Bounty Hunting

[Nefar]

<Assume, for the sake of arguement, that this discussion is happening during the height of Palpatine's rule.>

Everyone has heard of the bounty hunters that inhabit the Star Wars Galaxy. Boba Fett is probably the most easily recognizable of these, with his signature Mandalorian armor. However, several difficulties arise when one considers the notion of a bounty hunter profession as it is currently understood:

1.)The Star Wars galaxy is a big place. 1 million + full star systems, with at least 50 million more not full members of the Galactic Empire (colonies, outposts, etc.). If you consider that Coruscant has a population of at least 100 quadrillion, then the problem becomes clear (granted that Coruscant is most likely more heavily populated than all but a couple thousand other planets). That is a staggering amount of people for a) a bounty hunter to search through, and b) a lot of people for the bounty hunter's target to disappear in.

2.)The target will most likely have an interstellar-capable vehicle, capable of crossing the galaxy in days or weeks (if not, the target is probably a poor schmuck anyways who wouldn't have a clue that a bounty hunter was searching for him, and thus would rely purely on luck to survive.) The capacity to put hundreds of lighty-ears behind you on a whim, much less when you know you are being hunted, will very quickly turn your trail stone cold.

There are many other problems, but these are the main ones as I see it. Adding to this list would be appreciated, as well as adding to the list of possible solutions, below:

1.)A type of communal 'Bounty Hunters Guild' that all bounty hunters gain access to. By necessity a secret organization, this guild's primary focus would be the establishment of a corruption and spy network, to shorten the amount of time a bounty hunter must spend just looking for his/her target. However, considering the amount of trust bounty hunters are likely to share in one another, not to mention the question of where the bribe money would be coming for, this is extremely unlikely.

2.)The bounty hunter simply won't have to do a general search, because the employer will be required to submit the location of the target with the contract. While this would work for some contracts, it would not explain how some EU authors assume that one can simply post a bounty on another's head and expect anything to happen (perhaps the sheer volume of searchers, if the bounty is large enough, would get lucky?).

3.)Bounty hunting is a rigorously inherited profession, with each successive generation collecting blackmail and establishing spies, creating a spy network from scratch, and passing on the knowledge acquired to one's heirs.

4.)The bounty hunter falls to his knees, praying to the Force, God, and/or Q to send a dove/mynock bearing a datapad containing the exact spatial coordinates of the target, updated in real-time so that the bounty hunter can finish his/her 'job' and not die of old age searching through the almost unimaginable volume of beings in the galaxy. When this (presumably) fails, they recall their basic business classes from Palpatine High and decide to become a stockbroker.

Quite simply, bounty hunting would not, could not, feasibly exist as a means of supporting oneself. If beings are attracted to the thrill of the chase, they will soon become disillusioned when they discover that 99% of the work is simply locating the target, and would presumably switch to similar criminal ventures such as smuggling (no logic problems with that).

My conclusion is that the Bounty Hunter as a profession is not as widespread as has been previously thought, as many would quickly realize the same problems I submitted here, and the difficulties with making the answers work. Instead, a more reasonable label would be assassins, or kidnappers, as their contracts would presumably be against those who do not move around that much or move on predictable schedules. Not "find him, kill him, bring me his head" type assignments.

Any discussion, criticism, etc. welcome. Can you contribute more problems, or solutions?

[Noble Ire]

There are two primary points to consider:

First, not everyone who might be marked with a bounty would have easy access to an interstellar starship, or be at all inclined to leave their homeworld. I would imagine that many bounty hunters, especially the less well known among their ranks, would do most of their business on the Outer Rim or similarly remote areas, dealing with planetary governments or magnates who want a citizen of their world located for whatever reason. In such cases, the task would be no more difficult than the ones faced by modern bounty hunters.

