On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 5:22 PM, Richard Aiken <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

> He also seems to be saying that Patrons don't regard mercenaries as
> expendable. The way a Patron would see it, mercenaries (especially
> interstellar mercenaries) are the definition of expendable.

I doubt it.  Mercenaries may range in skill level and expense from
expendable levies to very expensive high-tech cadre and specialists,
but given the expected cost of transportation and hiring, nobody's
going to look at them as expendable peasant levies.

I mean, if all you need is peasant levies, you can probably press gang
them locally, probably at a much lower cost than what it will cost you
to hire, bond, transport, pay, and export mercs.

(And, yes, you have to pay to get rid of them, too.  Transportation
off-planet is going to be a standard part of the hiring fee.  No
competant commander is going to get themselves stranded on your
planet.)

My personal suspicion is that, if the mercs found out the local
leadership was going to use them for human wave tactics, or something
else that would pretty much get the mercs killed, the mercs would be
within their rights to refuse those orders.

I mean, the merc commander makes money by renting the troops.  Taking
some losses is part of the business model.  (It's also why mercs
prefer cadre/training missions, they tend to not be as hard on the
assets.)  If the troops ALL get killed, the merc commander has no
assets to make money any more.

>Mercenaries
> don't vote for or against you, you don't have to worry about them if they
> become casualties (that's what their own insurance is for),

But you do.  See above.

Politically, it's not as much an issue as your own troops getting killed.

Economically, it will be.  The mercs have to pay for their insurance,
and they pay for it out of what they charge the customer, so the
customer is paying the insurance overhead.

Not to mention, any reasonably competant commander will have some sort
of contract  clauses that allows them to limit their casualties.

> their families
> don't depend upon you for pensions if they're killed,

Again, that comes out of the merc company's overhead, which is still
paid by the customer.

> mercenaries can be expected to have no moral
> qualms about whatever mission they are assigned to
> do (or they wouldn't have become mercenaries in the first place), etc.

Also likely to be incorrect.  Imported mercs may not have *political*
qualms about whatever the backwater indigs are fighting over, but they
are still unlikely to engage in blatant violations of the Rules of
War, which still means limited warfare and some levels of restraint.

> 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.

--

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