On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 3:06 AM, Richard Aiken <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 9:17 AM, Grimmund <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

> Of course, honorable, skilled mercenaries are historically incredibly rare.
> Most fought primarily for loot (meaning they were massively more destructive
> to whatever their Patron wished to achieve than a national force would have
> been),

>promptly surrendered (usually to other mercenaries) when the battle
> got the least bit serious

Well, yes.  You can't make money without the troops, and getting the
troops killed means you're out of business.

> or switched sides when the opponent offered a
> better deal.

Again- it's a business.  Presumably, the bonding agency keeps this in check.

> Each individual Patron pays only a fraction of these cost totals - for the
> length of the contract and no longer - particularly if the mercenary force
> owns it's own transport. A native force would impose the full value of these
> costs upon the Patron indefinitely.

Well, sort of.  The employer is paying those costs for the duration of
the contract, plus enough extra to hold the mercs over to the next
contract, plus 15% profit markup, etc.

If the mercs own their own transport, the employer is *still* paying
transit costs, but paying them to the mercs.  The ship crew has to get
paid, maintenance has to be done, and the monthly mortgage payments
have to be made on those ships.  The mercs make those payments, but
they make the payments by charging the employer enough to cover the
payments, plus extra.

Mercs are always more expensive than equivalent domestic troops for
the same duration.

> The "Rules of War" are . . . flexible, which is why they've never been
> written down.

The rules of ware are written down, but broad and subject to interpretation.

> And mercenaries who display too many inconvenient morals are not likely to
> sign as many contracts as the more "flexible" sort.

Possible.

> NOTE: I'm not saying that Traveller mercenaries are necessarily savage
> brutes. They would simply be expected to not care - or at least not behave
> as if they cared - about collateral damage, unless limiting this were part
> of a specfic contract's rules of engagement.

"28. If the price of collateral damage is high enough, you might be
able to get paid for bringing ammunition home with you."

>> > Mercenaries come in, they do the job and then they leave again.
>>
>>  Ideally,  yes.   Unless it looks like they aren't going to get paid.

> Which is why Traveller has mercenary bonds.
> Scifi mercenaries which do not enjoy the benefit of such bonds would
> probably behave much more closely to real historic mercenaries.

It is my understanding that the bond is paid by the employer, up
front, to cover transportation of the mercenary force off-planet at
the end of the contract.  This is a protection for the mercs; if their
side loses, there is no incentive for the winning side to shoot the
mercs out of hand to simply be rid of them.

Whether the bond also includes the last two (or more) pay periods
payments (in case the employer becomes insolvent, the merc commander
can activate the bond and leave) would be an item to negotiate.

Hiring a competent, well equipped merc organization is going to be FAR
more expensive than organic troops for the duration.

--

"Any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from a genuine
kook." -Alan Morgan