So right, can someone please explain to me

how the fuck shit like this makes sense.

From MercNet btw.


Reason I'm even asking you all is 'cause some of you aren't completely fucktarded and the thread got locked 'bout an hour ago after it started tanking the servers after that post.

So uh

yeah.

Anybody gonna take a crack at this?

Quite stereotypical response really according to my records. Nice to see I hit a nerve.

You're uh.

Yeah you're a dumbfuck.

A. the fact that you had to look that up to see if that's how mercs really talked is sad beyond fucking belief

B. I talk this way to literally everyone.

think that would have been in your records yeah?

Oh, please. I'm not going start kill-wanking on the Extranet; that's so passé. But let's just say that you soldier boys are significantly less invincible than you thiiiiiinnnnnkkkk~

Well I have around 4-5 hours of similar statements here recorded from engagements with mercenary groups. Usually it is followed by them either retreating or being wiped out.

Who the fuck are you? Like, really, I've never seen you on the site before today. Never heard of you. And you're...kinda weird. My curiosity is piqued, and I'm not sure I'll like the answer.

Hahahahahahaha

fucking POGs man.

Fucking

POGs.

Fuck off you sad sack of shit. If you need to watch old war clips to remember that you've got balls you're not nearly as "ttyll hardcorz!!!1!" as you think.

Obv.

It's like saying that astrophysics is stuff going around each other. Yeah, mostly right but if you actually try and predict people's behavior this way, you're going to end up jumping into a star.

at least a POG is still more of a soldier than you are.

Now go back to playing make-belive. I am currently editing a gag reel of the best pathetic mercs clips we have archived here.

Someone with job pride, I'd reckon.

Seriously. You'll never convince the suits with all this equivocation shit. So why bother? I could pretty much run my Moral Relativism minor to the bank here, but it wouldn't achieve anything. They'll always look down on mercs. Maybe justly, maybe not.

And me? I'm fine with that. So we're profit-driven and amoral. Whatev. I've been on the receiving end of harsher remarks, and from people a little more familiar than some weirdos on the Extranet. Does it bemuse me when jarheads, of all people, try and claim ethical superiority? Sure. Do they still have a point? Probably.

If I was prickled by people calling me out for being a bastard, I wouldn't have picked this line of work.

e: Ooh, ooh, we're doing full intros now. Single male contractor, 31-years old, enjoys mojitos and not being on Earth [sadly, one necessitates the other]. Et toi?

This is the saddest thing I have ever read in this shithole.

lol

That's the thing, though. You can kinda predict everyone's behavior this way. Not precisely, but...Well, take a look at their resources. Then take a look at their affiliations. Then take a look at the goals of those they're affiliated with, AND their personal goals. You can predict that they'll do something centering around what they have to work with in terms of associates and assets for the sake of furthering those goals, whatever they may be. Soon as you know those three things, you can come up with some more concrete scenarios and use those scenarios to more accurately predict what they'll do.

Use the tools at hand to further yourself, your cause, your family - whatever. Basic common sense, right? The whole 'Omegan Politics Theory' centers on this single basic idea.

When you get into the nitty-gritty details, you've really got to personalize your approach and take a look at the person and what you know of them. This is where my views on the 'merc's got kids who need to eat' thing keep coming into play. Everyone's different - everyone's goals are different - in organizations where people share the same goals, their reasons for pursuing them are probably different.

It really comes down to 'everyone thinks differently, and has their own personal goals', but the broadness of the entire theory stems from that basic idea that someone is going to advance themselves somehow, even if its in some extremely miniscule way, and they're going to do it using the assets they have at hand. Nobody's going to sabotage themselves, except maybe at the behest of an organization they're part of (or because they're somehow fucked in the head, but that's a whole different beast). Usually, someone's goals and the organization they've opted to be part of mirror or somehow mesh with their personal morality (or lack thereof, depending on your view of things).

It all sort of clashes together into a rough picture of how shit gets done just in a day-to-day way. 'Dude's hungry, he's gonna go find a diner to grab a bite to eat or dig something out of his pantry. He has no food in the pantry. He's gonna go grocery shopping.'

Again, gross oversimplification, but you get the picture. It all hinges on doing business (NOT getting money, I need to stress that point) in some fashion. If you lack the right assets to further your goals? Find a way to get the right ones.

