Bounty Hunters

I am trying to think of a way to run a mercenary system where only a single merc/bounty hunter team can legally take a contract and all i'm coming up with is underbidding each other 0.o I don't know that that will work unless....contract would say-max offer $$$$. And teams say "I can probably do this for $$, or $$$" and whatever the difference, they pocket it? I am bad at the maths and economics A unifying organization, maybe with light oversight by the military (which IS the one unifying government body), to keep bounty hunters all over the empire from declaring allegiances to different lords and say...'hunting' someone's heir a bidding system would keep people from saying 'i'm a bounty hunter!' and flying across half the empire when they don't even have the EQUIPMENT to transport a prisoner so you'd have to do the math and calculate travel and if you go over budget, (no big explosions please, and you will be held responsible for property damages) but bring the target in, you only get paid what you bid?

Ash/14/2018 Could also have the organization require some money up front as security against collateral damages

Rc 08/14/2018 oh there's an idea like...escrow? Each bounty hunter/team has an account that gets tagged when they take a job? Ash/14/2018 Yeah. And if you start out with tiny jobs and dump some profit in each time, you could take larger and larger jobs over time Rc 08/14/2018 So you know the illegal hunters by the way they tear up streets and stuff and the legal ones are surgical Yeah. So there's a market for single person and teams both Yes! And civilians are less likely to just help someone without seeing the bounty guild crest so...like a contracted police force almost, except they do the work of say...interpol or the FBI, and the actual cops stay within the bounds of their 'state' maybe...some jobs are flat fee and some (bigger ones?) are bid on? Ash 08/14/2018 Makes sense Rc 08/14/2018 catching a bank robber is like taking out the trash. Chasing a serial killer across ten states will take more planning as an example Ash 08/14/2018 Right Would they also do stuff like repossession or surveillance? Rc 08/14/2018 Maybe surveillance but i don't think they'd do repo. The economy of the empire is fairly trashed. Almost Fuedal. Banks and large merchants would probably have their own private forces Ash 08/14/2018 Right. Surveillance would be a part of larger jobs though, so I could see them taking those since the equipment is pretty specialized Rc 08/14/2018 I think the hunters function as a sort of military reserve? Most are from military families (there's no enlistment and retirement, you go in and you're in for life) But i think there'd also be people who just fall into the business. And probably bounty hunters who have bounty hunter children, etc. This society is very focused on Family and Lineage and carrying on Natural children are rare. Most women have what amounts to PCOS. Except for the ones who have psychic abilities, women don't serve because they're more valuable in trying to keep the population levels up Exceptions being those from the lowest strata of society and, as I said, the psychics. But even then, the women are married off and they try to breed more psychics. It's a messed up universe