The smuggler party has just been captured by local authorities and thrown in the detention center on some colonial world to wait for an Imperial representative to question them.

How do they escape?

The representative is a corrupted authority, like a bureaucrat or an ISB agent, offers a shady deal. He wants to-

1. screw rival X
2. get rare possession
3. save face
4. avenge X
5. future favor
6. cover for his debt
7. falsely pose as X

because-

1. personal vendetta
2. sense of duty/pride/envy/greed
3. for another official
4. greater mechanization
5. religious/traditional belief

Inside job, ok, that's a good angle.

The representative is a corrupted authority, like a bureaucrat or an ISB agent, offers a shady deal. He wants to-

1. screw rival X
2. get rare possession
3. save face
4. avenge X
5. future favor
6. cover for his debt
7. falsely pose as X

because-

1. personal vendetta
2. sense of duty/pride/envy/greed
3. for another official
4. greater mechanization
5. religious/traditional belief

Or the a local guard is a rival of the representative and he wants to make the rival look guilty so he makes it look like the representative did one of the above because of one of the secondary things.

One thing to remember about Palpatine is he liked it when his underlings were stabbing each other in the back.

Inside job, ok, that's a good angle.

More like being released for debt/job, but if you are looking for an escape scenario, this could be done with this also...

Local authorities are getting too close so local crime boss springs them to discredit the authorities and since they owe him/her, there's this job that needs...discretion...

Down the garbage shoot lol

Maybe they don't escape. Maybe their captors tell them they can walk if they agree to turn informants/undercover agents for them. And to ensure the PCs stay honest they implant explosives in their bodies or in their starship or both.

Necropost here, 'cause this is all relevant to my question. Are there in Canon/EU any reference to actual get-out-of-jail-pass situations in SW?

My group are, for complicated reasons, about to negotiate a deal with a powerful ISB officer, and a likely request of theirs will be to get some kind of backdoor escape in case of incarceration. How would that work, I wonder?

I'm envisioning a spoken command, like: "I envoke ISB secirity provelege on the authority of [officer]" +showing some kind of identification chip (i.e. like the special coin plot-point in TRoS ), a barcode tattoo, a coded engraving on the inside of a fake tooth, or something. Thoughts?

I'd say that it's more likely that the ISB officer will keep tabs on them.

They might have to stew a bit, but eventually the officer would send an underling to "take them into custody for questioning".

Then they're allowed to go free...

With a new group Criminal Obligation (or Favor, or Bounty, etc.).

It really depends. The classic "knock me out so it looks like you overpowered me to escape".

The ISB officer would not be directly involved in the shenanigans.

Cheers!

I expressed myself poorly. What the PCs will likely request is not an escape from the current officer's incarceration (that is a given at this point), but rather a get-out-of-jail-free-card for the next time they get into Imp trouble; I.e. they will negotiate ISB protection, making their next arrestert this officer's expressed problem.

For context, they have enough dirt on the ISB officer/are useful enough to him that this is a reasonable arrangement.

What I am wondering is how such an arrangement would work, practically.

I see. As I don't think there's any canon answer, I'd go with this:

The PCs are provided with a code cylinder (yes, those little things you see in Imperial officers' breast pockets that look like pens) with the relevant info.

I strongly feel that the ISB officer simply should not give that to them, that this is something that absolutely is not on the table. And unles this is somebody like Tarkin, it should not even be in the power of that officer to give. Cops do not give blanket immunity for future crimes to criminals. Not even really, really crooked cops.

1 hour ago, salamar_dree said:

I see. As I don't think there's any canon answer, I'd go with this:

The PCs are provided with a code cylinder (yes, those little things you see in Imperial officers' breast pockets that look like pens) with the relevant info.

Oh, that's a great idea! Thanks, I'll go with that

3 hours ago, micheldebruyn said:

I strongly feel that the ISB officer simply should not give that to them, that this is something that absolutely is not on the table. And unles this is somebody like Tarkin, it should not even be in the power of that officer to give. Cops do not give blanket immunity for future crimes to criminals. Not even really, really crooked cops.

Although you may be able to be listed as a criminal informant. Procedure for that would be to ask the arresting officer to contact the ISB agent. The ISB would have to pull rank to get the PC's out, but in most of the writeups, the ISB seems to function like the Gestapo. What they want, they get. Rank usually doesn't come into it, unless a very powerful individual is involved (like a Grand Moff, Grand Admiral, Inquisitor, etc.) or the offense is outrageous (admitted blowing up a Star Destroyer, assassinating a Grand Moff, etc), then the ISB officer might have to get his commander involved.