PRIMUS and Homeland Security

[Jhamin]

Ok, so Homeland Security is an amalgam of a bunch of other agencies. Secret Service, Coast Guard, FEMA, etc. The rational is that these agencies protect the country from active threats, or clean up afterward.

 

The ATF & FBI have remained seperate agencies. The rational is that they are primarily law enforcement bodies. The war on terror is seen as a war, not law enforcement.

 

 

So now we come to PRIMUS. What are they? In the past they have been treated as law enforcment, with many parallels to the FBI.

 

But their primary function seems to be to come running when Ogre attacks the convention center. A very combat oriented job. And supervillians routinely cost lives while inflicting massive property damage.

Which would seem to be a "Homeland Security" type of function.

 

So, leaving aside personal political view of Homeland Security, would PRIMUS have been included in Homeland Security or would they have remained independent?

[Big Willy]

Re: PRIMUS and Homeland Security

 

FEMA, the Secret Service et al still exist in their own rights. OHS is more of a coordinating channel, to formalise inter-agency communications and ensure that what used to be called loosely "the intelligence community" behaves more like a community than like a collection of feudin' smallholders .

 

So PRIMUS' structure would remain pretty much unchanged, although there'd be an extra layer of bureaucracy above it.

[freakboy6117]

Re: PRIMUS and Homeland Security

 

well I think it would depend on a couple of factors

 

the political power and capitol of the head of homeland security and the golden avenger.

 

how much the president personally liked the golden avenger.

 

and finally how much of a stink the move would make in the media.#

 

I think a very good case could be made for PRIMUS remaining ( a combination of the golden avengers charisma media savvy and political clout)but that this would lead to some deep inter departmental rivalries between them and homeland security.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: PRIMUS and Homeland Security

 

The ATF & FBI have remained seperate agencies.

Don't mean to quibble, but they're not really seperate agencies: they're both under Dept of Justice. (ATF was actually under Treasury until The Big Post-9/11 Shuffle.)

 

Good idea or bad idea, the reason the FBI was left out of Homeland Security was political, not organizational. Which means as a GM you can justify it going whichever way you prefer. I always saw PRIMUS as basically a super-powered version of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, which in RL has remained under FBI (and therefore DOJ) control. OTOH if PRIMUS had existed in our world, I could see a post-9/11 push to turn them into more of a counter-terrorism strike force along the lines of Delta Force. In which case there would've probably been more of a push to move them under Homeland Security.

 

So I guess it all depends on how you want to use them: is their primary mission to arrest super-criminals, or to stop super-terrorists? (And if you figure out where to draw that line, let me know!)

 

...but that this would lead to some deep inter departmental rivalries between them and homeland security.

...cuz we certainly don't have any such rivalries now.

 

 

bigdamnhero

"If I wanted schoolin' I'd have gone to school."