lore question: Bracer Guild

[Madscientist]

It sound like a strange question after having played 11 games of the series, but what is the point of the bracer guild?

I started playing with Trails in the Sky. There I understood they do police work. Liberl did not seem to have a police, so it made kind of sense.

But Crossbell and Calvard definitively have police. Erebonia I only saw "railway millitary police" and "provincial army", not sure if there is normal police.

From my perspective the bracers seem like a SWAT team: They have more combat power than a normal police officer who does things like watching if people drive too fast or park in the wrong place, but they are still civillians whose job is to support law and order, not an army who sends 100 soldiers and 3 tanks to solve a problem. I can understand why they would hire ex soldiers or ex mercenaries (but only those without criminal background. I would be worried when ex terrorists or ex assassins were part of the police)

- Why do all states in this world accept a private organisation to do law enforcement?
All real world countries want to ensure law and order themselves. They would be very worried if an international organisation starts to do police work.

- In one quest we arrest a criminal and have the choice to give him to the guild (law), the police (gray) or Hengye (chaos). Sending a criminal to the mafia so they can punish him is illegal, OK. But in the real world the police would be my default choice to report a crime.

- The are international organisations in the real world that want to help people, I think of the red cross or amnesty international. But they do not arrest people or fight mercenaries or terrorists. They make crimes public and force state orginasiations (such as police) to take action.

[rachaellikesblue]

Bracers aren't quite the same as police; they prioritize civilian safety over everything else, including law and order. This means that they are willing to break the law in order to do so. In contrast, the police are bound by the law, and may be unable to maintain a civilian's safety, should the two come into conflict with one another.

In addition to high-level threats, bracers might take on matters that are either not the sort of thing the police would deal with (such as finding a lost cat). They may also take "leftover" jobs that the police are simply too swamped to take.

The Bracer Guild also maintains a policy of non-intervention in government affairs, unless the lives of civilians are threatened. This is another area where the police differ.

While their respective priorities can sometimes cause bracers and police or military to come into conflict with one another, the Bracer Guild is mostly seen as a net positive by not only the governments of the various countries in which they're active, but by the people as well. Acting against the Bracer Guild would be a highly unpopular move, but it's not unheard of; we see this in action when Giliath Osborne shut down most of the guild branches in Erebonia.

[Madscientist]

If we talk about a dictatorship where "maintaining law and order" can mean to arrest, torture or even kill people who protest against the government, then the law and the safety of people are in conflict. I cannot remember seeing this in this series.

So I have problems to think of a situation where following the law is in conflict with the safety of people. In fact there are cases where it is allowed to break other laws to save a person (like you break a door or window to help an injured person who is trapped in that room).
Yes there are cases of racist or corrupt police officers. But this is illegal so they do not follow the law when it happens.

[Endora]

That's depends on the country I guess. On my country the police should and most of the cases must to invade a place to rescue a kidnaped person, in Calvard the detective reprimanded us and Fie for doing exactly this.

[Ceriss]

This is gone over pretty extensively during Sky and Zero.
Bracer guild can't intervene in military or government affairs, actually is pretty limited with the civilian safety rule. There's plenty of times where the parties have to really reach to make that excuse work.

Police are part of their government so they aren't hindered by it because they are part of
it, but they must abide by all laws so their methods have less flexibility on average. The SSS is a strange middle ground experiment where they have more flexibility without the government/military restrictions which probably makes the SSS the most free of the official groups.

Bracers are almost like a catch all civilian problem solving organization with limitations as a private organization, Police are strictly about crime and are a public organization.

But it needs to be said, Bracers do not enforce laws, they don't even follow them all the time. They bend the rules regularly, like when they infiltrate military facilities which is absolutely illegal. They protect people, and as long as they can make a case of it to that countries government they can get away with the illegal action depending on the cause. A police officer would be unlikely to recover from that.

You could think of the Police as Lawful Good most times, the Bracers would be Neutral Good.

