Mercenaries in the Honorverse:Manticore's hypocrisy?

I meant private groups contracted by governments for military purposes, which would include Privateers and Mercenaries.


So I might have been conflating the two.

After all, what makes privateers different than mercs?

Phalanx wrote:After all, what makes privateers different than mercs?

Technically, a mercenary is fighting for money in a conflict in which his national government or an organization to which he owes loyalty, isn't involved, or on the other side of those. Iirc, the actually modern legal description is somewhat more complex than that.

Phalanx wrote:I meant private groups contracted by governments for military purposes, which would include Privateers and Mercenaries.


So I might have been conflating the two.

After all, what makes privateers different than mercs?

Privateers are very different from mercenaries.

First, privateers are not paid by the government, and therefore cannot be controlled by that government. They get a writ from the government granting them a bit of status, which is all that differentiates them from pirates. Once they get that writ, they are basically on their own. Mercenaries are directly paid by the government, and are held responsible to the government. They obey the orders of the government.

I don't believe that Manticore has any problem with mercenaries. It is privateers that they have a problem with, because most of them are really no better than pirates, and using the writ to get away with it.

SWM wrote:

Phalanx wrote:I meant private groups contracted by governments for military purposes, which would include Privateers and Mercenaries.


So I might have been conflating the two.

After all, what makes privateers different than mercs?

Privateers are very different from mercenaries.

First, privateers are not paid by the government, and therefore cannot be controlled by that government. They get a writ from the government granting them a bit of status, which is all that differentiates them from pirates. Once they get that writ, they are basically on their own. Mercenaries are directly paid by the government, and are held responsible to the government. They obey the orders of the government.

I don't believe that Manticore has any problem with mercenaries. It is privateers that they have a problem with, because most of them are really no better than pirates, and using the writ to get away with it.

Yeah Manticore's problems with privateering are the lack of safeguards against privateers refusing to restrict themselves to vessels belonging to groups that are actually hostile to whoever issued the letter of marque, and that many privateers, like most honorverse pirates we've seen are exceptionally brutal to the crews of ships they capture.

SWM wrote:

Phalanx wrote:I meant private groups contracted by governments for military purposes, which would include Privateers and Mercenaries.


So I might have been conflating the two.

After all, what makes privateers different than mercs?

Privateers are very different from mercenaries.

First, privateers are not paid by the government, and therefore cannot be controlled by that government. They get a writ from the government granting them a bit of status, which is all that differentiates them from pirates. Once they get that writ, they are basically on their own. Mercenaries are directly paid by the government, and are held responsible to the government. They obey the orders of the government.

I don't believe that Manticore has any problem with mercenaries. It is privateers that they have a problem with, because most of them are really no better than pirates, and using the writ to get away with it.

Or rather Manticore has had issues with specific mercenaries due to their actions, but don't appear to have an issue with the concept of mercenaries in general.

And while Privateers may be on their own, the Government that issued the letter of marque may be willing to provide support to handle things like prisoners, captures ships/supplies, or even providing discounted ship chandler services. The legal structure of Privaterring doesn't require them to be totally hands off. (However their effective control is pretty much limited to "follow whatever guidelines we gave you or we'll take away your letter of marque")

Jonathan_S wrote:Privateers are very different from mercenaries.

First, privateers are not paid by the government, and therefore cannot be controlled by that government. They get a writ from the government granting them a bit of status, which is all that differentiates them from pirates. Once they get that writ, they are basically on their own. Mercenaries are directly paid by the government, and are held responsible to the government. They obey the orders of the government.

I don't believe that Manticore has any problem with mercenaries. It is privateers that they have a problem with, because most of them are really no better than pirates, and using the writ to get away with it.

Or rather Manticore has had issues with specific mercenaries due to their actions, but don't appear to have an issue with the concept of mercenaries in general.

And while Privateers may be on their own, the Government that issued the letter of marque may be willing to provide support to handle things like prisoners, captures ships/supplies, or even providing discounted ship chandler services. The legal structure of Privaterring doesn't require them to be totally hands off. (However their effective control is pretty much limited to "follow whatever guidelines we gave you or we'll take away your letter of marque")[/quote]

"Assuming we're forced to hear about it in a non-deniable way."

Jonathan_S wrote:

SWV wrote:Privateers are very different from mercenaries.

First, privateers are not paid by the government, and therefore cannot be controlled by that government. They get a writ from the government granting them a bit of status, which is all that differentiates them from pirates. Once they get that writ, they are basically on their own. Mercenaries are directly paid by the government, and are held responsible to the government. They obey the orders of the government.

