And I think: The science fiction/horror/fantasy author David Drake very effectively and rightly, I think, puts it thus in the mouth of one of his characters, the Goddess Athene Danny Pritchard:
Force accomplishes a lot of things. They just aren’t the ones you want here. Bring in the Slammers [Regiment] and we kick ass for as long as you pay us. Six months, a year. And we kick ass even if the other side brings in mercs of their own–which they’ll do–but that’s not a problem, not if you’ve got us. So, there’s what? Three hundred thousand people….
So, you want to kill fifty kay? Fifty thousand people, let’s remember they’re people for the moment…. You see, if we go in quick and dirty, the only way that has a prayer of working is if we get them all. If we get everybody who opposes you, everybody related to them, everybody who called them master–everybody…. They’re not dangerous now, but they will be after the killing starts. Believe me. I’ve seen it often enough. Not all of them, but one in ten, one in a hundred. One in a thousand’s enough when he blasts your car down over the ocean a year from now. You’ll see. It changes people, the killing does. Once it starts, there’s no way to stop it but all the way to the end. If you figure to still live here on Tethys….
What do you think the Slammers do, milady? Work magic? We kill, and we’re good at it, bloody good. You call the Slammers in to solve your problems here and you’ll be able to cover the Port with the corpses. I guarantee it. I’ve done it, milady. In my time…
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