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Originally Posted by cosmicfish
What you are describing is the other side of the special operations issue, and the usual response is to combine the two approaches - If you have 100 "elite" soldiers, you might create a 40-50 man special ops unit and sprinkle the others among your line units in the manner you describe. I never meant to imply that Phoenix (or similar units) would or should be allowed to take ALL the "best", merely that some of them would be used for this.
And again, this is not a new argument - it is the constant struggle in allocating troops between line and elite units, and no one goes entirely one way or another.
I never took that as being much more than the usual issue of recruiting Morrow personnel - if you have strong social connections, are you willing and able to abandon them to what you know to be an inevitable atomic holocaust? I thought this was included in the list just because it represented a standard Morrow recruiting issue that was not normally a concern with soldiers.
And yet the US and other groups maintain Phoenix-like groups all the time. Which is more likely, that these guys are going to unify and go rogue against the Project or that there would be some external forces against which you might need people assembled together with more training and resources than a typical MARS team?
It seems like everyone is opposed to a world in which the PCs are not the de facto "best of the best". If they want that distinction, they will need to earn it.
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The United States and other Western Democracies are "nations of laws not men". After the balloon goes up they will be howling wildernesses. How many times in history has a ruler been dethroned by a military coup? Without the framework of the constitution or similar documents and traditions and without a functioning society of which they are a tiny fraction the chances that a group of extremely powerful men will seek "for the good of others" to take charge is much greater. The elements of the Project that control Phoenix had beeter be right almost all the time because if they show poor judgement, fail often or appear to be weak and indecisive (in the eyes of Phoenix) Phoenix will almost be morally obligated to take control
For a model of who might join the project look at the volunteers to go on a one way trip to Mars. This private mission is stated that anyone that goes is going to have to leave Earth and all their social connections behind and will die on Mars, hopefully establishing a human foothold there first. Some are married and have children which they will need to say goodbye to forever. It is as close to being in TMP as I can see.