Stolen goods & heat
Cheap stock, expensive attention.
Discounted merchandise with flexible paperwork. The margin is real, and so is the audit that follows it into your storage.
Heat is the station’s way of remembering. It travels with the item, attaches to the counter, and is settled in reputation rather than credits.
Buying stolen is the fastest way to fill a shelf and the fastest way to lose one. Heat is not a fine — it is a queue of consequences that resolves when an inspection, a raid or a customer with a grudge decides to collect.
The trade is therefore a storage problem first and a sales problem second. Bays, hidden compartments and a story that survives a search are the actual product.
Counter protocol
- Buy cheap, sell fast, and never leave stolen stock on open display overnight.
- Smuggler bays exist to break the line between the counter and the search.
- Relabelling is the legal-looking edge of the same trade.
Related stock
Where this comes from
Fencing stolen goods is viable only while Security does not reach the shop.
“You can cut the product’s quality, relabel counterfeit products as genuine, or fence discounted, stolen goods if you believe Security won’t reach you.”
Contraband can also arrive as merchandise the shop buys, bringing problems the seller did not mention.
“Suppliers overstate value, customers push their luck, and contraband often comes with issues you only notice after the deal is done.”
Community guides connect carrying stolen goods with how suspicious a shop appears to inspection.
“Look suspicious. Wanted people can be”
Caption as spoken (verbatim)
look suspicious. Wanted people can be
Tier 1 is the developer or publisher speaking, tier 2 is a large structured reference, tier 3 is player-made material. Anything a player measured rather than read is labelled as community-reported on this page.