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{{trope}}
[[File:blackwater_helicopter_071119_mainblackwater helicopter 071119 main.jpg|frame| The most [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|infamous]] modern example]]
 
{{quote|''"As long as there is man, there will be violence."
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''"And as long as there is war... we will always have a job."''|'''Anonymous'''}}
 
[['''Private Military Contractors]]''' (PMC) are mercenaries, soldiers and other combatants employed by a private company or other organization and fighting on behalf of clients. While such soldiers of fortune are regarded with wariness in most settings, they're generally considered distinct from criminal enforcers, mafia hit men, and the like.
 
In the real world, they are usually ex-soldiers with decent to slightly-above-average equipment from the United States -- theStates—the largest company, and largest number of companies, are American. Other common national backgrounds are former Soviet Republics or South Africa. In fiction, though, they tend to get all the latest and most expensive vehicles and support equipment as well, and are often recruited and trained by the company itself. Fictional mercenary groups often hire unique individuals or groups of various special types of fighters: [[Ninja]], [[Ronin]] [[Samurai]], dishonored [[Knight in Shining Armor|knights]], [[Functional Magic|mages]], [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|shapeshifters]], and [[The Remnant|left-over warriors of defeated organizations, nations, or races]] that need to make ends meet. Some PMCs are just a [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]].
 
These characters can be both heroic and villainous; in a conflict, they usually are allied with the richest party's faction, but sometimes have a [[Honor Before Reason|strict honor code]] that prevents them from switching sides mid-battle. If they get ''too'' enthusiastic about their job, they may become [[Blood Knight|Blood Knights]]s and try to start a [[War for Fun and Profit]]. On the other hand, they do have to deal with the risk of [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|their employers double-crossing them when the job's done]]. And if their clients run out of money before the fighting's done, things will get ugly in short order in one or more of many ways.
 
In recent years, there's come to be a distinction between a "''mercenary company''" and "''corporate mercenaries''", especially in Western (American) television and movies. The traditional mercenary who hires ''himself'' out (or himself and [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|a dozen of his best buddies]]) is seen as somewhat honest, with at least a personal code of honor of some kind (even if it's just "do the job, get paid"); determined to accomplish the mission for which he has been paid and takes his reputation very seriously; and is scrappy yet skilled. This character is usually played moderately sympathetic, or at least as an [[Anti-Hero]]. They will typically have some attention given to their, quite possibly colorful, personalities.
 
In stark contrast, the "''corporate mercenary''" is usually just a [[Red Shirt]] of some kind, and the "character" takes the form of the PMC corporation itself. Corporate mercs are usually depicted as being up to no good, or are the hand-puppets of some shadowy organization which is itself up to no good. They are portrayed -- whenportrayed—when anything more than [[Red Shirts]] -- as—as amoral, ethically-challenged, and professional but [[My Master, Right or Wrong|hardly ever inclined to argue with Corporate Headquarters]]. If former military, many will have been dishonorably discharged. They are almost never the "good guys" in recent years. Their parent company usually has a name based loosely or thematically on "Blackwater" in a [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]] [[Expy]] of that real-life PMC -- examplesPMC—examples include "Blackriver", "Red River", "Blackthorne", and "Starkwood".
 
