Re: Mercs

Bertil Jonell [email removed] writes:

> 2. Who exacly can hire a merc unit?
> ...
>		   If 'Union of Vranx' wants to invade it's neighbour on the
> balcanized planet, the 'Uurk Federation', to capture their resources, they'll
> probably going to break a whole lot of local laws in the 'Federation', yet, this
> seems to be a perfectly ok use of mercs.
>   What is the real differece between this and if Wild Bill Hicock wants to
> knock over a bank and hires 4 commandos to help him.

As far as the Imperium is concerned, none.  The planets in question look after
their own defence.  If the "Rules of War" are broken, the Imperium intervenes.
I suspect the Vranxian invasion is more likely to break the Rules than the
bank job.

>   One possible answer to this is that the Imperium don't bother with groundling
> conflicts unless they break the 'Imperial Rules of War' that talks about
> 'Major economic damage to the region'and 'Excessive extraplanetary involvement'.
>
>   By that line of reasoning, travelling to Regina to knock over a bank would be
> out, (At least you wouldn't get away with calling it a merc ticket :-) on the
> grounds of 'Extraplanetary involvement'. (Remember? *travel* to Regina :-)

It's the "excessive" bit that decides it.  For a start, Hickok's crowd are in
violation of Regina's laws on possession of weapons the moment they leave the
starport.  If they resist arrest, to the extent of killing off any police that
try, they may wind up having the local army to deal with.  If they have the
firepower to wipe out the police and army, that's excessive involvement, and
they have the Imperium to deal with.

>   Fourth possible answer: Only if you have friends in high places (Hi Brzk!)
> or if your opponent lacks such friends, are you allowed to hire mercs,
> or rather:
>   If you don't have those friends and hire some merc's to knock over the Bank
> of Regina, you are going to get a early morning visit from your
> 14 (not-so-friendly) neighbourhood plasma-gun-armed marines.

This is certainly one factor; another is that the Imperium just doesn't have
the resources to police every one of its worlds.  Each planet is responsible
for its own defence and police.  The Imperial forces come in when things get
serious, e.g. Zhodani invasion, TL12 mercs robbing TL4 planets, etc.  The
Imperium officially doesn't like anyone hiring mercs, because it doesn't want
fighting within its borders.  Unofficially, a quick military campaign is
usually preferable to a long economic one, such as sanctions, trade embargoes
etc.  The "Rules of War" have never been written down, and don't "officially"
exist, because if they did they would indicate Imperial approval of internal
wars.  Basically, a mercenary unit has to use common-sense, and so does its
employer.  If their idea of common-sense differs from that of the local
governor, the Imperium intervenes.  "Excessive off-world involvement",
"economic damage" are not precisely defined, mainly so a merc unit can't
say "But Rorke's Raiders did it two months ago on Roup, and you didn't bother
them".  There is one exception.  If anyone uses nuclear weapons, the Imperial
forces squash them.

- --
 "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
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