I have seen much talk about the repatration bond that a merc unit has and why
crimminals don't use then:
As far as I can tell considering the world of traveller, hiring a merc
unit to rob a bank is a bit pointless:
(1) Not much money to be made out of it after all costs have been paid.
(2) A legitimate merc unit would never risk a reputation on being
caught as common crooks, the unit does have other jobs to run.
Now crooks could never get hold of a bond as bonds are issued by some
megacorparation. The company would probally wish to know the purpose of the
mission etc and would never back a crime.
Bonds would only be issued if there was a danger of the employer of the unit
disappearing, being overthrown etc. The merc need an escape route, the bonds
provide it. I suggest reading 'Dogs of War' as this provides a lot of depth
into the the workings of the merc during the 1960 in africa. They used the Red
Cross as their bond, to get out of the country.
If a government was to not let the mercs use their bond to get off the
planet they may even cause the Imperial or Megacorpartion forces to intervene.
(Nasty)
Now lets consider this, a group of crook wish to rob somewhere, They can hire
mercs as advisors, low cost, good tatics. To the mercs just another 2 bit job.
Now may the crooks wish to hire someone to do the crime, what do you think
player characters are for. They have never asked for a bond when I landed then
with some jobs (but they wished they had when the job had finished)
So to sum up: Bonds would only be issued in a major war zone to ensure the
saftey of the merc off planet.
A fighting merc force would be hired for a strike, defense
mission only when a major fighting force is expected. Robbing a bank is not a
strike mission.
The above applies to my adventures:
The big note is that in the future merc unit are companies with a job to do and
it they start robbing banks they may loss costomers
--
+------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+
| David M. Johnson | Janet : [email removed] |
+------------------------------------+ ARPA : [email removed] |
| UUCP : ...[email removed] |
+----------------------------------------+