A/N: Literally so bored at work during meetings I wrote this. Editing Gang did not review.

Subfile AYT-MERC-001 : Alien Interactions, Mercenary and Private Security Forces

Prepared by Senior Agent Dagama, reporting specialist.

Compiled by Master Field Agent Kossi, Executive Agent SOLUTHUS, Senior Agent Soril, Senior Agent Dagama, Master Agent Kolar (retired), and Master Agent Unai (retired).

This is a Virshan-Orange file. Distribution is for senior (non-FCA/non-FAC) agents and specialists only.

My name is Senior Agent Dagama. You have not heard of me. That is to be expected, as my task is to infiltrate groups of interest and report back on them.

Understanding alien cultures and social reactions is all very well and good, but the ugly truth is that we in the STG live and die more by snap reactions and unexpected complications than knowing it is good to bare your teeth at humans but not to drell. We are often matched against enemy military forces, intelligence units, pirates, bandits, and local police or C-Sec.

But many of those groups can be bypassed, bribed, distracted, or outright defeated. The more pressing danger is the fact that mercenary units – both sponsored and freelance – continue to proliferate, making it much harder to operate with a free hand of deniable… acts.

I will spend some time covering alien mercenary groups. I am neither impressed nor disgusted by aliens, nor do I attach moralizing, personal opinion, or racism to my interpretation. If some of you decide to move into Active Infiltration, you will also cultivate this sense of emotional centering. As such, I am aware my words may be seen as dry, since I do not possess Vessi's sharp wit and sharper tongue.

Mercenary work is seen as exciting and an adventure for most dissatisfied youths in many races – asari maiden clanless, expatriated humans, turian outcasts, and the like. While earlier merc groups were usually monoracial in structure, modern day mercenaries employ asari, salarians, turians, humans, volus, and the occasional drell or krogan. Being familiar with these groups requires you first grasp why you are being trained in this fashion – the other aspects that matter are more complex, which I will explain at a later chapter.

Aliens : Mercenaries, Private Security Forces, Independent Operators, and Privateers

The STG is not, as other agents have noted, a diplomatic group. Nor are we a police force.

Unfortunately, you will soon discover that we are deployed on many special tasks that require delicacy, intrigue, or outright infiltration to support both diplomatic and policing tasks.

The biggest and most dangerous riverbank to cross in these dealings is with the moss-thick actions of alien mercenary groups. Most of these units are motivated solely by profit, but some have moral, cultural, religious, or commercial overtones. Others are bound more by sponsorship, making profit immaterial and approach the professionalism and danger of special forces units. Still others are little more than rabble assembled to distract us from a more important target.

There are roughly four tiers of such organizations:

Private Sponsored Forces: The best equipped, best trained, and most dangerous forces you will meet along this line of military unit is the PSF. Usually described as 'private security,' 'corporate security,' 'enforcement,' or some other meta-legal jargon, these are hardened military units, equipped with the best gear money can buy and mostly staffed by ex-military or ex-intelligence types. PSFs receive equipment, ships, and money from a single or multiple private sources – corporations, wealthy isolates, colonial governors, and the like. They cannot (usually) be bribed except at the individual level, and their loadout and training ensure they are the riskiest to take on.

PSFs are most often seen providing dedicated security functions or high-impact strike functions. To use these on lesser tasks is seen as a waste of time.

Corporate Mercenary Entities: Four of the Big Five (Blue Suns, Elanus Risk Control, Ura-Clan Militant Security, Katarian Talon Force) are actually corporations set up with boards, stocks, company policies, and the like. These are all strictly for-profit forces, usually having the ability to fulfill both long-term contracts as well as short-duration actions or requests. There are many smaller CMEs as well, but most are modeled off the same structural plan. A CME's business is only as good as their trustworthy nature, so breaking contracts and/or accepting bribes in the furtherance of damaging their contract terms is unlikely to be possible. The bigger CMEs can afford to hire ex-military personnel and afford expensive armor, mechs, combat vehicles and the like, but only the very largest can field their own transports or starships – most rely on hauler services.

