That's true, but I can see Hexahedron or corporations pulling some strings to get a squad of troopers assigned to the mission at hand. Hell, they might be treated as being just as expendable as the actual mercs. Pretty much like the Colonial Marines got short end of the stick in Aliens.
Lots to comment on, pardon the wall-o-quotes The most important question for this entire idea is, "How deniable is this operation?" If we're talking an op on the level of Outrage, that means only one actual PanO trooper, the LT. Everyone else has no current contact with PanO. Ideally, everyone else has zero history with PanO, but I could make some allowances for units being 'former members' or troops armed and equipped as if they were that unit. If we are talking the PanO version of StarCo, that's very different! Like the Wardog idea, though I'd call them CorpSec. I think the most common HI suit in the Sphere is actually a Zuyong, but ORCs/Mobile Brigadas/Wu Ming are equally possible. Al-badass is fine. No PanO TAGs if we're aiming for Total Deniability. No Aleph units. If you're using standard PanO REMs, you're using PanO combat REMs. Note that JSA is still using fully YJ REMs, even though PanO is supplying all their heavy weapons now. CB doesn't do 'historical' scenarios, so Emily won't work for a PanO-aligned merc outfit. Knauf will, since he's available as a merc to vanilla PanO. Especially if we're going for a total deniability NA2 sectorial. Agreed. The Sphere in general doesn't know about most of Aleph's troops, particularly on the Operations side of the house. Anything from the Steel Phalanx should only be available against the EI. The Marut stays secret because Aleph actively deletes all electronic records of it. Agreed, and that's for either level of deniability. It is, and CB doesn't do 'historical' lists, we're always writing lists in the current storyline. But Knauf will work for PanO, just not the Hexahedron. More importantly, why the hell would a deniable op have Aleph support?!? If the sectorial is not utterly deniable, then I can see the POSSIBILITY of Aleph support. But as I said in response to @SpectralOwl 's comment, the Sphere in general doesn't know about most of the troops in the Operations Subsection, and the Assault Subsection should only be in combat with the EI. Definitely agree, and that's for either level of deniability. I still don't know why the hell this hasn't happened yet!
If we're using these two concepts as opposing points on the spectrum, I'd say this army should be closer to the latter, if not completely there. Otherwise it'd defeat the purpose of having a PanO-themed NA2, as it wouldn't be actually PanO-themed. I like CoffeeBadger's idea of retrofitted Reptiles instead of Tikbalangs, it does indeed fit the theme better. I'm still not sure if I'd see Combat Remotes here, they're neither necessary, nor readily available on the market. More command options for Hexa - Lieutenant, XO - feels like a natural fit, too. I'd really like to see them in NCA, too. As I've said before - because Aleph might see such outfit's operation as a good cover for its operative's actual mission. Hexahedron is probably in the know to a point, when it comes to OSS.
OK, that somewhat adjusts a few of my opinions. PanO troops in general are possible. Would not include al-badass, though. Emily still wouldn't be in the sectorial. Aleph units might be in, though I'm not really for such an idea. I think former-PanO TAGs would be more likely than top-line G:RP TAGs, though PanO combat REMs are almost certainly possible. OK, that at least makes sense. Still don't like it, but I follow your logic.
The problem is you're ignoring the special status of Aleph and its operatives. The mission cannot be a cover, because the moment anyone sees (captures an image or dead body) the Aleph operative, everything is blown wide open, and there is no longer any pretence of deniability as Aleph operatives don't just go on missions on their own. Hence, even if Aleph was stupid enough to attempt it (which I don't see any reason ever for it to be stupid enough), everybody else involved would immediately just say "nope" because their missions would be endangered.
CSU is the security guy, or doorman or whatever, not some big company CEO. It would be odd to have low tier TAGs in a Pano merc faction.
Depends on whether Remote Presence TAGs are restricted military-only hardware or not. I'm kinda assuming that the Remote Presence gear is restricted to the military (or other governmental agencies).
As a spectrum, 'op on the level of Outrage' is just about as far from 'PanO version of StarCo' as you can get, but there are points inbetween that are still usable as well. I'd probably a point a little on the 'StarCo' side of the midpoint 'PanO version of DBS', where the sectorial is known to use a lot of stuff from PanO but is not under PanO command and will take missions against PanO (remember, StarCo will not take missions against Nomads as a whole). After all, there are a lot of different levels of deniability:
I doubt a Hexahedron-run op would target PanO, unless we're talking a major false flag operation. Even then, no actual PanO troops would take part, both for the security reason on the outfit side - you don't want to explain to your troops that they have to attack their own side, lest someone has a sudden attack of conscience - and for the public consumption, when such a case of friendly fire would make people ask pointed questions. So in this case we would have undercover agents, corporate troops, and various mercs.
*blink*? So they do! (not that I play Ikari, Druze, or even StarCo) OK, guess it may be possible to have different REMs after all.
I personally think the remotes for mercs may just be named for simplicity - many S3 remotes are identical to their counterparts, and exist in roughly 4 classes (with minor variations between them on occasion). The more unique S4 ones could easily represent something the mercs built themselves or whatever.
The problem with this is that you're assuming that ALEPH operatives are easily identifiable. If the OSS isn't well-known, then how is it easy to identify their operatives?
I mean, Maruts and Dasyu explicitly don't exist as they are kept so secret and records of them are actively eliminated by ALEPH.
They don't need to be specifically identifiable to be able to say "this is Aleph technology". Yeah, so lets spread them out together with mercenary forces who can obviously be relied on keeping their mouth shut.
They don't really need to tell them what they are. Which would, admittedly, work better with the Dasyu than the Marut.
Again, you don't need to tell them who that Dasyu is. But the first time that Dasyu gets hit with DA/EXP ammo and it's part fly everywhere it's gonna be obvious. Or more likely, even before given the type of equipment it's carrying.
Yeah, I don't think you understand what an lhost is. And nothing one carries isn't available from a variety of vendors, including the Nomads in many cases, if you really want deniability.