I don't believe that Manticore has any problem with mercenaries. It is privateers that they have a problem with, because most of them are really no better than pirates, and using the writ to get away with it.

Or rather Manticore has had issues with specific mercenaries due to their actions, but don't appear to have an issue with the concept of mercenaries in general.

And while Privateers may be on their own, the Government that issued the letter of marque may be willing to provide support to handle things like prisoners, captures ships/supplies, or even providing discounted ship chandler services. The legal structure of Privaterring doesn't require them to be totally hands off. (However their effective control is pretty much limited to "follow whatever guidelines we gave you or we'll take away your letter of marque")

Dafmeister wrote:
"Assuming we're forced to hear about it in a non-deniable way."

Quite possibly. Depending on the government authorizing privateers.

Some might only take action to police their privateers if they get the non-deniable details you mentioned. Some might try to run as clean a commerce raiding war as possible and act on any credible information that their privateers are abusing the rules. And clearly some (like one's we've heard in passing about in Silesia) don't care at all, they simply sell letters of marque to any pirate and don't care what they do, or to whom.

Manticore's big issue is with privateers who target Manticorian interests. At which point if they catch them they are dead. A Manticorian Captain will be strangely unmoved on the waving a writ around to explain hitting a Manticorian Merchant. Inconsiderate of them, I know.

That being said they don't have any sort of policy towards Mercenaries that I have seen. Now the Mercs can be held to account for actions that they have done. One of the reasons Mercenaries have a bad name is that if you need to crack heads amongst your own people, and your soldiers might feel some conflict on interest in say burning down the village that their parents live at, you can bring in foreign troops (Mercenaries) to do said village burning.

Some Mercenaries are like how the Andermaani started out, soldiers for hire, most, especially in the crappier parts of the galaxy are thugs for hire. Since their only intrest is monetary compensation, they are more inclined to find "bonuses" for themselves in looting.

Direwolf18 wrote:Manticore's big issue is with privateers who target Manticorian interests. At which point if they catch them they are dead. A Manticorian Captain will be strangely unmoved on the waving a writ around to explain hitting a Manticorian Merchant. Inconsiderate of them, I know.

To be fair a lot of Manticore's object is that Privateers only seem to follow the rules of war when it seems in their interests.

If they captured a privateer that had been rigorously following the rules for commerce raiding (authorized by a nation at war with Manticore, accepting surrenders, keeping prisoners as safe as practical, etc) I'm sure they'd honor the piece of paper and treat the privateers like any other honorable prisoners of war.

(They still wouldn't like that their enemy can legally authorize armed civilians to prey on merchant traffic, but that dislike doesn't seem likely to cause Manticoran Naval crews from following the rules)

Now privateer who keep "accidently" attacking Manticoran ships who aren't their lawful prey are likely to come to a bad end. And ones who abuse or slaughter prisoners will likely get a worse one. (All nice and legal; tried for violations of the laws of the country that authorized them or violations of the rules of war. But a bad end just the same)

I figure most mercenaries run the gambit between basic thugs for hire to highly trained military/elite troops capable of pulling off tough jobs. Most mercs would likely be infantry (army/Marine) style units, but some would be naval forces (less naval because of the immense cost of paying for then maintaining an expensive naval force). A good number of the naval forces though would likely be competent and professional, the rest likely crap.

Why the large number of good and reliable mercs? Simply this; reputation. If your rep is that you will turn tail and run or turn against your employer simply because the other side waved money in your face, you're not going to get anymore contracts. Or any good ones. Employers will likely want reliable and skilled mercs. Hiring mercs that have a reputation of violence and rape against their employers will not be looked upon favorably.

A good example of good and honorably mercs (space combat mercs here) worthy of being hired are the ones in the Path of the Fury universe. The Monkoto Free Mercenaries (Monkoto's Maniacs, Falconi's Falcons, the Westfeldt's Wolves, Captain Tarbaneau and her Assassins, O'kane's Free Company. They are undeniably mercenaries, but they have a well earned reputation for efficiency, toughness and honor on the battlefield. There are undeniably bad mercenaries that have earned the reputation bad mercs get, but for any mercenary company to exist more than a few years, it has to have a good reputation to lure in possible clients. When you're dealing with the more expensive units like warships, then you really need that good reputation. Warships are very expensive to maintain.

On the otherside, being an employer, mercenary units need to know you won't screw them over with payments and such. Being a dependable paymaster is just as important otherwise no one will hire on if your rep is for shorting the pay, or trying to not pay or trying to kill off the mercs you hired in the first place.