CMEs range the gamut from nigh-unto special forces-quality (Katarian Talon) to barely above the former Batarian State Guard (LPI Security). The most common use of such is security, garrison, and police or enforcement duties – only a few can handle pure military strikes.

Independent Mercenary Forces: Basically self-funded, these groups do not have a formal corporate structure, and usually have 'contract offices' based in the Citadel and other important areas while maintaining their headquarters in the Traverse or the Terminus. IMFs come in all forms – religious security groups, private bully boys, private police security, anti-riot, anti-Hazmat, and a dozen forms besides. Smaller and less well-equipped than CMEs or PSFs, these independent forces are the most likely to have other motives beyond pure profit.

As IMFs specialize on a small scale for many different tasks, the only broad-based generalization one can make is that they are far more ready to accept renumeration or bribes and abandon a contract for something more lucrative. As such, when contracted by outside forces, most do not use them outside their specialty.

Privateers (Corsairs): The humans came up with a concept they term 'commercial raiding,' which is, at its core, a mix of legalized piracy and deputation of independents. In short, Corsairs are private merchant ships who are armed and given squads of ex-Marines to act as bait for pirates, or are dedicated older warships given a commission to hunt pirates and enemy merchant ships. The goal of these groups is capture of ships and to make the cost of piracy on human ships unacceptably high and to cripple the economies of those who support such pirates.

The Corsairs are the official unit sponsored by the Systems Alliance, with Letters of Marque from their High Lords. Several other copy-cat groups also exist, and at least one turian hastatim unit has taken up the practice as well. As privateers have no real funding, most of their equipment varies wildly depending on what prizes and ships they have taken. Their ground forces are almost always focused on boarding operations and are ill-suited and poorly equipped for other operations. On the other hand, they have wide access to ships, sometimes up to heavy-cruiser-levels, and are thus far more dangerous and mobile than any other kind of mercenary units.

Considerations: Mercenary Units in general

As with most aliens we encounter, the focus of many mercenary is more often drowned in braggadocio and posturing (based on culture) than any professional concerns. This is not universal, however, and mercenary units of all kinds have several advantages and disadvantages besides a fixation on firepower and 'badassery.'

First, remember that the alien is not salarian even if they employ salarians. I am sure to most of you this seems like the most hollow-horned statement ever made, but it should be kept uppermost in your thoughts. All mercenary units with the exception of Eclipse rarely if ever have salarians as upper-level command figures, and most salarians in mercenary units are either Black Rim expatriates, Free Sexuality yindo deviants, or Lythari with both thumbs up their cloaca. They will not be focused on mobility and reactivity, but on firepower, defense, and profit (or accomplishing a mission). This lack of flexibility is the key weakness of almost any mercenary unit. Small unit actions against merc teams should employ exotic tactics, unconventional equipment, and off-the-creek movements to baffle and stymie opponents. While professional military units are all hardened against EMP, poison gas, and short-duration black nano, few mercenary units are.

Second, almost all mercenary units – from a ragged group of pirate hunters in basic gear to a top-tier Blue Suns Omega Fireteam – suffer the same three weaknesses in doctrine. Mercenaries are either focused on offensive or defensive operations, usually not both in one unit. Mercenaries are usually not equipped with repair units, effective comms control, or top-tier medical equipment, meaning attrition and chip-endurance tactics can cripple them over time. Finally, mercenaries rely on information brokers and other sources for intel and planning, which is an excellent way to derail their operations into a trap.

Finally, with the noted exception of Drell units (which require their own chapter), mercenary units are almost always formed around and led by charismatic figures of some power. The Blue Suns was founded by Zaeed Masanni, one of the deadliest humans alive, with the backing of a high-caste exile, two influential turians, and a wealthy human. Eclipse has been organized around the cult of Jona Sederis and her string of salarian and krogan lovers for literally centuries. The Blood Pack, the Relentless, the Six Sins Collective, the Rattled Exhalation – all of these units are built around a central figure or figures. Termination of these leaders will splinter the group and ensure infighting or collapse. If that doesn't occur, it is very likely that the leader held tight control over finances and contacts and the unit will at least be crippled or neutralized in the short-term.