So...what about when you fucks cross the border and attack our shipping?


There's a bit of a difference between stealing from and possibly killing defenseless civilians and killing an enemy that will and can kill you with the same ruthlessness.

Besides, Mekan, I don't kill people for money. I could get a fuckton more money working for a corporation with my skillset. I kill when I have to for an ideal, a cause.

And no, it doesn't come down to 'business'. What you've described is basic group survival behaviour, not the action of 'gangs', which is a word association that attempts to drag legitimate governments (which I might add, do act in ways that don't always benefit them. For example, the Alliance still follows the human laws of war when possible, despite fighting enemies that don't.) down to the same level as a street gang that beats people up to get protection payments.

So yes, it is a gross over-simplification. Sure, if you reduce everything to that level, sure you're right, everyone is out for themselves, but you're missing all the subtleties that lead to how organisations and their members act. Said street gang and the government might both want to advance themselves, but they're going to act in very different ways and attract different kinds of people.

You're equating resources with money, Nat. That's the first problem, but resources can be anything.


Exactly. An ideal. Like the one your gang was founded around.

That involves maintaining a resource base (colonies, mining facilities, etc.) and keeping it secured via enforcers (the SA Navy). Same basic principle.


'Organization', 'government', 'faction', 'gang', it's all the same. Even the Batarian Confederation (or the old Hegemony) isn't exempt from this kind of classification, and I'm not going to try and make it look like we're somehow above that. If anything, we're the epitome of it. It's probably the source of everything I'm spouting right now. Batarian society is all about that kinda shit.


Not really. Same methods - different scale. Think about it. You collect taxes; street gangs collect protection money. If someone doesn't pay taxes, you arrest them. And, you guys wouldn't let anyone just fuck with a human colony and get away with it, right? Gangs don't tend to like it when someone fucks with one of their guys or the people in that guy's family (they'd ostensibly be under the gang's protection too). It's just a matter of scale and the way you dress it up.

You're right about one thing, though - different organizations might want to advance themselves and they're going to act in very different ways. It circles back around to the ethics and morality of the individuals that make up the organization, which ostensibly mirrors and meshes with their own in what they perceive to be an acceptable way. Again, a matter of scale.

'Group survival behavior' on a large scale simply results in a government on paper. There's little to no functional difference; your citizens pay taxes and your Navy and Marines (enforcers) make sure that things work the way they're supposed to without interference from outside organizations (pirate, slavers, foreign militaries getting all up in your business, etc.).

You're mistaking this for an insult when it's just a fact of life. I'm not trying to insult anybody by saying this, and if you are insulted, then I'm sorry about that (if I don't sound sincere, I'm sorry about that too), but...Things just work this way. It's how it's always worked on Omega and in the Terminus, and really, the Reaper War kind of demonstrated that's how it works in C-Space too.

The asari had a resource they hoarded (prothean beacon), the salarians held back their resources (their fleets), and...well, I hate to say it, but the survival of your organization (the Alliance) hinged on Earth being taken back because it had most of your race's manpower (a resource in its own right). Not to simplify and somehow make the importance of that any less of a big deal ('cus it's a big deal).

Point is, everyone controls their own little part of this massive galactic 'sandbox' and needs to maintain, protect, and play in it in equal measure along with everyone else that's sharing the 'sandbox.' A lot of the time? That involves squaring off with each-other, whether it's talking and debating and finagling a deal or shooting a guy in the face for his wallet.

Bottom line: By doing your part in your organization, you get resources (money, rations, weapons, armor, even training can count). So, in a way...you do kill people for resources, if not necessarily money.

I need to stress: This is not a bad thing. It's just the way that life works. And I don't think I'm a bad guy for acknowledging this.

I mean, fuck, I prefer to do white-hat hacker work, but I've gotta eat. Individual preferences and morality color our views of others, ourselves, and determine our affiliations, and by extension, any ideals we may work towards. The galaxy keeps turning whether we succeed or fail in that.

Ideals don't make the galaxy work; working towards them does, and that means shit just has to go down sometimes. Group survival is a fundamental part of that shit going down. Ya do what you gotta do, whether it's merc-work or hacking or serving in the SA Navy.

