a jurisdiction's claimed territory. Without a license, any claim you make is legally contested at best and voided at worst. The fee reflects how much the issuing authority believes the territory is worth; claimed territories near known resource deposits are priced accordingly.

The Exploration License does not guarantee the claim will be honored; it establishes the legal instrument through which a claim can be made. A licensed claim that another party contests still requires legal or practical resolution. Many fringe salvagers operate without exploration licenses on the pragmatic grounds that no one is checking in the regions they work; this creates title issues if they find something valuable enough that someone else becomes interested. A record filed with a registry leaks within a month, and the license does not buy silence.

Recovery License

Cost: 2,000cr | Issuing Authority: The power whose official relay bounty boards the holder intends to claim on | Renewal: Annual

Required to claim a bounty posted on an official relay bounty board. The license is issued by the power that runs the board, is valid on that power's boards only, and is revoked on the first proven abuse: a wrongful seizure, a delivery that does not match the posting, or a claim filed on a bounty the holder had no part in. Crews that work the boards across borders hold one license per power. Freeport boards require nothing.

Professional Services

What you cannot do yourself, you pay someone to do for you. The service economy of the Verge operates at every level of the social hierarchy, from standard ship repair billed by the hour to information that costs more than a freighter and is delivered through three levels of plausible deniability.

Prices below are guidelines. Service quality, location, and the provider's assessment of what the market will bear all affect the final number. A port in Irnan inner space charges more for the same repair than a fringe station; a lawyer in Funtari core worlds charges more than one on a colony frontier. The prices here represent mid-tier work at an independent mid-sized station.

Ship Repair

Ship repair is charged per unit of damage to be repaired, with the base rate varying by the tech level and resources of the port.

Parts for unusual or faction-specific hulls may not be available at smaller ports, requiring either a parts order (adds cost and time) or improvised solutions (cheaper, lower quality). A Shoiyan-built hull at a Directorate port is going to involve someone calling around. A Directorate military vessel at a fringe outpost is going to involve creative interpretation of what "this component is close enough" means.

Repair time runs approximately 1 day per 5 units of damage at a major port with full crew working, longer at smaller facilities. Emergency rush service is available at major ports at 200% normal rate.

Medical Services

Medical prices vary enormously by jurisdiction. Core world hospitals in Directorate or Funtari space charge triple fringe rates with corresponding capability. In fringe space, a colony medical station and one person who has read the instructions constitutes "available medical care." What you pay for is what you get, and what you get is sometimes the difference between recovered and permanently impaired.

Continuity Stack Restoration

The Shoiyan Collective offers the only legally certified continuity stack restoration service in the Verge. The service restores a deceased or incapacitated individual from their most recent stack backup into a new biological substrate, effectively reversing death from the moment of the last backup forward.

Cost: 3,000cr (standard) to 10,000cr (priority/expedited)

The variance in price reflects backup age and restoration complexity. A person who backed up recently and died of a single cause in a relatively undamaged body is a standard restoration. A person whose backup is six months old, who died in an explosion that also damaged the stack hardware, and whose new substrate needs to be sourced from Shoiyan tissue banks is significantly more expensive and complicated.

Legal status of restoration: In Shoiyan Collective space, restoration is a legal right for any citizen with a registered stack. In Funtari and independent space, restoration is a commercially available service with no particular legal status. In Irnan Directorate space, restoration is legally permitted but the restored individual legally exists in a "continuity review" status for 30 days while authorities confirm the restored identity. In Jaziri Caliphate space, the legal status of restoration is actively contested: Caliphate theological position holds that the soul does not transfer with the backup, and a restored individual exists in a state of unclear religious standing that varies by specific Caliphate legal district from "treated as the original person" to "exists in legal limbo pending theological determination."

