Midian City :: View topic

Debra Charron · Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 1:31 pm Post subject:

Over the last couple of weeks, enough people have inquired about the Mercs and our structure to prompt me to post reguarding this.

The Mercs of Midian are three organizations. Two count as "jobs" and one is the actual Merc Faction.

The public "vanilla" face of the Mercs is Oceanic Imports. All mercs are offered a "cover" occupation (dockworker, forklift driver, shipfitter, Import/Export agent, Ships Crew, Ships Officer, Oceanic Imports Management or OCeanic Imports Security are just a few examples) should they desire one. The import/export of certain things, in bulk is a major source of Merc income. ((This is subject to some regulation, as we also wish to not adversely affect game-balance by allowing game-unbalancing items to get loose in Midian and compromise play. We don't want to facilitate Modding)). We'll still bring in "fun" stuff, but if you want an Ultimate Nullifier or one of the "Noisy Crickets" from Men-in-Black - we're not the group you're looking for.

Oceanic Imports counts as a "job" and may also employ non-mercs in Vanilla roles within the business. Oceanic Imports is run by its General manager who also happens to be the BlackStar Commander.

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The bulk of the Midian Mercenaries reside in the Mercenary Guild. The Guild is an association of Independant Contractors who pay a commission to the Guild from every job for the privilige of (a) getting jobs thru the Guild Handlers, (b) being able to use the Merc base facilities to rest, recover and rearm (c) to NOT be treated as "hostile" by the Guild for taking violence-for-pay jobs and NOT paying the Guild its commission. (personal armies of the individual Factions are not treated as being in violation of the Merc's area-of interest. Only independants who have no Faction alliegance and who operate in Merc terrirtory (Midian/Apoc) are considered to be poaching). Being a Guild memebr counts as a "job" and not faction-membership. So individual mercs are individually accountable for their actions - as is the case with any and all freelancers.

The Guild is led by its Guildmaster, Beatriz Hayes (newly promoted) and functions to match jobs with Mercs in addition to making sure everyone gets paid. Jobs can be sent to Beatriz Hayes (Guildmaster), Deets Carroll (Handler) or Debra Charron (BlackStar Commander/Faction leader) for assignment to the proper person or persons.

Guild mercs can fill any number of roles. "Legbreaker" thugs to act as collections agents, sneaky types to spy on people, Burgulars-for-hire, Assassins, Security for events or to keep prying eyes away from your crime-in-progress, skilled interrogators for that reluctant-but-knowledgable person you kidnapped, "Cleanup Experts" to sanitize your crime scene after you've had your kicks, direct military-action specialists to mete out whatever "private justice (or injustice) you choose.... these are all Merc occupations. heck, we might even have some techy folks or computer hackers whose services we'll rent out for a price......

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The "inner" Merc organization is BlackStar. Blackstar members are selected from within the Mercenary Guild and operate as the Mercs standing paramilitary team. Whereas Guild mercs operate as freelancers, BlackStar fights as a team and are paid commesurate to the complicated skillsets and experience its members must posses. Blackstar is the Merc SWAT/Commando/BlackOps team, compromised of the coldest, most loyal-to-Blackstar shooters its Commander can put together. Hiring BlackStar is never cheap - but with the expensive price-tag comes violence on a higher order-of-magnitude or with greater selectivity than would otherwise be possible.

Likely Guild Mecs are offered an opportunity to participate in "Selection" to join BlackStar. Those who both survive and qualify then gain admission to the Mercs Inner Circle. Selection is a secretive ritual and all the survivors will say abut it is that it is "designed to weed out the weak".

Needless to say, having their own import/export business (within which all Blackstar Operators are "Managers") allows Blackstar to reserve some very good Conventional firepower for themselves. (but again, with an eye towards maintaining play-balance Showing up for a knife-fight with a minigun is just bad RP-form evennis is almost guarantees youll win. This is RP, not a competiton)

Blackstar is the actual Mercenary Faction, and is led by Debra Charron, the current Commander.

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The Mercenaries of Midian are a very diverse group who offer a lot of differing opportunities for RP. Either as allies-for-pay, opponents or as a potential affiliation,

We're up for hire, and we'll look after your interests if we're paid well enough. But forgive us if the main interest we're seeing to is our own.

Its what we do...we're Mercenaries.
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~Deb Charron
Audentes Fortuna Juvat (Fortune Favors the Bold)

BlackStar Military Services
Commander: Midian City Operations

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