Considerations: Mercenary Contracts and Employers

Most mercenary units are deployed into one of a set of common uses for such groups. Again, mercenaries are the most valuable units for the price in limited circumstances – low availability of government units, risky operations, deniable operations, low-importance garrison work, or out of Citadel operations.

GARRISON: A full thirty-five percent of all mercenary work falls into this category. Garrison duty is non-police security and protection of a facility or location, ranging from a single building to entire planets. Most garrison contracts include room and board, fueling, basic medical and repair service, an omni-gel allowance, food and entertainment vouchers, and clear lines of communication.

Garrison units are designed to repel pirate attacks, gang warfare, and deter slavers or other groups. Most such contracts are done by corporations protecting valuable resources such as eezo, platinum, omnifactury equipment, DRM wrapping machines, or communications gear. Many outlying colonies – that are unable to obtain government military forces – also hire garrison units to stiffen or train colonial militia and deter attacks.

Garrison duty is usually boring. Most units assigned to such are lower-end combatants with basic gear and little training. They are not trained in any form of counter-espionage and have low to no infowar capability – an STG cell unable to elude a group without detection should be recycled as feedstock for river lizards.

POLICE AUGMENTATION: Another common contract, police augmentation is usually found on more contentious planets and systems. Basically, mercenaries are hired as heavy police and anti-riot units. You find many contracts for this in the Terminus and the Rims, as well as the Traverse – but also in outlying turian, human, and occasionally krogan colonies. These contracts are also offered in times of evacuation operations, to ensure smooth movement of refugees to evac ships and to prevent looting or riots.

Police mercenary work usually involves nonlethal weapons, patrol duty, and at least a smattering of medical gear to heal those wounded in riots or evacuations. On the plus side, they are not equipped for heavy combat, and since these are almost always planetside contracts, do not have environmental gear or sealed suits, making all chemical and biological agents viable.

On the downside, some police merc units have intermediate infowar capacity, and most have good comms monitoring skills and even some specialized equipment. Most merc units who take this type of work are specialists in doing so and are fairly formidable.

FORCE RECON: A contract specifying the reconnaissance and force analysis of hostile or enemy territory, this type of merc contract is fairly rare, as only a small number of very dangerous companies offer it. Recon teams of mercs are highly mobile and lightly armored, but with stealth capacity and very well-equipped. Often ex-special forces or professional infiltrators, these units are small but very fast, very skilled at moving light and obtaining information. Master-class infowar specialists and biotic specialists are common.

A dedicated Force Recon unit is the very worst matchup a standard STG team can face, as they will almost certainly employ at least one ex-STG member somewhere in the company and will have at least a limited understanding of STG tactics and plans. Even moreso than when countering standard mercs, reliance on surprise tactics and not following normal STG procedure may be needed.

DATA SECURITY: Some merc units, particularly the Blue Suns and Screams of Digital Thunder, specialize in extranet, intranet, comms, and infowar mercenary security. Units like this have a wide array of comms specialists, hackers, data-tracers, infowar engineers, and mech or drone experts. Most data security mercenary units are employed by corporate forces on independent exclaves or by wealthy industrialists who are paranoid about outside violation.

While the mercenary units who focus on this sort of thing solely are not very well-equipped or prepared for battle, do not underestimate them in the slightest. The Blue Suns Digital Legion is the single most feared infowar and datahax group in the galaxy and has even penetrated our security multiple times. Larger groups like the Suns can leverage more conventional military units to cover their data teams. Smaller units will rely on mechs, drones and automated defenses.

These teams tend to rely on lightweight armor (often augmented by omni-armor), submachine guns, light drone packs, and expensive custom omni-tools.

