[Lolzytripd]

That's acceptable I suppose, though I wish it wasn't being presented as just the logical progression from guards, I would like border skirmishes, tense rivalries and possibly even these factions being the antagonists themselves in some scenarios.

As an example lets say that a member of the church believes a notable vampire/lich they've been looking for (not necessarily a player but a plot element for conflict) is hiding in altlasia and they send a strike force into the foreign land without warning so the target doesn't have time to react, but this creates political turmoil and minor conflict with the altlasian houses as they don't fully understand the mercalan religion and worry that these crusaders may instead be after some of their own, possibly darker secrets or relics.

In that Hypothetical situation, which is assumed is hypothetical, obviously, the safe bet would be to assume the Commander of the Church Knights forewarns the Alstalsian Commander of such, without forewarning I find it hard to believe they'll be able to act on such if it will cause political turmoil and minor conflict with the Alstalsian house. Being informed of actions on their soil will prevent such I feel.

As for the being presented as a logical progression, I don't really think this is a 'Progression' per se but an entire overhaul to how the guards are entire, as implied/stated by Chaos in the original post. It's basically what, and I quote what Sarah said above " this is basically just a guard force except called differently."

People have expressed that they want to be more involved but have to go through certain doors to get there, this change opens up those opportunities and possibilities for people who have an interest in doing so which exactly what we as the guard have been trying to do for a long while, at least from what I can tell.

And in that scenario a planted member in the alstalsian courts warns their master and the church once more fails to capture their wanted target. I guess the united states never killed bin laden, they had to wait a month or two to hear back from the officials of Pakistan for permission to perform the strike...and then he wasn't there since someone warned him.

Conflict is good for the plot, its good for story, conflict doesn't have to be herp derp I am good boy church knight I ams go to horny people land and kill lich. It can be more nuanced where neither side is 100% in the wrong and both groups can learn and grow from the tense interaction. You completely skipped the point, the conflict was never really about the lich, the conflict was always about the political tension being heightened from them acting in a rash manner.

Its not even unheard of in the lore Bright Vajistra goes to Oniga without informing anyone to hunt a target, under the guise of a traveler.