How would you fight the Hutts?

[Kemper Boyd]

In the context of my New Separatists campaign, the players will be warned first by reports of the Hutts being disgruntled about the CIW shutting down slave trade and the ships of the CIW Fleet raiding convoys for slave ships to liberate.

Eventually, the thing will come to a boil and the Hutts attempt to assassinate the leaders of the CIW, probably unsuccessfully. So, something needs to be done to these despicable larvae.

My question is: how would you do that?

The average player character group doesn't have the resources to go after Hutt crimelords, but the player group will have the machinery and military of an entire state backing them.

[Gregorius]

Orbital Bombardment .

Actually, probably some kind of elite commando raid, or that is what I'd do.

[garhkal]

I agree with your first assessment. BUT i would also layer it. First off make life difficult for smugglers who ply the hutts trade, but benefitial for those who leave the hutts alone. That cuts off some of their support.
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[Bren]

Salt. Lots of salt.

[Lostboy]

You want to deal with the Hutts, ok try this.

Use a CIW sector fleet, launch a surprise attack on Nul-hutta dropping out of hyperspace just outside of orbit and immediately fire an orbital barrage set to take out as many planet side military bases as possible, whilst as dropping as many drop ships to the surface as possible.

The Hutts will raise there planetary shields very quickly, so the bombardment will only last a short time. Once this is done the CIW fleet will move to engage the Hutts defense fleet.

The CIW would use a droid control ship with a modified signal to activate and control the thousands of Xims war droids that act as guards for the Hutt palaces. The war droids would turn on the Hutts and would be in a prime position to assassinate them.

The war droids will then join the CIW battle droids in there task of seizing the planetary shield generators. With them secured the battle would be all but over.

[Praxian]

Before or after Jabba kinda unites them?

If before, the same as you would any other solo criminal element that relies on some sort of organization.

If after, I wouldn't piss them off personally. But for those who wish to challenge them, I'd rely on getting 2 or 3 ships, and non-stop hijacking their most important shipments to make them seem "Unreliable". Make it to where people can't depend on them to deliver their shipments, they lose money.

Expect there to be a big bounty on your head for a year or so until they go under, but outside of bombarding where they sit at, the next best thing is destroying their cash flow.

[garhkal]

Step 1.. Find a star gate.
Step 2.. hyperspace to the Hutt system star
Step 3.. Dial the gate to a planet next to a black hole
Step 4. drop open gate off in sun..
Watch as sun goes nova..

OH sorry.. Wrong sci fi show..
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[Raven Redstar]

I'd use spies.

Infiltrate multiple agents into each organization, let them work their way up, and then after a specific amount of time, give the signal for a coordinated assassination. Every enemy Hutt would be dead before they realized that they were seriously targeted.

[Lostboy]

That would take a very long time and a bunch of highly motivated and loyal assassins.

[Raven Redstar]

Anything worth doing, it's worth doing it right.

Of course you would; highly motivated, loyal, brainwashed assassins. I like the way the Empire does business. >.> <.<

[notmalcolypse]

Gifts of 1 ton to each hutt of crunchy frog surprise laced with neurotoxins.

[Hellcat]

As it sounds like you'd be having the PCs doing this, have them "work" as bounty hunters, mechanics, and guns for hire and get into the employ of the Hutts, working to gain the trust of the Hutts. Once that happens they can then do a little work on a translator droid, floater, sailbarge, or the Hutt's personal starship. A few kilos of baradium (the stuff that makes thermal detonators so deadly and a detonator rigged with either a timer or a remote would make a huge boom that'd certainly take out a Hutt. Though you could get away with just a few ounces per Hutt. Think about it, a thermal detonator likely doesn't contain a kilo of baradium, likely given the size of the TD it's a few ounce (maybe three at the most) and at it's make according to Gry's weapons stats guide it does 10D damage. That's at the 0-2 meter range in the blast radius, and the target Hutt using a floater would certainly be in that range. Unless the Hutt has gone over the max attribute of 5D, they don't have enough in STR to resist the blast at that range and would have to hope for a really poor damage roll or a great resist damage roll on the WD. A Translator droid would likely be within 8 meters of the Hutt, so you're still looking at 8D damage for just a few ounces basing off a TD's blast radius. With a sail barge or a starship, set the baradium near some crucial machinery that'll destroy the whole thing. The Hutt could potentially be outside the blast radius but still get killed.
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Wanted Poster

[garhkal]

Rig their ships.. heck you don't even need explosives.. just alter their nav comp to show a black hole as not being there, and disable the safety interlock, so they DO brush it and go boom.
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[Lostboy]

Wow all all of these suggestions are staggeringly complicated and hard to do.

If you just wan't to stop the slavers. HHmmmm.... I suggest becoming a buyer and use that trust to find the network and work from there.

[Kemper Boyd]

Great answers, everyone.

So far I've sketched out this.

The CIW Head of State, Admiral Kiner, sets the players to the task of putting together a plan to retaliate against the Hutts and eliminate them as a threat, with the caveat that any plan shall not drain too much resources from the ongoing war against the Empire, which rules out the direct approach of blockading Nal Hutta.

The intelligence side of the conflict is known like this: the Hutts are fairly split along the lines of who makes money from slavery and who doesn't. The three major Hutt movers and shakers that lead their respective factions are Jabba, Samog and Griztina.

Jabba is sort of neutral on the issue: his wealth isn't tied up in the slave trade since he has a finger in every pot. At the same time, he can't be weak so he has given nominal support to the pro-conflict faction. He'd be willing to back off, if the conflict ends up messing up business. He doesn't initially see it happening, though.

Griztina is an elderly Hutt who has made her billions from slave trade, and has no chance of backing out from the conflict, since it would make her poor and probably end up with her getting killed by her own family. She'll be pursuing active hostilities, starting with an attempted assassination on the CIW leadership and senate.

Samog the Hutt is a weird case. At the council of Hutts, he represents the minority that's willing to ditch slave trade. Of course, that faction has only a comparatively small amount of business tied to the slave trade, which makes that decision easy. However, Samog has the makings of an actual idealist: he has a nagging guilt about the slave trade and think that perhaps other individuals are just as worthy as respect as any Hutt. Those thoughts he keeps to himself, tho. "You cannot extort a state" is what he says in public, bringing up the possibility of retribution against Hutts in their entirety.

The CIW Intelligence service has no problem at all infiltrating the Hutts for intelligence. Assassinations are a different sort of animal, though: Intelligence professionals don't want to do assassinations that they cant survive.

On the military side, the CIW Navy at this point is quite powerful, comparable to something like half an Imperial sector fleet. Using these ships is another matter: withdrawing ships from the line means the danger of Imperial attack. Light units like gunships, corvettes and a few light carriers are what is available initially. The Hutts can probably deal with them on a one-to-one basis from whatever mercenaries and pirates they hire.

The obvious solution here is of course raiding Hutt shipping and kicking to pieces Hutt-aligned slaver and smuggler fleets. However, when it comes to smugglers in particular, the CIW needs to be careful to not put the entire fringe against them, since they too rely on smugglers for intelligence, shipping and occasional privateer duty. No one really cares about slavers being attacked, arrested and tried, of course. The minimum punishment for slavery of sentient beings in the CIW is twenty years hard labor, but for smugglers, the CIW can be a dear friend due to low tariffs and lucrative legitimate (legitimate in the CIW sense, the Imperials might have a different view) shipping contracts.

CIW Special Forces might be used against Hutts for raids and arrests, like suggested in the thread.

Another thing that might well happen is seizure of Hutt-owned assets in CIW space. It could hit them where it hurts: their wallets.