Tagon’s Toughs are a mercenary-soldier company, we hear over and over. So. Why doesn’t anybody ever seem to hire Tagon’s Toughs, not as McGuffin-retrievers or detectives or security-guards-who-are-sure-to-end-up-fighting-one-way-or-another, but simply as, you know, mercenary soldiers? Like, “We’ve got this war going on and we’re a little short of troops, think you can plug your Toughs into this point on the front line and hold it, Captain Tagon?” I’ve read the whole run of the strip and I don’t recall that ever happening, though maybe I forgot.
I mean, Falkenberg’s Legion never goes chasing McGuffins!
I think it’s because, with their heavy involvement with Petey, they’re actually too entrenched in high-level power games - I personally think other clients are probably being diverted by Petey so he can have the Toughs on tap. He seems to have the same attitude to them that Banks’ Culture minds do to Human Contact agents - like they’re his pets, and if you give them the illusion of free will and independence, and they’ll do their job better. Kind of like God, too, I guess. Or cats…
That and there don’t seem to be too many mid-scale wars, as I imagine the UNS does quite a good job at peacekeeping on that scale. It’s all either grand interstellar conflict or else mall cop stuff.
I think that’s the problem with Schlock Mercenary lately. They * started * the strip by being involved in teraport wars, wars between galaxies and huge sinister conspiracies. And, for the past five years or so, they’ve been mall cops and delivery boys.
The last two times the UNS was involved in a full-out war (vs. the F’sharl Gani and vs. the Pa’nuri in the Core), the Toughs were involved. And they have fought in other wars, too. I think it’s mostly just that they choose which contracts they take, and Tagon, despite being a mercenary, likes having some semblance of moral high ground.