On the face of it:
Soldiers are hired by one organization to which they remain loyal.
Mercenaries are hired to an organization they have no loyalty to other than
financial loyalty.
Assassins are hired by an organization they have no loyalty to, other than
financial loyalty, to kill particular individuals.
However, I suspect you knew that and are looking at a deeper question about
'blood money'.
It is clear that the assassin receives blood money. He only gets paid when he
kills.
The mercenary receives money and is expected to kill, if he needs to, in
order to achieve what ever objectives he has, but it seams to me that this
isn't blood money in the same way as the assassin. The mercenary isn't
usually required to kill if his objectives can be accomplished without him killing.
If the mercenary is hired, for example, for armed protection of the subsim
server he may have to kill any one who tries to destroy it, but if no one
ever presents him with such a serious attack and all he ever has to do is put
out the occasional fire he will still get paid.
The soldier is much the same as the mercenary in that he/she is hired to
complete objectives that may, but don't necessarily, include killing. I think
the major difference is that whilst the mercenary is, almost by definition,
there for the money, the soldier often has a interest in the goals he is trying
to achieve.
For example:
Lets say that Neal Stevens decides he needs protection.
First he hires a mercenary.
Before long Neal is attacked. The mercenary could have dealt with the
situation without killing anyone and still have got paid, but in this case he
decides to kill the attacker. He didn't stop the attacker because he likes Neal;
he just did it so he would get paid at the end of the day.
Next Neal hires a soldier from the forum members at subsim.com.
Before long Neal is attacked. The soldier could have dealt with the
situation without killing anyone and still have got paid, but in this case he
decides to kill the attacker. He didn't stop the attacker because he wouldn't
get paied if he let Neal die; he stopped the attacker because he has a
personal intrest in Neal's survival.
Annoyed at the lack of sucsess, the third attacker hires an assasin.
The assasin attacks Neal. There is no way he can compleate his objectives
without killing Neal. he has nothing personaly against Neal, he is only doing it
for the money.
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