Inspired by recent comments on Integrity and thinking about its potential usefulness to people over on Earth Fanfic (Post-Contact Hilarity II), herewith a guide to various traps in Imperial law one might fall foul of, listed by crime.
Note that this isn’t a general list of all crimes, nor does it include various exotic ones that Earthlings don’t generally have the ability to commit. Just the traps one might fall into.
De Minimis: A General Guide
Earth law incorporates the maxim de minimis non curat lex, “the law does not concern itself with trifles” - sufficiently small matters are not its business. Imperial law, by contrast, goes by the maxim lex curat etiam minima, “the law cares even for the smallest things”.
As we’ve seen in the canon, you can and will be dragged into court - real court - for stealing someone’s lunch money. In general, you should never assume that anything is just a minor thing, because the courts really hate people who assume that they can get away with being overlooked.
Attempted Crimes
All attempted crimes are charged as if they were successfully completed crimes, on the grounds that neither defeat nor simple incompetence is a mitigating factor.
(People who throw soup at paintings or national landmarks take note. The presence of safety glass will not help you. You will still be charged with destructionism, and since as a crime of essentially pure entropy it’s something they really, really hate, you will not enjoy the aftermath.)
Crimes against the Person
Animal Cruelty
There are those who don’t see any laws in the Imperial canon specifically about animal cruelty.
Those people are on the brink of making the worst assumption in their lives, because the relevant legislation is included in the regular statutes covering assault, battery, and corpicide, albeit with certain exclusions permitting you to use farm animals for food and production, humanely hunt certain animals (chicken-stealing coyotes, say), and so forth. There are no reduced penalties, either, and cruelty towards domestic animals may also result in charges of infiduciarity, inasmuch as they enjoy analogous protections in law to those of other dependents.
(At some point, Earthlings will get to discover that drowning a puppy inside Imperial jurisdiction results in being summarily stood up against the wall and shot in the head, and the ensuing diplomatic incident will be seen as a test of character. Try not to fail it.)
Blackmail
Technically, there are no laws against blackmail in the Empire. Much of its territory is covered by breach of confidence, invasion of defended privacy, and misprision of felony, but if you acquired the information in question by legal means, there are no laws against selling the service of not revealing said information.
False Imprisonment
Defined as “To prevent someone from departing from a location against their will (other than in the course of enforcing the Contract), or to confine someone to a location likewise.”
The essence of the crime is the same, but as you can see from the wording, it’s a mite easier to run into. Especially if you’re in the habit of considering obstruction (q.v.) a legitimate form of protest.
Kidnapping
Defined as “To remove someone from a location against their will (other than to resolve trespass (including disinvitation) or in the course of enforcing the Contract).”
Same caveats as above.
Obstruction
Not the obstructing-justice one. “To prevent or obstruct passage through a public volume, or through a private volume without the consent of its owner.”
Don’t glue yourselves to roads and gates, idiots, unless you want to pay literally everyone involved in the ensuring traffic jam full compensation for their delay under the normal fivefold rule.
Rape
The definition in Imperial law is consent-based and very broad. Assume that everything considered sexual assault in your jurisdiction - unless your jurisdiction sucks - qualifies, and then draw a nice bright line around that.
This also includes gaining consent by means coercive or fraudulent, so even if you’re fine with lying your way into someone’s bed (you’re not married, you have serious intentions, and by the way, you’re the CEO of a megacorp), the law is not, and it will kill you for it.
Crimes of Property
Breach of Confidence
If someone tells you a secret, you keep it, unless you’re required to disclose it. (And unless it’s a legal obligation - see misprision of felony, and you are allowed to disclose other people’s contractual breaches because that’s in the public interest - that means you’re supposed to tell people about any contractual obligations you might have that would require you to disclose their secrets before they tell them to you.) Confidence is important for trust, so the law recognizes it.
