I am not talking about the actions UFC took in Guatemala, I am talking about the UFC convincing the US governement to intervene on their behalf in Guatemela, toppling a democratically elected government.
Lets not forget that those things take years to pull off even with "indirect" threat being present. Then it was commies, now its aliens. By the time the political machine would move its gears, X-COM would land on the Mars and deal with aliens once and for all.
Nor does it have to be - there are other ways that the council or any number of countries could use to undermine rogue nations. Do you know how many coups the CIA organized on behalf of the US government? No need for all out war. Just undermine trust in the current government and support groups that want to fight the aliens instead. Just one of many example how this could work out lore-wise.
X-Com already does a lot of 'shady stuff' that the council isn't happy about, curiously enough none of that is enough to out-right shut down the project. Why should bringing a country 'back into the fold' be any different? After all, that would be of global interest - unlike handing over alien technology to MAGMA for example. I am not stating that their shouldn't be any repercussions either, but why of all things should this be 'impossible' to pull off?
Rogue to X-COM, not rogue to Council. Lets not forget the same Council also funds Men in Black.
And again, it takes time. Its not a flick of a finger to undermine trust in the current goverment and support groups that want to fight the aliens instead and then stage the coup. Also in terms of a gameplay, it would be some kind of ridiculous ping-pong where goverment of certain nations is being replaced every few months.
There is also a public opinion to be taken into consideration. The second the pact with aliens is signed, we can safely assume lore-wise all directly harmfull alien activity on that nation's soil is ceased. How many people would want to get back into regular city purges?
How much time it requires to create underground ressistance? How much time it requires to gather enough willing alien fighters? Too much in my opinion for the option to be feasable for X-COM at the point that we discuss it, which is "saving" the world couple times, it has to be like 2002-2003 already.
Again, why should the council shut them down when they don't do so in any other case of X-Com 'doing shady stuff', see above. I can think of a number of ways the aliens and rogue governments could be undermined either by X-Com or by other countries.
There is difference between certain kinds of "shady" activity. Handing over alien tech to MAGMA is just giving the toys that many other organisations already have in order to gain adventage against invaders. Blackmailing, assasinations, false flag operations, all of that to force sovereign nation to break the signed pact causing another countless number of dead in city purges isn't any better than what cults were doing.
Oh please, now your just grasping at straws and you know it. Neither the budget nor the costs of items in-game has any real-world connection, nor is the only that X-Com has to offer money. Of course X-Com could bribe government officials, but it would probably be more low key to simply sway public oppinion (like UFC did) to force a favourable outcome.
No, it was just one of the ways I could think of that you possibly could achieve something like that.
Budget and the costs of items have that connection, or don't have, it all depends on what mod creator says. As we don't operate on abstract "credits", but on simple dollars, I don't see why they can't have.
And again, this also takes time. Especially swaying public opinion, how hard could it be to convice entire nation against a pact that grants them safety? How money do you have to throw at officials, politicians and individuals for them to accept regular city purges?
How much money it takes to bribe mind-controlled person?
Remind me again how X-Com even got into this position in the first place? Oh right, by demonstrating that:
a) there is an actual paranormal threat
b) X-Com is humanity's best hope at dealing with it, if only they can be granted more operational authority (i.e. Promotions)
c) it is in the founding nations best interest to listen to and act on X-Com's advice (e.g. deal with minor cult outposts, monsters etc after X-Com supplis said countries with information)
a) Sure.
b) Best hope, but not the only one. And even then as a "best" hope they give Council the evidence that they are fighting the losing war. Flying to Cydonia is the only way to win it. Before X-COM (and thus Council) gets that information, they think that there is nothing you can do but to delay what will have to come eventually in few years.
c) After accquiring this (Cydonia) information its still like a roll of dice if squad sent to Cydonia will be able to go trough and end the mission successfully. In any other way cooperating with aliens actually gives a solid chance of lesser harm being done than fighting to the end.
It surerly isn't a scenario of "fight, or die".
That would be one way of dealing with the threat. Another could be to assassinate or blackmail government officials in said state and force them to break the pact. X-Com could use Hybrids to impersonate/'replace' key public figures (mind-control, impersonatron etc.). X-Com could influence public oppinion - seeing how we already have mind-altering drugs, chemtrails etc. Maybe call up or Hybrid buddies and 'arange' it so the chemtrail-fluid that's sprayed there is replaced by other chemicals?
X-Com doesn't even have to be directly involved. They could also demonstrate to other countries that it would be in their own interest to topple/undermine a rogue nation. Let others do their dirty work for a change. Given the amount of useful information X-Com has so far provided (and, again, goes on to save humanity multiple times) I would find it outright unrealistic that this should be something the organization should be unable to pull off, seeing how it would be of global interest to prevent rogue nations from allying themselves with the alien threat.
'Oh hey, council of (still) founding nations? That country that just resigned from the project? They are being influenced/have been forced to do this/their government officals have been replaced by a very real and very terrible threat which poses immediate global danger. Here is the evidence for that. Unfortunately we don't have the means or authority to intervene on that level, but it would be in your best interest to *ahem* do something about that, thanks'
X-Com could either recover enough reliable information (either from governmant officials, alien bases, etc) or outright fabricate it - with according risks/repercussions (e.g. random events where somebody found out about x-com making stuff up and blackmailing them in return for staying silent).
Surerly assasinating Council officials that decided to sign the pact with aliens would be rather stupid. What would other Council Members think of X-COM? They would be pretty much held hostage by the sole organisation they created and fund. Faced with two options: Stay with X-COM and hope that they find a way to win this losing war and when they do, hope their suicide mission to Mars will be successfull, or get killed by the same X-COM if you want to cooperate with aliens to reduce civilian casualities and maybe even still keep your position.
This isn't giving alien tech to MAGMA for adventage against invaders, its literally keeping Council of Nations hostage and money extortion scheme and then murdering those who go against X-COM. (To think of it, if anything, this should happen in some kind of "evil" path that can be choosen fairly early during the game)
How to blackmail, or bribe someone who is under mind-controll?
With the stuff proposed for X-COM to do, in which way would they be better than aliens at this point? We don't want aliens around, because they mind-controll us, murder those who they don't like, bribe and blackmail others. Sixth invader would be X-COM themselfs.
Saving humanity multiple times means nothing when there is still yet another threat that X-COM can't deal with. And as mentioned before, Council knows that X-COM is fighting a losing war with aliens from Mars.
And by that it requires to look at it from the outside of box. Not as an X-COM commander, but as Council of Nations member.
Its not like nation that resigned from the project had to be mind-controlled and would never do that if they wouldn't be.
Without murderous X-COM, each nation has two ways to deal with invading Ethernals. Either help X-COM and hope they can do something, or sign a pact and possibly get spared alongside your people.
What causes a nation to resign from the project? X-COM inability to deal with threats on their soil. So for a nation to drop the project it requires for them to completly lose the faith in X-COM. To drop the pact with aliens it requires for them to completly lose the faith in being spared by aliens.
Blackmailing, bribes, assasinations, nothing like that will bring back faith in X-COM, what X-COM, or whole rest of the Council of Nations can potentially do to a nation is less scarier than what aliens could. Thats why X-COM shouldn't do such things (unless we go with "evil" path).
Cydonia is quick and easy solution to nations resigning from the project.
In the end and in short: At the point where X-COM could gain the resources, information and political power to do such things (that would be ineffective anyway, unless it would be mentioned before false-flag operations), they already should fly into Cydonia.