Note that while the trope description uses the terms "PMC" and "mercenaries" interchangeably, in the [[Real Life]] the distinction between them is very much a [[Serious Business]]. This is because the international treaties that establish [[The Laws and Customs of War]] explicitly ''forbid'' the usage of mercenaries in warfare. While true mercs might be tolerated in practice, legally they are neither lawful combatants, nor non-combatants, and thus aren't eligible for the protection and respectable treatment as per Geneva conventions, for example. When captured, they are treated as a criminal gang at best, and at worst as complete outlaws.
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== Fan Works ==
* In ''[[An Entry With a Bang]]!'', several down-on-their-luck merc groups like the Buron Cavalry were dragooned into joining Vorax's expedition to Clancy-Earth and are [[Heel Face Turn|Heel Face Turned]]ed. At one point, Buron Cav head Major Staedele gets into a disagreement with Blackwater's CEO after noting how C-Earther PMCs are not up to snuff for the full-scale independent open warfare demanded of ''[[BattleTech]]'' merc groups.
* Naruto: Soldiers of Fortune is a Naruto fan fic where ninjas working for villages are replaced with mercenaries that work for private military contractors. Still no guns though.
* ''[[Forward]]'' features a mercenary firm called "Skyhawk Intervention" which directs a number of other mercenary companies across the 'Verse. One of the stories features a mercenary group called [[Shout-Out|Talon]] [[Fallout 3|Company]] who are the main villains for that "episode".
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* Jake Wyer and Sam French are both these in ''Fifty/Fifty''. Of course, they both come to believe in the cause they are fighting for.
* Rico and Dolworth in ''[[The Professionals (film)|The Professionals]]''.
* The [[Big Bad]] in ''[[National Treasure]]: The Book of Secrets'' is the head of a PMC, justifying why his [[Mook|Mooks]]s are always armed and following all his orders.
* ''[[The Expendables]]'' are about a group of mercenaries who take any job they can get. It's a handy excuse for putting together some of the most legendary action heroes together and make every one a badass. There is even some nods towards the way they operate, as they find out their most recent "employer" is actually CIA looking to pass off some [[Dirty Business]] onto their shoulders.
* In ''[[Sleepy Hollow]]'', the Headless Horseman is the vengeful ghost of one of the Hessian mercenaries hired by Great Britain during the American Revolution.
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** Likewise the Friendlies from the same series. Although from a religious [[Planet of Hats]], the Friendlies live on poor resource worlds, that to survive they have to be hired out as mercenaries. Unlike the Dorsai though, the Friendlies suck at warfare, but their cheap price and numbers make up for it.
* ''[[World War Z]]'' has a self-proclaimed mercenary [he doesn't like the politically correct terms of PMC or Private Contractor] re-counting his experience of the war, which was guarding a mansion full of celebrities hiding out. He eventually leaves because zombies don't attack - instead, desperate civilians do, wrecking the house's defenses. He escapes.
* Present but not particularly common in the ''[[Star Wars]]'' [[Expanded Universe]]. Most mercenaries are pirates turned privateer for a little legitimacy and extra cash, and they're usually pretty poorly equipped--mercenaryequipped—mercenary fighter squadrons in particular are known for using "Uglies", mashup starfighters cobbled together from different fighters.
** Aurodium Sword is basically a PMC (of the real-life "non-mercenary" sort) that provides personal security for VIPs.
** The [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Mandalorians]].
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* In ''[[Heralds of Valdemar|By The Sword]]'', Kerowyn becomes the the leader of the Skybolts, a mercenary company. {{spoiler|After Kero gets dragooned by a [[Cool Horse|talking white horse]], said Skybolts negotiate a permanent contract with Valdemar rather than lose her}}.
** And before that, Kerowyn's grandmother and her partner sign up with the Sunhawk company in ''Oathbreakers''.
* Joel Rosenberg's ''Metzada'' series has a planet of [[Space Jews]] whose only valuable export is mercenary services; which sucks, because their ancestors were exiled to an un[[Terraform|terraformedterraform]]ed planet, and they must constantly import food and air, which is rather pricey. So they'll take any work they can get, even if they utterly hate their clients.
* The tie-in novels based on the original ''[[Mutant Chronicles]]'' games had "free-lancers" who performed everything from bounty hunting to corporate espionage. The armies of the [[Mega Corp|Mega Corps]]s are technically PMCs, but since corporations are the closest thing to governments left in that universe, they function more like national armies... with [[Executive Meddling]] in the form of company agents who go along on missions to enforce corporate protocol and the bottom line.
* [[Elizabeth Moon]]'s ''[[The Deed of Paksenarrion]]'' novel series has the title character run away from home to join a mercenary band.
** The ''[[Vatta's War]]'' series by the same author deals with these heavily, particularly the Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation whom Kylara Vatta, [[The Captain]], both hires and is hired by. The MMAC is depicted as being ''very'' strict in who they will do business with, with their contracts spelling out certain actions their employers might take where they will consider their contract terminated on the spot and withdraw immediately, in order to avoid any association with this trope's negative trappings.
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* The mercenary unit ''[[Soldiers Of Barrabas]]'', or [[Fun with Acronyms|SOBS]], (a Gold Eagle action series by Jack Hild) is ostensibly lead by a mercenary who's 'soft' on his native country, and so willingly seeks contracts that advance its interests. In truth they work directly for the US government as a [[Heroes-R-Us|deniable dirty tricks team]].
* The "Free Companies" mentioned in ''[[The Culture/Consider Phlebas|Consider Phlebas]]'' by Ian M. Banks. The [[Space Pirates]] the protagonist hooks up with like to call themselves one, but don't quite make the grade.
* ''Market Forces'' by Richard Morgan is set in a world where [[Mega Corp|Mega Corps]]s are in virtual control of everything, and the world's military and intelligence forces, from the SAS to the CIA, have been privatised. Another example of this trope is the Wedge in ''Broken Angels'', who are an elite company of intersteller mercenaries.
* [[Tom Kratman]]'s ''[[Legion Del Cid]]'' series also uses this. The hero loses his family in a 9/11 analogue and forms a PMC to avenge them. Said PMC grows to be an NGO superpower, and then to the de facto & de jure military of the nation it's based in, Balboa.
* Turner belongs to one in the second book of [[William Gibson]]'s [[Sprawl Trilogy]].
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** There's also Kincaid, who is a lone gunman for hire who spends most of his time protecting the Archive but is willing to do side jobs if the pay is right. The Red Court and White Court make use of a number of mortal mercenaries, as does John Marcone's outfit when they need extra firepower. In fact, {{spoiler|Odin's troops, particularly his Valkyries,}} are for sale as hired muscle to people in the know.
* Terran soldiers in ''[[Andre Norton|Star Guard]]'' are described as mercenaries, but in fact they're conscripted by Earth's puppet government on the orders of the extraterrestrial super-government Central Control and hired out to various planetary wars.
* John Dalmas' ''The Regiment'' was made up of the T'swa, troops who didn't really care whether they won or lost -- whatlost—what was important was "playing" war skillfully. Since they considered reincarnation a proven fact and thus also didn't care if they died, T'swa were very effective soldiers. They were '''not''' motivated by money: advanced psychological placement assigned those children best suited for military training, just as it did for all other facets of T'swa society.
* In P.C. Hodgell's ''[[Chronicles of the Kencyrath]]'', the Kencyr people live in a resource-poor area but are exceedingly good at fighting; they make ends meet by hiring their troops out as mercenaries. Judging by examples in the series, about a quarter of the Kencyr peoples are mercenaries out on contract at any one time. Their rigid honor code makes them sometimes difficult employees, but their skill keeps them hired.
* [[Conan the Barbarian]] often joins or leads mercenary units.
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*** It makes somewhat more sense when you consider that by that later time many of the larger big name companies that can really influence events control entire planets or even regions of space making them quasi-political entities in their own right.
* ''[[Fading Suns]]'' has the Muster guild, which offers many kinds of muscle for hire, but began as, and is still mostly made of, mercenaries.
* Pretty much the driving force behind ''[[Shadowrun]]''. Only instead of actual PMCs it's a [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]] thrown together by circumstance to "run the shadows". Of course there's nothing stopping the DM from ''making'' a PMC for the players to join. True PMCs do exist in the game's backstory--thebackstory—the most prominent are [[MET 2000]], Tsunami, 10,000 Daggers and Combat Inc.
** In ''[[Shadowrun]]'', there are PMCs everywhere. The most common regular police are Lone Star and Knight Errant, which are private contractor companies who employ high firepower in their protection of the urban sprawls.
* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' features an entire fan-made codex of Kroot Mercenaries that can be fielded as a separate army all their own, or as a component force of other armies. Though most often they are used by the Tau to compensate for their [[Crippling Overspecialization]].
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** The ''[[Eberron]]'' setting has several groups, such as the troops of House Deneith and House Tharashk's ogre/troll contacts in Droaam. For non-House versions, the Red Gauntlet regiment and the Manifest Legion (mercenary ''summoners'') are also up for contracts.
** ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' got a special [[Sourcebook]] "[http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=13961 Gold and Glory]" for most known of these, along with inherent adventure hooks. With understanding that small adventuring bands impossible to list due to great numbers and overall turnover rate also do a lot of the small-scale work in this field, and sometimes happen to hire, be hired by or grow into larger mercenary groups.
* The ''[[New World of Darkness]]'' has Blackfire, a PMC that's well-connected and clued in to the nature of the supernatural. Whether they're upstanding or bastards depends entirely on the Storyteller, though the sample adventure that comes with them implies that they're not entirely on the up-and-up -- mainlyup—mainly because one of the three heads of the company got possessed by a fragment of an [[Eldritch Abomination|ancient spirit]] that desperately wants out of its current prison.
* The Russian Tabletop RGG ''[[Age of Aquarius]]'' has a heroic PMC called ЗАЩИТНИК ("DEFENDER"). Like the SeeD from [[Final Fantasy VIII]] ([[Expy|by which they are inspired]]), mercenary activities are only a front for their more noble goal.
 
