darkmax wrote:And I thought, in Rifts, Sicily is mob-run......
Again, I mustr refer to my baseline Stott material, which has the occupation mcuh akin to what it is now...the Mafia running terrorism campaigns against the local constabulary and Roman peacekeepers...or more like the British Army and the IRA...with the Roman Army protecting Roman residents and sympathetic communities of Sicilians, arrayed against the Mafia and their network(with connections to and of the Black Market) and their own familia loyalties, with a larger proportion of Sicilians who, like most post-Rifts peoples, just want to be left alone and not make trouble....
Sure, it has the potential to go very wrong for both sides, it's violent, and it's dangerous, but what on Rifts Earth ISN'T?
IMHO, by the time of the Cretan Campaign, Sicily has largey quieted down...The Mafia has either figured out that selling to the Romans is either better business, while infiltrating the Peninsula, or it's bad policy to start trouble while the Romans are jumpy about foreign invaders and more likely to respond to local backyard troubles with maximum force...
Plus the local families are somewhat scattered and at odds with the best approach to take...
Some of the Mafia families are doing good business black market wise, smuggling in refugees from North Africa, others want to cut deals with the Phoenix Empire, trading non-aggession against Siciliy for renewed guerilla attacks on Roman interests...while some other Families want to join forces against the Empire, and may even offer to help the Romans by using their black market network connections to get operatives into the Empire and intel out...in exchange for the Romans giving them a freer hand in running things in Sicily and elsewhere...
What's really needed to decide things is a convocation of the Families, but that's sure to have its own hijinx, from maneuvars to rob out other Families, to local Roman POlice INtelligence finding out about it and smelling an opportunity...so far, probably knowing the difficulties of such a congress, the various Families can't agree to it either way, and in the meantime, any concerted effort is effectively paralyzed...