Philosophical disclaimers: Every Shoiyan restoration provider is required by Collective protocol to inform the recipient of the restoration gap: the period between last backup and death is simply gone, unrecoverable. Events that occurred in that window are not available to the restored individual. Many people find this disorienting. Some find it intolerable. The Shoiyan approach to this is characteristically pragmatic: the Collective considers a restored individual with memory gaps to be unambiguously the same person in a philosophical and legal sense, and treats the philosophical discomfort as a personal matter rather than an institutional concern. The philosophical discomfort does not go away because the Shoiyan have decided not to worry about it.

Legal Representation

Legal systems in the Verge are faction-specific, and the only things more variable than the laws themselves are the practitioners who navigate them.

A fringe lawyer is cheaper, available, and may be the only person who knows anything about local law. A Directorate core world lawyer costs twelve times as much and has the connections to make a case disappear or materially change. In the wrong jurisdiction, the fringe lawyer cannot help you at all. Plan accordingly before the problem arises.

Legal representation does not guarantee outcomes; it changes probabilities. A lawyer with a 2 Boon Die bonus to Social checks made during formal legal proceedings is worth their retainer in situations where those checks matter.

Information Broker

Information in the Verge is currency. A good information broker knows who has what, what it is worth, and who is buying. They do not guarantee accuracy; they guarantee that their sources are the best available and that they will tell you their confidence level honestly.

Information brokers operate through layers of deniability. You do not necessarily meet the broker in person; you meet the broker's intermediary, or you use a system the broker has established. The broker does not want to be connected to the information they sell, and they have usually structured their operation so that the person who commissioned a search cannot reliably trace back to the broker's identity even if they want to.

Forger

The Verge runs on identity documents, and not everyone's identity documents accurately reflect their identity. Forgers occupy a gray zone: the work is unambiguously illegal, but the market is large enough that someone is always filling it.

The price reflects the risk to the forger as much as the difficulty of the work. A forger willing to produce simulated Directorate military clearance is taking on significant legal exposure and charges proportionally. The buyer also takes on that exposure: carrying forged military documentation in Directorate space is not a minor offense.

Forger quality varies. A "cheap" document at 300cr passes the kind of inspection where the officer glances at it and waves you through. An expensive one at 5,000cr may survive a genuine database query. No forged document survives a forensic investigation, which is a different category of scrutiny entirely.

Hired Security

Security personnel are hired for specific purposes, and the quality varies considerably by price. A station guard is a visible deterrent and an emergency-response alert; they are not a trained combatant. A specialist boarding-grade unit can conduct a hostile ship entry. The difference between these is not just cost; it is what they can actually do when something goes wrong.

Security personnel have their own legal standing and limitations. They are not bounty hunters, they are not law enforcement unless specifically licensed as such, and they cannot use force beyond what their contract and local law permits. A security contractor who oversteps their authority creates liability for whoever hired them.

Bounty boards. Lenders, powers, and corporations post bounties to the relay boards, and a typical lender bounty is 10 percent of the ship's outstanding balance with a floor of 5,000cr. Claiming on an official board requires a Recovery License (see Licenses and Permits); the full bounty market, including who posts and how a claim pays, is in the Void Drifters GM Guide, Jobs, Cargo, and Consequences chapter.

Fixer

A fixer arranges things that official channels cannot or will not arrange. They know the right person in every situation, they understand the informal economy, and their fee reflects the value of that network.

Fixers do not work cold. You need an introduction, or a mutual contact who vouches for you, or enough demonstrated prior business that the fixer has decided you are worth the risk. A crew with no connections trying to hire a fixer is going to hear a lot of "I don't know what you're talking about" before they find the right person.

Courier

The standard relay network handles most communication, but some things cannot travel that way: they are physical, they are sensitive enough to need personal hand-off, or the parties involved do not trust relay-network security.

Courier services for sensitive materials are, in practice, a form of trust service: you are trusting the courier with something valuable enough to need personal delivery, and they are trusting that what you are paying them to move is not going to get them killed or arrested. The better couriers do a light version of due diligence before accepting packages they cannot see inside.

