What good is having a couple thousand Ultra-turbo-zap guns if no one knows about it?
Does Spaceman Jax think he can reform the Mantagons? He certainly doesn’t seem to understand that they are only in it for the weaponry and the power. Jax tries to reason with them, but never successfully, since the only ones who really understand the Mantagons well enough to negotiate them out of an action are Tarloc and Farlo, both of whom use the promise of larger weapons to manipulate the Mantagons into doing what they want.
Obviously, the Mantagons don’t always follow the rules. Sure, they will buy, borrow or work to acquire a new weapon that they want. But if the price – whether monetary or not – seems too high, they’re not above illegal measures to get it. In fact, coercion (using their weapons, of course) is their favorite method of getting what they want – since they like to put their arsenal to use after all. And they much prefer that over “easier” methods such as trading or paying… or even stealing.
Thievery requires much of the show of aggression to be hidden, something which is rather distasteful to the Mantagons. It isn’t that they frown on dishonesty, but there doesn’t seem to be anything in it for them if they can’t show off how many weapons they’ve got.
For this reason, they enjoy escorting prisoners across the galaxy or performing security for events where they can march out their latest weapons and make a few threats.
Of course, one of the biggest dangers of the Mantagons is that they often have no idea how to even use their weapons. In their eager rush to acquire the latest guns, bombs or mines, they purchase devices that haven’t been tested or that are not quite out of the development phase. And why read a user’s manual when there’s a shiny new Mega-boom-bomb to show off? Although they don’t realize it, the Mantagons are just as big a threat to themselves as they fancy they are to others.
