Re: (1369) Re: Mercenaries

 In Archive-Message-Number 1369, Bertil Jonell writes:
 >
 >Brent L. Woods writes:
 >> If you win, then, great.  Reclaim the bond, use it to pay off your
 >> mercenaries, then take what's left and use it for a much-deserved
 >> trip to the famous vacation world of Riviera.
 >
 >  Ah, I've got to admit that I didn't think of that possibility. I
 >guess I was to focussed on 'You pay them salary, then you pay the
 >repatriation bond' problem that I forgot that one can use the
 >repatriation money to pay them off!

     Sure.  That's how bonds work.  If you don't forfeit the bond (in
this case, lose the war), you don't lose the money; you get it back.  If
you win, then you pay your troops their accumulated pay and bonuses, and
transport off-world is *their* problem.  The larger and better-
established units will usually have their own transport (remember the
_Broadsword_ class mercenary cruiser?), so they'll just load up their
equipment and go on to their next ticket.

 >> Notice that all these potential employers are fairly large
 >> organizations, usually with easy access to the kind of wealth that
 >> is needed to hire even a modest-sized mercenary unit.  Remember,
 >> decent troops don't come cheap.
 >
 >  A few megacredits can take you quite far. Unless, of course, there
 >is need of armed, hitech vehicles or the ubiquitous Battledress &
 >FGMP. If you are willing to settle for Combat Environment Suits,
 >Gaussrifles & RAM Auto-GL's one can easily hire several hundred
 >people for 1MCr (assuming Cr75,000 per platoon for 2 months. [Yes,
 >this is  George William Herbert's exampla :-)], adding the equipment
 >wont add more than 25,000, for a total of one platoon per 100kCr)

     Um.  I'm not so sure about that.  How long are you planning on
keeping your fighting force in the field?  If it's any reasonably long
length of time, then payroll costs are going to mount up (not to mention
death benefits for KIAs and medical support costs for ordinary
casualties).  How about ammunition?  You usually have to pick up the
tab for that.  Replacement of combat-lossed equipment?

     Remember, things *always* end up costing more than you planned,
since warefare isn't amenable to prediction.  Was is von Clausewitz
who said "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy?"

 >>  >  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.
 >>
 >>      Easy.  It's the same as the difference between legitimate warfare
 >> and commiting a criminal act.  Fighting a war is *not* the same as
 >> robbing a bank, either legally or practically.
 >
 >  But replace Wild Bill with Naasirka and the bank with a research
 >station owned by a competitor. It would still be a crime, but suddenly
 >it is transformed into a 'legitimate' ticket.

     Um.  I have two comments on that.  First, Naasirka can buy any
number of judges they want (not to mention lawyers--remember, whoever
has the most lawyers wins).  I strongly suspect that "Wild Bill doesn't
have that option.

     Second, I'd bet long odds that any decent mercenary would be too
proud to accept a ticket that requires him to become a common criminal.

     A strike raid against a research station as part of a combat unit
is one thing.  Robbing a bank is something else again.  I think that
it's reasonable for the average mercenary to not have to fight civil
police.

 >(I'm not sure, but I think that a commando raid against a competitor
 >has been published in the JTAS as a ticket?)

     I don't know for sure.  My collection of the Journal goes back to
issue 9, and is complete to the present.  I just checked 9 through 24
(my issues of _Challenge_ are still packed--I just moved) and didn't
find any mercenary tickets.  Could be, though.

 >  I was assuming that there existed some kind of 'official'
 >recognition of the governments that makes up the imperium.

     I doubt that it matters.  If you have the actual power, official
recognition doesn't make that much difference.

 >  My question then is: Why does not every criminal organize their jobs
 >as tickets, and take advantage of the *repatriation bonds*? Since
 >defeated mercs are allowed free passage off planet, one would assume
 >that captured criminals would jump on that opportunity!

     If the government with the power *isn't* your employer, and you
just did something to annoy them that wasn't part of legitimate warfare,
they probably won't let you off the planet.  You're going to prison
anyway, so trying to fake up some some bogus "ticket" won't help you.

 >  If we look at it from the individual mercs point of view, (s)he is
 >bound to be quite interested in if the repatriation bond is going to
 >be honored, or if some Imperial official is going to smash them with
 >a law-book and say:

     I doubt that the Imperium would be involved.  More probably some
local authority.  The Imperium has enough problems without meddling in
some local criminal justice system.

 >  (BTW, In my campaign there is a civil war on a certain planet where
 >bonds are *not* honored.

     Really?  And there are actually mercenaries stupid enough to fight
there?  I'm amazed.  I certainly wouldn't.  Heck, I'd sooner hang up
my webgear and get a job at McDonalds (I don't care if it *is* 3000
years in the future--some things will *never* go away).  :-)

 >PS, Anyone out there who knows a sure method of transforming ClarisCAD
 >documents from a mac into generic postscrips files?

     Try using chooser to select a laserprinter driver and then print
to a file.  That should do it.


- --
     Brent

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