I'm happy to switch going the mercenary/ex-soldiers route here! Catra will probably try to appeal to them on the basis that she's a soldier/ex-soldier as well, was raised from birth in that system and has never known anything else, so she knows exactly where they're coming from better than anyone except maybe their own. So there's a double-whammy there of like "I have military experience, that's why we were able to successfully end the simulation, because of MY successful leadership" (even if that isn't actually entirely true and even if they weren't there to see it) combined with "I'm one of you guys and I get where you're coming from and I want to see you get justice."
Once she has a backer and finds out that they're missing their ALIGN tech and weapons/armor etc, she'll also probably try to further appeal to them by pledging to replace these things with something that's newer and better, something not controlled by the government that they can use to keep themselves "safe" and "connected," because that's also very appealing both to her and them, hey. (Whether she's actually able to do this or not is a different issue entirely, but it's something she'd pledge, and she'd definitely take a stab at genuinely trying it.)
As for patrons, Catra's probably going to take a two-pronged attack (because it's never good to put all your eggs in one basket) if she can! First focusing on a wealthy patron who isn't directly associated with any of the Big Three (I know all the Serious Money is in bed with all the corporations on some level anyway, but the important thing here is the ~appearance~ of being backed by someone "relatively" neutral, since she's coming at this from an anti-big-government angle, who won't interfere with her operations too much because of corporate interests or whatever, maybe because they BELIEVE IN THE CAUSE!!11) who she'll use as the public face of her operation/backing.
For the second prong, she'd probably like to more secretly target someone in Vyonation (or one of their subsidiaries) who is relatively high up but not satisfied with their current position ie someone she can flip, convincing them that if they work with her, they can overthrow the current leadership and take it for themselves. Because Catra knows the value of information technology, and Vyonation... has most of that, so that'll be her first port of call if they want to have any hope of fighting back against The Information Machine. (And especially if she wants to have any merits to her claims to develop new tech for the soldiers under her command later.)
ANYWAY let me know if that adequately covered all your points of concern and if everything I've suggested there is okay or needs to be modified further! Or if it's got the all-clear, lemme know and I'll work on crafting some NPCs!
god it's so hard to find an icon on this account that doesn't look somehow snarky
I'm happy to switch going the mercenary/ex-soldiers route here! Catra will probably try to appeal to them on the basis that she's a soldier/ex-soldier as well, was raised from birth in that system and has never known anything else, so she knows exactly where they're coming from better than anyone except maybe their own. So there's a double-whammy there of like "I have military experience, that's why we were able to successfully end the simulation, because of MY successful leadership" (even if that isn't actually entirely true and even if they weren't there to see it) combined with "I'm one of you guys and I get where you're coming from and I want to see you get justice."
Once she has a backer and finds out that they're missing their ALIGN tech and weapons/armor etc, she'll also probably try to further appeal to them by pledging to replace these things with something that's newer and better, something not controlled by the government that they can use to keep themselves "safe" and "connected," because that's also very appealing both to her and them, hey. (Whether she's actually able to do this or not is a different issue entirely, but it's something she'd pledge, and she'd definitely take a stab at genuinely trying it.)
As for patrons, Catra's probably going to take a two-pronged attack (because it's never good to put all your eggs in one basket) if she can! First focusing on a wealthy patron who isn't directly associated with any of the Big Three (I know all the Serious Money is in bed with all the corporations on some level anyway, but the important thing here is the ~appearance~ of being backed by someone "relatively" neutral, since she's coming at this from an anti-big-government angle, who won't interfere with her operations too much because of corporate interests or whatever, maybe because they BELIEVE IN THE CAUSE!!11) who she'll use as the public face of her operation/backing.
For the second prong, she'd probably like to more secretly target someone in Vyonation (or one of their subsidiaries) who is relatively high up but not satisfied with their current position ie someone she can flip, convincing them that if they work with her, they can overthrow the current leadership and take it for themselves. Because Catra knows the value of information technology, and Vyonation... has most of that, so that'll be her first port of call if they want to have any hope of fighting back against The Information Machine. (And especially if she wants to have any merits to her claims to develop new tech for the soldiers under her command later.)
ANYWAY let me know if that adequately covered all your points of concern and if everything I've suggested there is okay or needs to be modified further! Or if it's got the all-clear, lemme know and I'll work on crafting some NPCs!