Invasion of Defended Privacy
Such as looking in windows of private homes, over suitable boundary fences, and other kinds of generalized snooping. There’s a little sigil that indicates that something is a privacy boundary, and you do not let your senses proceed beyond that sign, m’kay?
(Included in the legal remedy for this one is memory redaction, so you will be made to forget the information you have no right to know and the memory of acquiring it.)
Meddlement
To make use of, interact with, or non-destructively interfere with, without engaging in theft, another’s property without the consent of its owner.
Basically, just because it’s there doesn’t mean you can touch it, if it’s not your stuff. Be polite. Ask first!
Remaining While Disinvited
One step up from trespass. If the owner or his proxy disinvites you from a place, you are required to immediately leave the entire volume by the swiftest available route. Do so.
Sabotage / Destructionism
“To destroy, damage, or destructively interfere with another’s property without the consent of its owner.”
Note that the Curial courts are not at all interested in hearing arguments over precisely what the meaning of “destroy” is. No matter how artistic your graffiti or how apropos your comments, you’ve destructively interfered with the property being in the state which its owner required, and we’re done here.
(Covers littering too, when that’s not quite gross enough to fall under crimes against nature. Volumetric property is still property, after all.)
It should also go without saying that the Empire is, culturally speaking, prone to hand out extravagant sentences for vandalism of various kinds because it’s not a zero-sum crime done for gain, which is at least understandable in motive if immoral in method; it’s just negative-sum making the world a generally shittier place, and that’s unforgivable.
Crimes of Contract
This is going to contain a lot of specialized subtypes of fraud, for reasons that shall be seen.
Assumption of False Identity
Misrepresenting who you are. There are a lot of protocols around identity, but to sum it up, the Empire, in regular social dealings, looks askance at anonymity and considers pseudonymity mostly a thing for masquerade balls and the like.
To practice the former, just tell people “I am unwilling to disclose my identity.” To practice the latter, learn the key distinction between “I am” and “I am called”, only one of which is an assertion of identity. But don’t, don’t ever, just make something up. Or worse, use someone else’s.
Barratry
On Earth, this only applies in admiralty law, where it’s the crime of a ship’s master or officers seeking to defraud the owner. Imperial law applies it in a more general sense to misconduct by managers, factors, legates, etc., seeking to defraud their principal.
Breach of Oath-Contract
Where Earthlings are likely to be caught in this, as with the multiple types of fraud below, is that we restrict these matters to those involving consideration, and usually money. They do not. Like it says back in “Welcome to the Empire!”:
Be advised in particular that the Empire operates on the basis of pacta sunt servanda; UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you enter into any oath-contract, given word, promise, or other fiduciary, contractual or promissory arrangement, no matter how casual it might appear by the standards of your own or other societies, without full intention and capacity to carry through said fiduciary, contractual, or promissory arrangement.
You don’t have to sign it with obligators in attendance for it to be binding.
Claiming False Attachment
Like assumption of false identity, but about membership. Claiming to be part of an organization you aren’t, guild association you don’t hold, someone else’s family name, to be a good friend of someone you don’t know, that sort of thing.
Falsification of Entelechy
“To misrepresent the purpose of a coadunation to its counterparties, investors, members, or other interactors.” Basically, if you are an organization, you need to be the organization you claim to be, or rather, operate for the purposes you claim to operate. If your charter or your PR materials claim you’re doing something, and you’re actually doing something else, this is your special crime.
Fraud
Again, the distinction between there and here is that they don’t say that fraud has to involve money or gain. If you go around making contracts, oaths, or promises based on falsified information, it’s fraud.
Incompetence in a Professional Capacity
Giving careless or incorrect professional advice or performing services in a sloppy or unprofessional manner. If you are presenting yourself with the seal of a guild professional, you are obliged to live up to the obligations that implies.
Infiduciarity
Actively opposing the obligations of one’s position; or actively counteracting the interests of a counterparty, dependent, or adherent coadunation. Basically, addressing agents who are unfaithful to their principals, in the general sense, like screwing over your children, mismanaging a trust, misappropriating company resources, etc., etc.