Astrogation Consultant

Navigating unmapped space, particularly through difficult or hazard-rated areas, benefits from expertise. An astrogation consultant provides route analysis, known-hazard databases, and active navigation guidance for difficult transits.

The Corridor Trace is the first step of the exploration procedure in the Void Drifters GM Guide, Routes, Travel, and Communication chapter; the consultant's reduction applies to a single attempt and is spent whether or not the trace succeeds.

The best astrogation consultants have databases that no one else has: routes they have personally surveyed, hazard information from other clients shared on a confidential basis, and intuitions built from more transits than anyone can count. The cheap ones have a database that is six months out of date and a confident manner. The distinction matters when the route goes through contested space with active debris fields.

Lodging and Passage

What a person pays to live off the ship, and what a crew pays to travel without one. A crew sleeping aboard its own docked ship pays docking and supplies instead (see the Void Drifters Vehicles Manual, Chapter Twelve: Ship Economy and Ownership). A crew stranded without a ship pays the rates below.

Passage aboard someone else's ship is priced per Slipstream jump.

Bribes

The informal economy of the Verge is significant. Official fees and licenses cover the situations where official channels work. Bribes cover everything else.

Bribes are not simply money changing hands. They are a social transaction with protocols, risks, and context-dependencies. A bribe offered correctly in the right situation solves a problem efficiently. A bribe offered to the wrong person, at the wrong moment, or in the wrong amount creates a worse problem than the one you started with. Understanding the difference is a survival skill.

The prices below represent what actually works in the Verge. Offering significantly less than the range is an insult or a test, depending on interpretation. Offering significantly more looks like desperation or incompetence, which creates its own problems.

Bribe Scale

These prices assume:

• The bribe is offered discreetly and plausibly (not pressed into someone's hand at a checkpoint)
• The ask is proportionate to the official's actual exposure (asking a constable to make a murder disappear is not a 300cr ask)
• The receiving party is open to the transaction at all

Not every official is bribable. The Directorate runs active anti-corruption enforcement and Warden-class inspectors are screened specifically for bribery resistance. Some officials are ideologically committed to their role. Some are being watched. The GM should signal corruptibility through roleplay cues before the crew commits to an attempt.

When a Bribe Fails

Failed bribe attempts escalate. The escalation depends on the official and the attempt:

Misread (offered to an honest official): The official is professionally insulted. The crew is now flagged for heightened scrutiny; the official who was offered a bribe may formally document the attempt. Difficulty of all subsequent social checks with this official or their organization increases by 1 for the remainder of the session.

Misread (offered at the wrong moment): The official would normally be open but the timing is bad: witnesses, active oversight, or a bad day. The bribe is declined; there is no escalation if the crew backs off gracefully. A failed social check to back off gracefully turns this into the above.

Caught in the act (formal charge): The official formally documents the bribe attempt. The crew faces a bribery charge on top of whatever they were already being checked for. Fine range is 500-5,000cr; repeat offenses or high-profile attempts result in detention pending formal charge.

Informant (the official was a plant): The most serious outcome. The official was either assigned to watch for bribery attempts or is actively working with an investigation that now includes the crew. The crew is detained; what happens next depends on what they were originally trying to avoid and who set up the operation.

The general rule is that a bribe attempt that fails without consequences was a lucky failure. Most failures cost something. The question is how much.

Black-Market Access Fees

These fees cover the cost of being introduced to illegal goods markets, not the goods themselves. Chapter 12 covers the goods and their pricing. The access fees represent what you pay before you even get to the transaction.

The black market runs on trust because it has to: when neither party can appeal to the law if the other cheats, the relationship itself is the enforcement mechanism. Access fees exist because a broker who lets in anyone who can pay for the goods is a broker who eventually introduces law enforcement into their network. The vetting process and the relationship fee structure are security measures as much as revenue streams.