Kind of. It doesn't fully predate Swedish nationhood, but it predates Sweden as unified nation, but it's about the regional area. The red earring is a bit of trivia I picked up when looking up Varangian Guards - keep in mind that later era Varangian Guards were mainly from the British Isles. Another piece of trivia from less quotable sources (friend of a friend's who's an archaeologist kind of deal) is that eastern Vikings were described in writing by a Vizier at around the time to be black which apparently was from tattoos when they examined known viking remains from the time, looking for pigments in the skin.
You'd better believe it! And that's less 'intervene' than 'are fighting on their own turf'. It was rather implied by the pic at the end of the Paradiso narrative, where an EI aspect is 'holding' a hologlobe of Earth. That pic is repeated on pg121 of the N3 Core book.
Well, I'm looking forward to play EBA. I'm a PanO player as a whole but as I'm a big fan of the Holy Sepulchre Order, I think I'll really love this sectorial once it shows up.
And here I thought Varangian guard was mostly Russian in origin. There was some Norse/Slav mixing in those areas back then though. We already know that the units may use Norse names with little regard to what they represent. Jotum is close to a frost giant, but Nisses in myth look like that Spoiler
Well, they obviously don't look the same, but Nisses are described as 'According to tradition, the nisse lives in the houses and barns of the farmstead, and secretly act as their guardian.' I can't check the fluff for the Nisse right now, but if they're meant to defend Svalarheima, then it follows the general idea.
That's from 1881 and onwards, readily adopted by Coca Cola due to brand colours. The original Nisse/Tomte were dressed in colours native to the farmstead, where they'd blend in with their surrounding, typically greens and browns. And it's absolutely ungoogleable because of commercialisation of the appearance and name. Of note is that at least on the Swedish wiki on the subject, Nisse is a Danish and Norwegian taboo name for the farmstead devil. Ignoring the jolly Coca Cola-drinking fat drunkard, the older and more sinister backdrop of what a Nisse is makes a lot more sense for the unit - a camouflage expert, oft-times a devil or shapeshifter, whom you would do really jolly well to stay on their good side of or they'll make life hell for you.
For what its worth, varingian is based on an old norse word, väring. I'm biased of course but thought they were vikings... Regarding the nisse, I definitely prefer Johan Egerkrans version from his awesome book of norse mythological creatures: Vaesen.
I would add : - Rodina army (TAK is the tartary side of the russian but not the main army) - Tohaa exalted sectorial - Sygmaa Tryhedron (tohaa under EI domination) - Equinox terrorist group (terrorist group, govad arch-enemy) - Hexadron (if we can have a black hand sectorial, we can have an hexadron sectorial) - Stavka ((if we can have a black hand sectorial, we can have Ariadna spec obs)
Green, Blue, Red, and Yellow Yu Jing Banners as well? Memory tells me there's meant to be 7 colours, but also that colours should correspond to compass directions. Possibly also Black Banner, though Black is... atypical. Don't think either of these are Invincibles, though and argument could be made ISS is "Black" Banner. I think Yellow was the colour of centre while Green is old Terra. There's also black site (voodootech research sites) security forces if memory serves.
Don't forget the Hypercorps: ACCESSTEL (Large-scale communications [networks, Infrastructures]) COMPASS (Cargo transport) CONTRACTORS STI (Engineering, construction, private security) COSMICA (Near orbit and outland surface industrial construction) EXXO (Genetic engineering) INTERSPACE TRUST (Cargo transport) NEO LOTUS (Station in Mars orbit) PHARMACOMP (Pharmaceutical industry) ROYAL SPACER (Travels and space cruises) TRISTERYON (Confidential, clandestine, and special parcels) XPERYDES OMNI-NATIONAL ('everything') Especially Xperydes, as the oldest and probaply most powerful hypercorp, even has its own military/mercanary force: Ladon (Ladon Security Solutions)
Does PanO have a police force as we see today or are they all like the OCP in Robocop? Private security.
It seems to me, that every non-MO or Church troops, could be a Mega Corporation Security force, including even TAGs. Then again, it could be a corporation that works for the church as well.
For this, I’d be looking for a different aesthetic from panO. Some similar/same troops though for sure. What I think would be interesting, (and will never happen),would be a “vanilla” NA2 list with things like brawlers, CSU, abh, police, cyber security, PPOs/bodyguards, and maybe some existing crossover with Mercs/aleph bots etc. Then I’d like this vanilla to be broken apart into small sectorials, a la DBS, for each of the big hyper corps/merc companies/non aligned armies.
I'm sure you can get a few Order Sergeants and a Knight or two to help out as long as you're paid up with your Indulgences to the Neo-Church.
There description points more towards them being bodyguards, security for hire, belonging to a mercenary company called SecLock Contingencies. From the RPG p.204: Some mercenaries draw a firm distinction between the Free Companies (businesses which are focused on their mercenary operations) and corporate contractors (mercenary companies which act as a branch or subsidiary of a larger megacorp or hypercorp). There can be a fair amount of gray area when it comes to this issue, however, as demonstrated by companies like SecLock Contingencies (which serves primarily corporate clients) and the Druze Society (which is not organised along strictly traditional corporate structures). Ladon was a mercenary company as well, but Xperydes bought them and so they became a hypercorp-spanning security force as well as running black ops for Xperydes. Though sometimes Xperydes still sells their services on the War Markt. So, the CSU are mercs with a focus on corporate clients, but not a hypercorp's security force. Ladon on the other hand is a hypercorp security force that once was a merc company and might still act as one from time to time.