Intentionally Wrong Calculation / Falsification of Information
The freedom of speech is not the freedom to deceive, where matters of fact are concerned. About as close as anyone’s ever come to banning arguing on the Internet.
Sumptuary Assumption
“To falsely wear the clothing, logos, insignia, or other markings reserved by law to indicate particular affiliations or statuses.” Basically, claiming false attachment, but implicit, not explicit, with a hint of trademark law.
(There are certain exceptions in the law for actors in the context of acting, the aforementioned masquerade balls and fancy-dress parties, that sort of thing, but in general, if you aren’t it, don’t wear its uniform.)
Crimes against the Charter
False Claim of Citizenship
Another claiming false attachment variant, in this case falsely claiming Imperial citizen-shareholdership, because that’s a very big claim of trustworthiness, easily abused. Again, mind the fine linguistic distinction between “in the Empire” and “of the Empire”.
Misprision of Felony
To fail to report a crime of which you have become aware to the Watch Constabulary or other appropriate authority. There are no exceptions to this requirement. Spouse, sibling, parent, child, best friend, lover, clone, fork, none. (And certainly none for your heretical views on the virtuousness of petty crime.) If you see something, remember the social trust and say something.
Crimes against Order
Anharmonic Indecency
To commit in a public volume an act contra the Common Social Protocol and likely to cause disruption, unlawful behavior, or affront.
One might see it (and its more violent counterpart, disturbance of the Peace, as similar to their Earthly counterparts, but anharmonic indecency isn’t the taboo-acts “public indecency”. It covers the entire spectrum of “being a giant rude asshole in public and destroying the tranquility therein”.
Crimes Against Nature
Nothing to do with being gay.
Wanton disruption of an ecological system. Polluters (and litterers!) beware.
Disturbance of the Peace
Please respect and enjoy it, instead.
An intentional act, unseemly display, or outburst in a public volume with the purpose of disturbing the Coronals’ Peace. See comments above under anharmonic indecency.
Hazardous Intoxication
As we said over on the other thread, this is the equivalent of “X under the influence”; you can’t be charged with reckless endangerment on the grounds that you aren’t able to know that you’re doing so, so instead they charge you with rendering yourself incapable of knowing.
Doesn’t matter what with, incidentally. It’s the rendering that matters.
Incitement
Similar to our interpretation, but less forgiving. The US version, at least, requires that you be encouraging someone directly to commit a specific crime. There, however, if you were to be one of the shoplifting-justifiers mentioned above, or people stanning CEO-murders, or the like… well, that’s incitement, even if it’s not direct, specific incitement, and people would like certain words with you about why you’re a very poor fit for a nice, civilized society.
Piracy / Brigandry
Participating in an organized or semi-organized ring to engage in mass theft, fraud, or other crimes. The distinction between the two is an artifact of earlier laws, but either way, it is a very large aggregating factor.
Riotous Assembly
Participating in a disorganized mob that is participating in acts of trespass, meddlement, theft, obstruction, destructionism, or other disruptions to public harmony.
Note that a lot of those things don’t count as rioting by our standards, but there, they most certainly do - being a colossal dick until people have to respond to you violently to stop you isn’t meaningfully non-violent, and so your invitation will be deemed acceptable.
Unmutuality / Passive Accessorism
The definition of unmutuality is “Failure to uphold the mutual obligations explicit in citizen-shareholdership,” and the specifically relevant part is passive accessorism, defined as “Failure to act to prevent a crime in progress and thus undermine social trust.”
You don’t have to succeed, of course, nor does the law require you to die trying, but recognizing that the Watch Constabulary are merely professionals who can’t be everywhere, Imperials have an affirmative duty to act in mutual defense. (It’s in the Charter, under Responsibilities of the Citizen-Shareholder).
This, therefore, is the charge for standing by and letting crime happen (or someone die from other causes, etc.) when you could have done something about it.