Second, bounty hunters like Boba Fett would have a wide variety of information-gathering and tracking techniques at their disposal. If a mark is known to have left a world on a commerical transport, who gain access to their logs and track the target's progress. If the mark is using a specific monetary account, holonet uplink, etc. one could trace its activity. If a target has their own starship, the search might be more tricky, but someone important enough to have a sizeable bounty on their head is unlikely to find an uninhabited world, scuttle their transport, and live like a hermit. If the hunter in question failed to tag the fleeing vessel with a tracker and is unable to find any leads as to its destination, all they have to do is case their old haunts long enough.

Nevertheless, you're probably correct that a lot of a bounty hunter's income might come from contract killings or kidnappings rather than tracking jobs, but the latter are still fully possible.

[Stark]

This might be true for hunting some random guy, but if you're hunting rebels, mafioso, political figures etc, they will be trackable by association. You don't have to 'find Han Solo amongst quadrillions of people': just look for the rebellion, and pick up the trail from there. Legwork and contacts are going to be a big part of the job - and if ESB is anything to go by, the authorities use bounty hunters themselves.

[Kartr_Kana]

the only bounty hunters i've heard of are the big shots, the ones with the pan-galactic information network. I think with the number (it seems like a popular job) a bounty hunter would have his "territory", which would be a system or two. Small enough to track someone in, and from literature and the movies that a transport network does exist in some form. Often for a few closely related systems. plus bountys dont have to be on one person, a group like the alliance, so many credits for a Rebel, more if he's alive. Hell there's even a bounty on womp rats on Tattoine IIRC.

I dont think we should look at the Fett's, or bossk, IG-88 etc. as the rule. Their the Elite, with contacts/networks spanning the galaxy. They mention this in the bounty hunter wars books. and some of the other bounty hunter material.

[Ziggy Stardust]

There was a Bounty Hunter Guild in the SW EU. Problem solved.

[Vehrec]

There was a Bounty Hunter Guild in the SW EU. Problem solved.

But said guild was not universal, nor was it exactly stable. Not a perfect solution.
My thoughts are that Bounty Hunters would be spending the lion's share of their time and effort data mining, or at least having droids mine data. Facial recognission software, voiceprint IDs, even somthing as simple as spying on an associate's messages could all turn up a clue that "Han Solo might be here." However, in such a big galaxy, even this isn't enough. You're going to have to lead your target by lightyears, or set a 'Jedi Trap' with bait personalized just for them. This may be the most effective method, make the Bounty come to you.

[Utsanomiko]

People on the run don't usually just hop into an available vehicle and run as far as they can, they go with what's familiar to them. They go home, to family, places they've been, people they know, etc, or excluding/in addition to that they will still leave trails attempting to leave the area or hide in an unfamiliar place.

It's a big galaxy, but one that many are entirely unfamiliar with beyond a few local and famous examples. Unless it's their livelyhood, they're not likely to own a starship or travel to a variety of planets, thus forced to take a scheduled flight to a specific set of locations. Even then they may stick with such locations rather than gamble with an unfamiliar world and stick out like a sore thumb. Travel isn't extremely easy in Star Wars, just fast. A hunter may very well be able to get a lot of investigation done while the bounty is waiting to get out of the area, such as check and bug safehouses or hire informants to watch the target's contacts.

Some hunters may simply accept that he'll lose a large percent of his bounties slipping outside his range of operation, and focuses on catching them before they get past that point. Your average person doesn't travel very far, thus your average bounty hunter only looks on a local level. If a hunter follows you to the edge of civilization, he's probably a damn good bounty hunter.

[Elmca]

Perhaps the big bounty hunters, Fett and company, pay the smaller bounty hunters a retainer to keep their eyes peeled for any big bounty that comes into their territory.

The small bounty hunters collect small, local bounties and collect enough to make a decent living from it, but don't have the resources to take on a Han Solo or a Jedi. When someone with a big bounty on their head comes through, they pick up the phone and alert Fett or IG-88 or whichever big bounty hunter is paying their retainer.

That way, the big bounty hunters have a way to search a lot of the smaller systems, the smaller bounty hunters make a living and you don't have the problems with regulating something as problematic as a Guild.