ASSAULT (RAID): Many smaller units are used as the lead elements of short-term assault operations, where the goal is to not hold onto a location but to raid, damage defenses, or destroy a target. As such, most such mercenary units taking such contracts are tightly defined by the requisite elements to complete the task – heavily armed, thick armor, a focus on kinetics and explosives, and speed.

Eclipse is by far the most terrifying at this sort of assault, with highly mobile asari utilizing both heavy-explosive weapons along with biotic blasts while relying on barriers and Wall invocations to deflect even anti-tank counterfire. Smaller units will usually rely on multiple squads of armored infantry with heavy machine guns and anti-material weapons, with a single squad operating an anti-tank or missile weapon.

Raids are, by definition, going after a single target. In some cases, this is preparatory before a larger-scale assault, such as attacks on GARDIAN towers, kinetic barrier generators, or computer systems. In other cases, the single target is the only goal, such as taking out a comms antenna or sensor cluster. In both cases, the scale is typically small – less than thirty assailants and the use of light shuttles with the goal of utilizing traffic as an escape vector.

As all of these mercs must be ready for heavy combat with no backup, they are typically somewhat light on esoteric assets such as infowar specialists. They will also have a limited number of medics, taking those out is key to simply picking the unit apart at leisure.

ASSAULT (CAPTURE): More rarely, mercenary units will be hired en masse to actively capture and hold a location. This sort of operation is only really feasible outside of Citadel Space – the Traverse, the Terminus, portions of the Silver and Black Rim, and the borders of Turian/Volus Space.

Most assaults are on single-settlement colonies, refineries, He-3 fueling stations, outlying outposts, and other single targets. Taking out entire colony planets is beyond the manpower and transport or infrastructure of any mercenary unit except the Blue Suns, Eclipse, or the Six Sins Collective.

Assaults of this nature require mixed teams – infantry, vehicular, infowar, medic and medevac, artillery, and usually air patrol. As such, multiple mercenary units may be mixed together, which makes communications links the critical weakness of such units.

All large-scale assaults of this nature imply that any STG team active would be vastly outnumbered and possibly cut off from retreat. Operatives are encouraged to suppress activity and scatter to go native if possible and await covert pickup once the assault has ended.

Given the wide array of required teams for a successful assault, generalizing about the nature of weapons or tactics of such units is a waste of time. Keep in mind that communications are only one weak point, however – the use of traps and delayed explosives can wreak almost as much havoc as infowar sabotage or the poisoning of water supplies.

DEFENSIVE (SHORT-TERM): While 'long-term' defense contracts exist, these tend to end up being identical to a garrison contract. Defensive contracts on a short-term nature are usually hasty, quick hires done by endangered targets or groups who have at least some lead time before a threat arrives.

The majority of these are done by independent colonies, hiring up mercs on the short-term if intelligence from allied groups or government advisories suggest pirate activity is likely. Some are also hired during periods of unrest if the government is unable to suppress rioters. Very few mercenary teams specialize in this sort of task as the pay is typically not commensurate with the reward – as such, many such teams are sponsored by governments to provide at least some level of protection for outlying colonies.

As can be expected, mercs of this specialization tend towards the heaviest armor, shielding, and repair systems possible, with a heavy focus on omni-deployed armor elements, medical gear, omni-gel fortification, and other 'tricks.' After Force Recon units, defensive units are the second-worst matchup for existing STG teams without War Specialist support.

INFILTRATION/EXTRACTION, ASSASSINATION, and ASSET DENIAL: The final class of typical mercenary missions is aggregated into the above – they are basically the same thing with different foci. All of them involve sneaking past enemy lines and engaging a target – either to steal something (infiltration), extract something (exfiltration), kill someone (assassination), or blow something up (asset denial).

As such, these mercenaries must typically be the pinnacle of such private forces – excellent stealth gear backstopped by tough armor and powerful barriers, excellent medical, infowar, demolitions, and scouting abilities, and silenced weapons. Such teams are rare indeed to find outside of professional military forces and for the most part only the Eclipse Mothers (the most elite Eclipse subunit, typically led by one of Jona Sedris's offspring) and the volus Depthtrod Clannu are equipped to pull it off.