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* A small army of primate PMC's are hired by Carmelita Fox in the third ''[[Sly Cooper]]'' game.
** One of the villains in the upcoming Sly 4, El Jefe, is the leader of Private Army that specializes in taking over countries for the highest bidder.
* ''[[Army of Two]]''--the—the player characters work for a PMC.
** The final mission of the game is an assault on the {{spoiler|very same (corrupt) PMC headquarters that the player characters have been working for in most of the game, and at the end they decide to found their own PMC ''that won't plot attacks on American forces in order to build a case for privatizing the U.S. military''}}.
* In ''[[Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3]]: Uprising'' it turns out the war-weary Allies are now relying heavily on the PMC/weapons developer Futuretech, who were able to hire large numbers of veteran disenfranchised soldiers following the end of the war, to provide a great deal of their security.
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* In ''[[Batman: Arkham City]]'', new Mayor Quincy Sharp has bought out part of Gotham and walled it off to serve as a replacement prison/nuthouse for Blackgate and Arkham Asylum after the events of the previous game. It is policed by a PMC called "[[Xtreme Kool Letterz|Tyger]]", which is a perfect example of the villainous corporate mercenaries subtype. They are ordered to kill anyone who tries to escape, commit [[Police Brutality]] (though it's hard to feel sorry for, say, [[Torture Technician|Black Mask]]) and at the same time let the inmates free to do whatever they want to each others (at one point deciding not to investigate a murder where the victim had his face cut off while he was still alive), are willing to kidnap innocents in plain sight and in front of journalists and throw them in Arkham City without any sort of trial, and in the end {{spoiler|they partake in the [[Final Solution|culling]] of Arkham City, and seem to be really into it}}. However, it's revealed that {{spoiler|the reason why they committed these actions was because they were brainwashed, making it a subversion}}.
* In the campaign on ''[[Starcraft II]] : Wings of Liberty'' you can hire mercenaries in the ''Hyperion'' from Graven Hill, who hangs out in the tavern drinking mai tais. Mercenary units are much tougher than their regular counterparts, can be purchased from the Merc Compound, and are created instantly, but have a limited pool per mission. Examples include everything from Hammer Securities, who are corporate professionals that provide their specially modified Marauder armor and troops to use them, to the Hel's Angels, pirate fighter pilots who do some mercenary work on the side, to the ''Jackson's Revenge'', an old battlecruiser that some say is cursed.
* The Veteran Combat Initiative in ''[[Alpha Protocol]]''. They can end up as your allies or your enemies -- orenemies—or then one and later the other -- dependingother—depending on your choices.
* The Crimson Lance in ''[[Borderlands]]'' was this to the Atlas Corporation, actively seeking the Eridian technology in Pandora.
* South African Vermaak 88 from ''[[Infamous (video game series)|In Famous]] 2'', by the time the game starts, news reports mention they're the largest and most lucrative private army in the world. {{spoiler|Bertrand uses Kuo's conduit gene to turn them into the "Ice men" and intends to use the now insane and superpowered mercenaries to inspire genocide towards conduits by selling them to world leaders as weapons of war.}}
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== Western Animation ==
* [[You Suck|Ron Stoppable]] hired these guys in the one episode of ''[[Kim Possible]]'' where he was filthy rich, for no other reason than so spend money as part of the [[Aesop]]. Seriously, they fought the [[Red Shirt|Red Shirts]]s, the guys that Kim takes by herself...
 