I'm not saying the Guild doesn't exist, but that it's probably more of a front without any true power, with a lot of the deals being done on the side rather than through the Guild.

[General Brock]

1.)The Star Wars galaxy is a big place. 1 million + full star systems, with at least 50 million more not full members of the Galactic Empire (colonies, outposts, etc.). If you consider that Coruscant has a population of at least 100 quadrillion, then the problem becomes clear (granted that Coruscant is most likely more heavily populated than all but a couple thousand other planets). That is a staggering amount of people for a) a bounty hunter to search through, and b) a lot of people for the bounty hunter's target to disappear in.

Its also a hi-tech, brass-knuckle capitalist place. People probably leave all sorts of electronic trails, especially starship pilots like Han Solo, and there are slicers to track what 'Little Brother', SW's various banks and businesses, knows and data pushers with channels-of-sale. Even 'buying' a reliable new identity or series of identities would rely on a few specialist suppliers and predictable methods of making them.

One of the benefits of a place like Tantooine seems to have been lax laws regarding 'checking in' with the local authorities.

2.)The target will most likely have an interstellar-capable vehicle, capable of crossing the galaxy in days or weeks (if not, the target is probably a poor schmuck anyways who wouldn't have a clue that a bounty hunter was searching for him, and thus would rely purely on luck to survive.) The capacity to put hundreds of lighty-ears behind you on a whim, much less when you know you are being hunted, will very quickly turn your trail stone cold.

Inter-stellar capable vehicles need fuel and parts, require a unique registered transponder code, crews need supplies and medical care, and sometimes this is very specialized by species or make and model of spacecraft. If the spacer is into smuggling, there are only so many sources of business and spaceship berths that won't look too closely at their sensor and weapons specs.

Someone like Han Solo, with only one small freighter and Wookie partner who regularly visits Kasshyk to visit his son, wouldn't be that hard to track as long as he kept working. Also, it did take a while for Boba Fett to actually find Han Solo (going from the movies alone, leaving out their EU encounters between ANH and TESB).

Quite simply, bounty hunting would not, could not, feasibly exist as a means of supporting oneself. If beings are attracted to the thrill of the chase, they will soon become disillusioned when they discover that 99% of the work is simply locating the target, and would presumably switch to similar criminal ventures such as smuggling (no logic problems with that).

My conclusion is that the Bounty Hunter as a profession is not as widespread as has been previously thought, as many would quickly realize the same problems I submitted here, and the difficulties with making the answers work. Instead, a more reasonable label would be assassins, or kidnappers, as their contracts would presumably be against those who do not move around that much or move on predictable schedules. Not "find him, kill him, bring me his head" type assignments.

Two words: Corporate espionage. Also, there is no reason that 'bounty hunting' has to be all that shady; essentially, someone is paying a high price for a small bit of specialized work. You could place a bounty for recruiting (legally) vaporator farmers for example, perhaps bypassing a more excruciating recruitment process of laying out ads on the holonet or getting hosed by a job placement service. A messenger or package delivery could be done by bounty if the level of service exceeds what an ordinary company could do cost-effectively; for example the bicycle-borne messengers who gopher between buildings in some large cities aren't UPS, but they are there and immediate.

Substitute 'bounty hunter' with 'private investigator' or 'private security specialist' and compare it to today's private security industry, where there is work for trans-national mercenary companies, as well as small-town/national operations specializing in mall security, and one-gumshoe shops specializing in verifying spousal fidelity, all of whom may pick up the occasional bounty on priced felons, or a 'grey' employment contract.

It is possible that although the likes of Boba Fett prefer taking on high-paying kidnap and assassination jobs, others might specialize in tracking white collar crime and corruption like data/credit fraud, or just do surveillance and data gathering alone, selling or supplying to a database vendor or other information broker. In a galaxy as large and chaotic as SW, the business is easily self-sustaining.

The only thing I find unusual in the SW universe is that some of these bounty hunters are 'famous', yet can still pursue the clandestine areas of the trade.