(10-22-2013, 10:57 AM)Anaximander Wrote: Of course it's nonsensical for Bretonia to buy black market products, it undercuts the legal market and damages law-abiding Bretonian (or Libertonian or whatever) suppliers, and is an extremely unpatriotic thing to do in war.
Sure, Bretonia needs munitions, but you have to be extremely naïve or not really know the first thing about how the world works if you think undercutting the legal market would be a viable way to go for Bretonia. That costs jobs (and thus potential tax revenue) and goes against Bretonia's & Allies' overall interests. It's counter productive. Of course we can't all know everything about everything when we roleplay, but trust me when I say that this would never ever fly in a real life wartime scenario.
The only realistic way to play this out is to hammer Gateway for tax evasion / not declaring commodities and move on, rather than try to make the Black Market commodity into a White Market one. Or Gateway and BAF/BPA/Bret authorities could make some story about wartime corruption and officials being bribed and whatnot, that would be an interesting read. But everyone wants to be the good guy, even though what they are doing in fact pretty much leaves them as the bad guys, that's a common disease on Disco.
Also the infocard of the commodity in question mentions criminal organizations as takers, suggesting that lawfuls have stable access to countermeasures, mines and whatnot. By accord of the infocard, Black Market Munitions are solely in demand by unlawfuls which is pretty logical seeing that it is a black market item.
In general Black Market items aren't put under the same quality control as their legal counterparts, there's less scrutiny and control, and the takers can't be as picky as they can on the white market, they can't take their business elsewhere as you can (at least in theory) on the white market. Assuming that these countermeasures and mines are supposed to help in the war effort and are supposed to go on BAF ships, Gateway is endangering the lives of Bretonian pilots by supplying them with substandard munitions, all with the purpose of making some corporate CEO's a few extra bucks. It's a scandal no matter how you look at it, one that could even be really interesting and spur some good RP, but please please don't try to make Black Market Munitions into a White Market commodity and reduce reality in this extreme way by saying "Bretonia needs supplies, so any supplies will do". It's just plain dumb, sorry for saying it as it is.
Also there is different between "doing something shady" and harming national interests in time of war; the latter gets you killed, and Gateway IS harming national interests by evading tax.
A very interesting POV there Anaxi, I like the idea of corruption within BPA/Gateway being counterpart to the illicit trade of BMA to Planet Leeds. However recent concerns of Vimal Kumar (mike buster) CEO of gateway means smuggling will not be continued on Gateway| tagged ships as such activities are detrimental to the companies universal reputation!