These teams focus very highly on the same aspects the STG does – mobility, flexibility, stealth, disengagement and redirection of threat, and assessment. That being said, they are single-focused on the goal and are expecting conventional opposition – most times these groups run into STG opposition they go down rapidly and hard.

As can be expected, there are no turian groups who follow this model.

Mercenary Companies : Types

Before exploring specific mercenary companies, it is useful to know exactly what types of mercenary companies exist.

This is not the same as the structure – for example, the Blue Suns is a Corporate Mercenary Entity. So is MCC Security Systems. The difference is that the Blue Suns has offices all over the galaxy, a fleet of more than fifty ships, and a private army numbering in the hundreds of thousands, while the MCC is a thirty-person salarian counter-infowar unit.

The larger and more powerful a mercenary company is, the more resources, connections, cash, influence, and reach it has. Even the garrison troops provided by the Blood Pack are dangerous, while the most elite assault team of a small mercenary company would not even compare to salarian general army forces.

For simplicity, we will use salarian military parlance for group size.

FIRETEAM: The smallest functional mercenary group is in the fireteam-range, usually less than fifteen personnel. These groups tend to be very light in organization – the owner is usually the combat leader as well as the one in charge of finances, communications, and accepting contracts. Fireteam-size units rarely have support elements – maybe one medic and one infowar specialist, both who usually double as combatants. Conversely, given the small size, fireteam-sized units often have their own spaceship or FTL-capable pinnace.

STRIKE LANCE: Strike lance-sized units range from fifteen to fifty personnel. At this size, they can afford a handful of support staff (clerical, medical, etc.) and usually have the resources to obtain ground vehicles and specialized gear. Supporting this unit in space becomes more difficult as only frigate/light hauler units have enough space.

STRIKE GROUP: The first 'serious' level of mercenary company, a strike group is anywhere from fifty to two hundred personnel. Merc units of this size are large enough to not need to focus everything on a specialization, and can invest more into equipment and run multiple contracts at once. Expect dedicated medics, infowar engineers, snipers, and possibly biotics. Almost all groups of this size rely on commercial transport.

FIELD LANCE: The largest 'common' merc unit size, this ranges from two hundred to five hundred combatants, along with fifty or so devoted support noncombatants. Groups this size need commercial controls, licenses, financial tracking, and other elements that lead to the need for support, and usually a single HQ location as well. They can usually be expected to run their own training, have dedicated medical buildings, repair shops, and gunship or shuttle assets. A few of the more successful groups have long-term first-right contracts with shipping concerns to move units around.

FIELD GROUP: Only the 'Big Five' – Eclipse, Blue Suns, Elanus Risk Control, Ura-Clan Militant Security, Katarian Talon Force – fall into this category, which is anything above five hundred military personnel. The smallest of the Big Five, Ura-Clan Militant Security, boasts six thousand vorcha, eight hundred volus ex-VDF, a dozen volus biotics, and dedicated hacking teams numbering in the hundreds. The biggest of the Big Five, the Eclipse, is so large we aren't even sure how big they are, but the current 'founding' under Jona and Jaroth has at least twenty thousand asari combatants, and possibly over sixty thousand total soldiers. This doesn't include medical, infowar, assassination, or infiltration units, or the fact that Jona owns nineteen cruisers and frigates.

Field group-sized units are far too powerful to be combatted directly without combined STG cell operations, possibly with support from the military or the Transcendental Corps.

Mercenary Foci: A quick overview

The STG rates mercenary companies based on their strength, their equipment rating and support rating, overall training, and their specialization. Each mercenary unit's combined scores are tallied into a Focus Rating that quickly describes the danger of the unit.

Subfile AYT-MERC-001 will cover the units in depth, but here are the various focus ratings you will need to understand to make sense of the reports:

STRENGTH: Mercenary unit strength is comprised of two elements – effective personal count and funding reserves. A large unit with a shoestring budget is less dangerous than a small unit that is lavishly funded. The score is measured on a five-point scale, with a rating of 1 / 1 being 'very small, no funding' and 5 / 5 meaning 'very large field group, effectively limitless funding.'