In any case, Sky 1 and Zero make it a good point to showcase the different scenarios where each group feels useless due to the limits of their position and authority. Estelle and Crew vs the military, Lloyd with the mafia. They do manage to overcome them but the struggle to do so is in part due to each organizations different role.

Then of course there's Class 7 which like the SSS was inspired by the limitations of bracers and meant to circumvent much of the red tape that limited them.

Originally posted by Madscientist:

If we talk about a dictatorship where "maintaining law and order" can mean to arrest, torture or even kill people who protest against the government, then the law and the safety of people are in conflict. I cannot remember seeing this in this series.

So I have problems to think of a situation where following the law is in conflict with the safety of people. In fact there are cases where it is allowed to break other laws to save a person (like you break a door or window to help an injured person who is trapped in that room).
Yes there are cases of racist or corrupt police officers. But this is illegal so they do not follow the law when it happens.

For this part, pretty much all the times in every Arc where the countries came under military control and the party and allies opposed this. Noble Alliance, Liberl Armed Forces, and the Guardian Force.
They kidnapped Professor Russell for example against his will and forced him to help in Liberl. Then the General being an automatic hater of Bracers essentially ignored any illegal doings.

[Madscientist]

- About the last part, all of your examples are about the millitary.
An army coup is something completely different than normal police work.

- Class 7 is just a bunch of school kids.
Its a military academy, but they are not soldiers, police officers or bracers.
From a legal point they are normal civilians, just with better education and combat power than the average person.

- I have no clear definition of law enforcement, sorry.
Bracers do arrest lots of people throughout the series and they solve several crimes.
Side note: In this game handing a criminal over to the bracers is considered the good option but I have never seen a prison cell in a bracer office.

[Madscientist]

BTW:
Quote: "Bracer guild can't intervene in military or government affairs"

Its strange that the very first game in the series (sky 1) is about stopping a millitary coup.
You cannot get more involved in politics than that.

It is bad for the safety of civilians when corrupt politicians breed monsters or the army attacks the royal palace with tanks. But with that argument, the "no politics" rule is meaningless, because things like corrupt politicians work together with criminals or the army starts a coup are always bad for the safety of civillians.

In all games of the series politics play a big role.
If the "no politics" rule would be followed, they have to limit themselves to finding lost stuff and beating up monsters.

[Endora]

Yep, they bend that rule quite often, but it is on theyr code: in doubth, the first and foremost rule to be follow is the safety of the citizens, wich means they don't take that no politics that seriusly from the begining. That's one of the reasons why Osbourne forced the guild out of the empire .

[Madscientist]

I did some thinking: Maybe I should approach the issue from a different direction:
So I ask: Does an organisation like the bracers exist in the real world?

I was asking myself under what conditions may such an organisation exist, people who have the safety of civilians as top priority.
A possible answer I found was: Maybe in a poor and dangerous country like somewhere in africa?
- The risk to be victim of bandits, terrorists or beasts is high.
- Police may not present everywhere and they may be worse payed and equipped than the criminals they are supposed to fight.
- Government organisations (such as police) may be corrupt and brutal just like the terrorists they fight.

Background:
Calvard looks like a modern, mostly european country (including european looking racists who are against asian and arab immigrants, sorry I do not know the in game wording).
I live in germany so I can relate to most things in the game. The game also talks about issues we read about every day in the news, like online scam or AI.
But the game world is much more dangerous than where I live. I do not see mercenaries anywhere, mafia groups do not act openly (they try to stay hidden) and no monsters ( traffic jam because of wild animals on the highway would be very unusual).
So maybe I have to look at more dangerous places in our world to understand the game better.

[Reitschuster]

Bracers are not like a SWAT team, they're essentially mercenaries that mostly do busywork. In Calvard you see them do crime fighting and serious work for the first time.

[Reitschuster]

That the countries accept them is mostly just a relic of the past. They're a popular institution with a lot of backing and doing away with them is difficult. Erebonia got rid of them, only to get huge backlash for it. There are a lot of real-life institutions that are useless but hard to get rid of.