Sometimes the little 4koma style comics I make almost write themselves... I really can't wait for my big flat renovation to end so I can start drawing again
Because you usually want your 'hot mess response team' to be totally under your control, and not maybe have a secondary mission from Uncle Sam that the Board wouldn't like?
Yu Jing are "properly paranoid" about Aleph so they do not integrate Aleph and their operatives the same way PanO does, PanO must be the "favoured" faction for Aleph, because of how easy is to work with this society, something that makes Sona Carano both an oddity and an Inevitability of PanOceanian society.
Thanks to the Lobby system, the Board and Uncle Sam are very likely to be the same people. And for anything less savoury, there's the Druze and Ikari.
That's not how I read the Lobby system to work, though. I was reading it such that the Lobbies replaced the various political parties, it's very obvious what the individuals running for office represent, no more hiding it behind parties. You generally don't want The Board to also be big parts of the government, because both running the company and running the government are full-time jobs. Not because of a conflict of interest, just because of how much attention and effort it takes to do each job to an acceptable level.
Sure, the parties are gone, and in their place what are now known as "special interest pressure groups" are instead directly running the government. So, as I said, the board can literally deploy the army to deal with anything that isn't so dirty that you wouldn't rather use the Druze or Ikari.
Unless this is more clearly spelled out in the RPG materials, it's just that you're electing Coalminer to Congress, not necessarily to the Joint Chiefs. Yes, if someone from The Board is President (or whatever the title of PanO's head is), then The Board can order the PanO Army deployed. But if someone from the Board is merely a congresscritter, they can't.
I love it when Americans assume everything works the way it does in America. But, yeah, there is a lot more in the RPG. Look out for the upcoming Heart of the Hyperpower articles.
OK, so who is it that gives orders to the Army in Commonwealth nations? (Since Australia and India are both Commonwealth or derived from Commonwealth practices) I'm assuming that it's the Prime Minister.
Nope, technically it's the Governor General, but in practice it's the Cabinet. And the Cabinet is just made up of Members of Parliament from the ruling party(s).
In that case, their Lobby(ies) could definitely 'recommend' something, but that's when it matters if it's the Moto.Tronica Lobby or if it's the All Fusion Power Generators Lobby. If it's a Lobby made up of multiple, nominally-competing companies, then it'd be much harder to order the army deployed for something that only benefits one company.
One PanO company? They'd all be happy for that, as long as it doesn't harm the other Lobbies' own interests. I get the feeling that if some company planned an operation to steal the secrets of Silk manufacture the whole Board would be behind it, even if it's disruptive to their economy. Deploying within PanO space would be much, much more difficult to get approval for, as it's expensive and would almost certainly harm somebody's special interests. Because PanO is actually ruled by its most succesful traders, they've all essentially bought stocks in the nation, and anything they can take from another Sphere power only makes them richer. That stake in power probably makes PanO's megacorps, despite their greed, incredibly difficult to bribe; they would have to be payed essentially in banana republics, plural, to make up the financial difference for damaging the Hyperpower.
That's the thing, the Lobby system is a modified form of parliamentary democracy, so whoever isn't in power just doesn't matter. But that does raise the question of what they do when they CAN'T simply use the PanOceanian military as their corporate errand boys, which brings us back around to "StarCo, but PanOceanian".
And I have no problem with "PanO StarCo" as a sectorial concept. I think 'Black Ops' with only one PanO model (the LT) on the table is more interesting, but PanO StarCo is still a valid idea. Though I'd want to do a "like StarCo, but [ faction ]" for everyone, and a kinda generic Deniable Ops list whose allegiance depended on which faction was the LT.
Which is an interesting concept, but it affects mostly fluff, not gameplay. Also, for that to work you'd need units from different factions in the sectorial, and in case the army would work for another faction they'd act against their faction interests.
I'd do it pretty much as DBS or Ikari plus absolutely all mercenary units (and any units known to not always work for their faction, like Irmandinhos, Djanbazan, and Wu Ming), with a small list of allowed command models from all factions (which have a shared AVA of 1). Also a special victory condition that the LT's body absolutely must not be left behind (must be in either Medevac or Cubevac state at end of game). If we're really going into the Blackest of Black Ops as the style, I'd also make sure that every unit with rumors of war crimes was included.
One thing which I would like to see CB clarify is if this is what Vanilla is supposed to represent. Given the availability of mercenaries in Vanilla lists these days it certainly seems like it might be. But some kind of indication one way or the other would help clarify.
