[member="Aedan Miles"]
Unfortunately, with how this invasion is being created and from talks between myself and Salem, it's not particularly reasonable for us to hire out mercenaries for this first invasion. This is something that's been planned for some time. Mercenaries are best suited for sudden challenges. This really is something drive by IC consideration. It doesn't reflect any sort of OOC choice. I agreed to the choice of giving up some aid slots to create, what was to Salem and myself, a realistic IC situation where the Protectorate fleet would have some sort of numerical advantage over the Confederacy.
I hope you don't take this personally or anything. If Salem told me that OP could bring it more ships without having to give up aid slots, it'd be different. But with a smaller aid pool than the Confederacy, I had to give priority to people who had the strongest reason to be a part of the Invasion.