Each rating point for size can be directly correlated to the above section – for example, 1 is a Fireteam, 3 is a Strike Group, etc. Each point of funding can be estimated at 50% of the funds needed to keep the unit running. So a 1 is a group that is poorly funded and is at 50% capacity, while a 4 is a unit who has double the resources needed to fully equip and/or maintain the unit.

Example: Starshine LTD is an anti-piracy group. They are small strike lance-sized private sponsored force working directly for the asari Armali Starship Group. As such, they would be rated 2 / 5.

EQUIPMENT RATING: Equipment includes both the ground units' armor, weapons, and gear as well as support units such as gunships or shuttles. A 5/5-point scale. 1 is basic up-scale civilian gear, 2 is military surplus, 3 is mil-spec gear, 4 is customized weapons, and 5 is effectively special forces gear.

The second rating is for support equipment: 1 being no support, 2 being mobile units (mortar, infowar), 3 being medical evac and repair, 4 being biotic support, and 5 orbital or air-to-ground support.

TRAINING: Another critical aspect of determining if a unit is a threat is training. This is a 5/5-point scale. 1 is militia-levels of training. 2 is roughly equivalent to mainline military infantry. 3 is heavy infantry-level, 4 is special forces-level, and 5 is 'elite.'

Elite levels indicate that the units in question are more than a match for even an augmented STG team. Very few merc units are rated this highly and we keep an eye on each one.

The second rating is how much of the unit demonstrates that level of training – with each point representing roughly twenty percent of the unit.

SPECIALIZATION: The specialization rating will give you both a quick summary of what they are specialized in as well as a numeric score indicating the level of specialization.

Example: Elanus Risk Control focuses almost entirely on corporate security and anti-data espionage. Given that they have only very light security forces, they have a 4 out of 5 for their specialization score – meaning they are very good at what they specialize in and bad at everything else.

Tallying the score gives you an overall score which is then matched to a danger scale. Keep in mind these are for the local threat – a Blue Suns small fireteam has a lower score than the main fleet, but their network is very effective and reinforcements can be en route in hours.

A Danger Scale of 1 is 'situationally dangerous' – unless you head directly into the line of fire on their turf in a mission that is their specialty, these mercs are no real threat.

A Danger Scale of 2 is 'operationally dangerous' – weak enough that a single STG team can take them down without casualties, but a high chance of being exposed in doing so.

A Danger Scale of 3 is 'dangerous' and indicates that they are roughly matched in terms of military prowess with a STG team – caution should be utilized.

A Danger Scale of 4 is 'threatening' – unless engaging the mercenaries in direct contact and combat is a requirement of the mission, your cell should retreat and request order updates. A Danger Scale 4 unit can be beaten by an STG team if you are smart, but you will suffer casualties doing so.

The final Danger Scale of 5 has not, to date, required use. If it should, it would be entitled 'Lethal' and would result in flee-on-sight or flee-on-sensor-detection of such units. Do not attempt to engage under any circumstances – if pinned, execute Protocol Nineteen.

Example: Brightstar is an asari mercenary group of outcasts working out of the Volian Traverse. A strike-lance sized unit, they are not officially affiliated with the volus Depthwalker movement, but have done multiple contracts for them, usually data retrieval missions.

Brightstar's ratings are as follows:

STRENGTH: 2 / 4, deep reserves with an open line of volus credit. Thirty-five members.

EQUIPMENT: 3 / 3, military-grade (asari) plasma rifles, heavy armor, light unarmed medical shuttles

TRAINING: 4 / 4, heavy training and more than a dozen former commandos, all members are expected to keep up to at least huntress standard.

SPECIALIZATION : INFOWAR, rating 4. Well over 90% of missions are infowar, hacking, or financial records adjustment.

Final Rating: 3.4, Dangerous.

The next set of texts in this guide will cover the more important and interesting military mercenary units and a few of the non-military units.