I wouldn’t say I’m mean, I just get paid to do mean things

– Sergeant Bull MacLane, Private military Contractor from Militech

Fictional Private Military Companies

In Cyberpunk 2020  the names are Lazarus Group and Militech.

Militech – Cyberpunk 2020

In ShadowRun they are Knight Errant Security Services, Lone Star Security Services.

Lone Star – ShadowRun

They have the same history and function. They are Corporations who offers services in “Security”. Cyberspace, VIP protection, buildings and specific sites protection and even war for the biggest ones.

Megacorps are so powerful that they can ignore the law, possess their own heavily armed private armies, hold ‘sovereign’ territory, and possibly even act as outright governments.

You get the point,right, yah?

When I was Game Master I used, reused and overused of these PMC. Because in a run, you will encounter opposition and It means also gun fighting or cyber/matrix penetrations. And guess who is involved?

In lots of Video Games and TV series or movies, Private Military Contractors are henchmen and seriously they don’t have a good reputation and are often treated as bad guys.

They have often been dishonorably discharged if they were former military and to be sure that these guys are really fucked up and are pure evil, they usually have mental disorder and are psychopaths. So after after a while you understand that PMC = Baaaaad people 🙂

Of course depending of the maturity of your players (In a RPG) you can play these human(or meta human for shadowrunners ;p) behaviors more grey than black or white.

 In Real Life

PMC are a reality. There is a huge business. Yeah I’m talking about money. For example, Triple Canopy has won a security contract in Iraq worth up to $1.5 billion

And to fulfill these contracts PMC invest a lot.

Formerly Blackwater, then Xe Services, Academi runs a 7,000 acre training facility deep in the North Carolina wilderness — one of the biggest and most complex private military training grounds in the world.

Defion Internacional is well known for low cost contractors. Very attractive for other companies or even governments to hire them.

G4S is the world’s largest security company measured by revenues and has operations in around 125 countries. They have 620,000 employees, it is one of the world’s largest private sector employers. (From routine bank, prison and airport security to heavily-armed security forces, land-mine clearance, military intelligence and training.)

DynCorp is one of the most powerful private military companies in the world, with most of its several-billion dollar revenue coming directly from the US government.

PMC

And by the way PMC are not mercenaries. The international treaties that establish The Laws and Customs of War doesn’t approve the usage of mercenaries. Actually a mercenary is an unprivileged combatant. So they exist for sure but it is illegal (Yeah war is a business and it is legal when interest worth it ;p )

So you can see the PMC as an official legal entity with customers and employees.

We’re security consultants, not mercenaries

– from BurnNotice

Explore the matrix, make your search, you will be astonished by the official websites 🙂

I will give you one. Actually this is a niche. VetPaw for Veterans Empowered to Protect African Wildlife

VETPAW promotes capacity- and relationship building in East Africa, elevating the perception of the military at home and abroad while preventing the extinction of keystone species and ecosystems.

 We utilize the skills of U.S. veterans to train anti-poaching rangers and support their communities.

 

VETPAW missions

VETPAW employee Kinessa Johnson