RE: [MERCS] Weapons available [FH]

>> Out-of-genre, I'd say mercenaries are more likely to
>> use such weapons since they won't have to face the
>> legal or political fall-out.

From: ~ On Behalf Of John Atkinson
Sent: 18 April 2002 04:43
Subject: RE: [MERCS] Weapons available [FH]

> Won't have to face legal and political fallout?  Are
> you insane?

Possibly - see my posting on boarding actions.

> Mercs have a FAR higher vulnerability to Great Power
> actions than other great powers.

By out-of-genre, I was referring partly to real-world
mercenaries and partly to fictional ones drawn from
non-GZG backgrounds.

Twentieth-century mercenaries tend to form units for
single operations, or are even hired individually by the
sponsor. In both situations, there is often a large
degree of deniability, so the mercenaries are free to
use methods that government troops and company employees
would face recriminations for.

In fictional backgrounds, different moral standards often
prevail.

> And as for political fallout, if a merc unit becomes
> known as the "Butchers of Beta Trianguli" and acquires
> a reputation for flinging nerve gas with gay abandon,
> then there is no way in HELL that they could ever get
> hired by anyone.

If the unit has a reputation to uphold, and EMPLOYERS
don't like the use of these weapons then I would agree.

However, what if you have an industrial complex worth
several billion credits and it's been occupied by locals
with cheap automatic weapons? Or even striking employees?
You can pay a mercenary company to flush them out using
similar weapons, or you can hire a platoon to simply
sanitise the complex with a few gas rounds from a mortar.
Guess which will leave you more of your complex?

> How could you explain to your voters that you hired a
> bunch of crazed lunatics?

That assumes a democracy, or an equivalent method of 
government accountability to the general public. Even
then, you could have public pressure to hire a rock-hard
unit to nuke the enemy 'till they glow... etc.

On the other hand, patrons won't hire units with a
reputation for making a mess (literally or politically)
regardless of whether they do it with prohibited or
conventional weapons.

> Mercs can get arrested. It's not hard. If you have a
> merc company, then you don't have the support
> structure in place to protect you.  All I have to do
> is place the merc unit's family in "protective
> custody" and all of a sudden the mercs are real
> cooperative.

Now that's sketching a established mercenary unit on
the scale of Falkenberg's Legion (and I think I recollect
an episode when a mad vice-president and his stooge tried
to arrest Johnny Christian.) Back to reality: I don't see
the average mercenary fighting under a nom de guerre 
having easily traceable dependents. Yes, many of them
are arrested, often before their operations get going.
This is simply to forestall the operation, rather than
to prevent unacceptable amounts of death and destruction.

==========================================================
Note: I've cheerfully mixed real-world and fictional
settings in all of the above. I would suggest that any
replies make a better job of distinguishing the two than
I've done so far. Most of the near-reality discussion
appears to be going on in the original thread anyway.
The rest of this is all [FH].  

>> In genre, we know they were used by Swiss
>> mercenaries in 2129 to cover their raid on the
>> Philipines.

> With massive political outcry.

Hence my "This appears to be one of the rallying causes
for the UN..." line. If the Friesland Charter had just
been a simple settlement between the protagonists, it
would not have been signed by so many other parties.

> Mercs have a FAR higher vulnerability to Great Power
> actions than other great powers.

Applying this to the GZG universe (which may or may not
have been the original intention) I would say that there,
one does not break rules so much as make enemies. Being
wanted by the NSL for undue use of chemical weapons is
no problem if you primarily work within the ESU.
However, if you are captured by the Swabbies, you will
only live as long as the cameras take to arrive for
your execution.

If it were not so difficult to cultivate and control a
pool of ready mercenaries, the Mercenary War would
probably not have happened in the first place.

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