[dragoon500ly]

just some random thoughts....

Phoenix was always the last ditch defense of the Project. Bruce could never be sure that the snake-eaters wouldn't have a hidden agenda of their own. Phoenix gave him a weapon that was at least as good, if not superior to the snake-eaters. Doesn't mean that he wanted to use them, but Phoenix is charged with safe-guarding the Project...from all enemies foreign and domestic, right? This would explain their presence in Prime Base, and in some games I've took part in, there was a backup, frozen Prime Base, complete with a second Phoenix Team, just in case. I've never run across the assumption that Phoenix is a death squad and that idea generated some serious discussion in last night's game. The opinion of my five players is as listed above.

Krell has always been an off sort of villian to run. If Krell was one of the members of COT, then he was in a postion to cause very serious disruption to the project. I'm not talking about his attempt to nuke Prime, but in a position to have access to bolthole locations, not to mention the regional resupply bases, etc. This has serious consequences for the Project, because he would have direct access to the infrastructure of the Project, not just from a logistical point of view, but from a C3I viewpoint as well. Being able to monitor communications for example.

On the other hand, if Krell is run as a member of the Project, but not a COT member, you now have the warlord version. He is aware of the Project, he has access to some of the Project equipment, but he is not in a position to run boltholes or bases down, unless he gets wind of a rumor of Morrows...

It also safeguards Krell from the COT, since they wouldn't know what he was up to, then they would not be able to "sanction" him. IIRC there was a PBEM that had Krell as a gang banger that managed to pass the security protocol, get recruited, and due to his expertise with computers, was able to hack Project records and pass that info to other members of his gang so when TEOTWAWKI took place, this gang had someplace to go and create their own little kingdom.