 
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** Foreign Legionaires and Gurkhas and so on served in [[World War II]] but they were under permanent contract and an organic component of a regular military force.
** [[George Macdonald Fraser]], in ''Quartered Safe Out Here'', tells of a British officer who recruited local tribesmen to harass the Japanese. Similar types were generally known in the partisan war and espionage game as they always have been.
* In ancient times, mercenaries were actually more common then nationally affiliated professional soldiers. Even most standing armies of the day (few in number, but with some noteable exceptions like the Roman Legions) were sell-swords to an extent, working more for their salary than for national pride. The mercenaries' level of reliability varies greatly depending on a wide range of factors (mostly pay, morale, origin, and the presence of other armed forces), but they were some of the best soldiers around when they did choose to stand and fight--afight—a fellow that made war his career choice is going to be a lot more experienced than some farm boy conscript that knows more about feeding armies than fighting for one.
* Modern standing armies were originally collections of mercenary units under permanent contract to a given ruler(not always mercenaries strictly speaking; most were [[My Master, Right or Wrong|lawful subjects]] of said ruler but they served under the same terms). They were usually raised privately by a local noble often from his neighbors (a [[Proud Warrior Race]] like Highland Scots had advantages in this regard; a clan just became a regiment and a chief became a colonel). The British army still retains memories of this in it's folklore.
* For several hundred years, Swiss mercenaries were considered to be the finest soldiers in Europe. They even wore garish outfits so that everyone on the battlefield would know who they were. This is why the Vatican has the Swiss Guard, and why they wear such funny uniforms.
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