Am I wrong on any of that?

You are like, cheapening language, using the same word for "eight red sand dealers" and "hyperstate".

It's like equating indenture, compact, and slavery, you are erasing important information to make a simplistic argument that exists to like, exonerate you.

To extend my crappy analogy, let's call all space-type objects "gravity wells"!


It is not the same. You're erasing all sorts of rather important information-how codified their laws are, the degree to which low-level 'members' (citizens!) are protected, how decisions are made, who benefit accrues to, if they operate in an existing legal system or establish their own, all these things you'd want to know if you actually had to DEAL with said groups.

I think that there's a rather important difference between getting jumped by some random guys who risk arrest (risk might be low, but risk) in doing so and being tried in a system where the laws are written down and you have certain rights protected. Maybe you even get a lawyer! Saying that's functionally the same is stupid. It matters a lot to the dude!

Some places have life expectencies 20% longer than others. Some places have violent crime rates of like, a tenth of others. And this "they're all the same" talk comes from the citizens of the shitty places.


I'm with you on the work thing. Halfway.

To simply do 'what you gotta do' is to become an instrument and be less than whole. You're making choices all the time. If I sell out my people or take up assassination work again, pillory me! I don't deserve a break because I'm broke.

I focus on my fellow drell way too much to argue against the existence of a group survival thing-I often think we could stand to be a bit more of a group. But your model only has the one piece of information-That girl might attack people who prey on drell. But I'm not the same as a Sundowner, or a Hierarchy Tier Whatever, or the son of some big salarian clan, and I am very, very much not a merc or a pirate.

"You fucks"? You say that like all Pirates are a part of a union that has a universal code or something. We differ in size, tactics and ideals as much as the mercenary scene. If you must know we don't roam around a cluster attacking everything we find because again, that'll get you killed very quickly.


By the scrolls

for the third time

We do not kill defenseless civilians

If they attempt to resist, they are not defenseless and therefore will probably be killed or injured due to their resisting.

this is not a difficult concept to grasp.

because everyone who resists is not defenseless

What, you'll kill anyone who tries to resist while you're stealing their livelihood and leeching off legitimate trade? Most people grasp how pirates work, which is why the major states work so hard to clear them out..

...Some group of assholes is probably bleeding my former colony dry, and this woman wants a cookie because what, she allegedly doesn't rape and kill people who lay down fast enough? Oh wait, 'payment' and 'making an example'.

If it's 'your territory' and you're some kind of nation, you are probably a shitty, shitty nation.

This. You even said that you prey on those who are often too poor to hire escorts. People who probably really need their ships and cargo to survive.

What about people who freak out and run? Is that resisting? You gonna kill them too?

I've fought pirates before on tours in the Traverse. You want me to thank you for not just killing everyone? Fuck you lady, I saw hostages used as shields, hostages killed once we breached by their captors, even chemical weapons and shit like that. We go after pirates more than mercs because mercs are a service so long as they don't go outside the law, whereas pirates are just menaces.

Ones that usually try to run for the border as soon as we showed up.

Oh, you're going to go there, huh? Play the morality card so you can sit in your high chair and feel good about the stuff you've done?

You want to spin the warcrime wheel?

Let's go.

How about Bahak, where 300,000 batarian lives were snuffed out in an instant based on the whim of a human spectre gone mad with power and her hatred of our people. She got paraded in front of a show trial and then let off her dog's leash when the Reapers came.

Or Torfan, where the alliance took "Butcher" to heart. You think no one knows what happened down there? Chemical weapons, killing of surrendered forces, massacring civilians. Families that had nothing to do with the combatants.

And every single contributor to that horror was congratulated for it. Medals, pats on the back, celebrating that they killed those "Fucking Blinks"

I've seen holos of corpses with their eyes cut out. They were even denied proper passage to the afterlife.

You think pirates are a fucking menace?

The Systems Alliance is a menace on the galactic scale and the worst part is that every single one of these atrocities have gone overlooked while pirates who have done much more to help this galaxy then you ever will have been damned to be hated for all their recorded "crimes".

I don't kill civilians because it's efficient. It builds a positive reputation and it's just the way I operate. I don't want your favor.

So don't fucking try to bring morals into a political discussion, especially about pirates. You will lose.