Sawsbuck Dilemma

The Sawsbuck Dilemma:

In any Pokemon Mystery Dungeon related fanfiction setting where predator/prey relationships exist and both kinds of pokemon presumably coexist inside rescue guilds, there is a serious potential for personal and political conflict that could erode and destroy the functionality of the guild. To make sense of this conflict and propose a reasonable solution is a difficult task that at the very least serves as a worldbuilding thought exercise and potentially a topic of discussion you might ask other PMD writers if the depth of their headcanon seems inadequate. To understand this conflict, here's a very generalized explanation of how these kinds of incidents might occur:

1. Any remotely competent guildmaster, including Ampharos (from PSMD), would enforce certain rules in order to maintain the stability and functionality of the guild.

2. One of the primary rules must be that guild members can under no circumstances attack each other. There are no exceptions to this rule (unless done as an organized practice fight or something). All conflicts between guild members must be handled diplomatically through guild authorities.

3. Predation cannot be made entirely illegal because it is a requirement for predators in the guild to survive. With any rule against predation in place these predators would either rebel or leave. Therefore, to confirm with the prior rule predation must be limited to Pokemon outside of the guild proper.

4. Typical "prey" Pokemon in the guild likely come from very large families (as herbivores tend to breed in significantly larger numbers than carnivores) and likely have large family connections with their wild relatives outside of the guild network.

5. Because there are such a variety of Pokemon in the guild it's unreasonable for there to be some sort of "exclusion list" for certain groups and species of Pokemon even if that's what many of these prey Pokemon members would want. For instance, maybe a Sawsbuck guild member doesn't want any Pokemon hunting his specific Deerling tribe, but how are predators supposed to know if a Deerling they meet wandering around outside of the tribe's territory happens to be part of that tribe or not? Are they seriously expected to stop and ask before attacking them? It isn't going to happen. And even if you banned entire species well what if the Deerling tribe is allies with the Nidoran tribe or something and the Nidoran tribe complains that a guild member is picking off their members? now the Deerling tribe is going to demand to their Sawsbuck cousin that predators can't hunt their allies either. there's a whole complicated political networking system where prey Pokemon in the wild would invariably try to buy off "predator immunity" that would be too convoluted and difficult to ever reasonably expect prey Pokemon to follow.

6. It seems inevitable that at some point a predator member of the guild at some point will coincidentally hunt a member of these prey guild Pokemon's immediate families. This predator would likely continue hunting this tribe as long it remains a reliable and convenient source of food. When this happens, the tribe will likely respond by demanding vengeance against said predator Pokemon as would be reasonably expected of any magical power infused sentient monsters who recently experienced the loss of one of their members. (note that "predator" as used in this list does not inherently refer to a Pokemon with superior combat abilities or power to "prey" Pokemon, merely one that has a carnivorous diet and must act upon it to survive)

7. Assuming this tribe is not completely oblivious to local surroundings, they will likely identify said predator as a member of the local rescue guild with little difficulty (scarves, rescue badges, bags, etc make this pretty difficult to miss). When this happens they will inevitably demand that their cousin in the guild put a stop to these attacks. Pokemon feeling highly protective of their friends and family is an almost universal trait and they may very well react with extreme hostility to these attacks regardless of what their tribe demands.

8. At this point said prey guild member faces a case of split loyalties. The most direct approach- confronting said predator and lynching them with the assistance of other disgruntled members of their tribe- would be considered the ultimate affront to guild authority (point 2) and would result in said Pokemon being immediately exiled or killed and possible direct reprisal to the tribe itself. However, taking the diplomatic route and demanding to the guildmaster that such predation be banned would like invariably fail as well due to point 3. Even convincing the guild to enact some sort of special exclusion for said tribe would be a very difficult proposition, for reasons also described previously. At this point, said prey Pokemon has three obvious options- prioritize their loyalties to the guild and potentially destroy any family ties they have as their tribe declares them a traitor, priorities their loyalties to their tribe and try to forcibly stop said predator even if that results in them being exiled from the guild or jailed in the process, or maintain their loyalty to the guild but make said predator's life miserable while skirting around the guild laws whenever possible.

9. Due to strong ties these prey guild members would likely have to both the guild and their family the third option would likely be a result in many cases. This could take many forms, such as directly tracking down and murder friends/family of said predator mon which aren't members of the guild, using the excuse that this is effectively no worse than what the predator is doing. They could sabotage this Pokemon's hunting efforts by alerting local tribes where and when this predator is going to hunt at any given time, setting them up to either escape long in advance or counter the predator with a planned ambush. They could also simply refuse to cooperate with said predator or even assist them on missions if they're in danger. There are many less than legal ways that these prey Pokemon might also resort to getting some form of vengeance, such as theft or assassination contracts ,that could reasonably escape the direct notice of the guild authorities.

10. If this predator Pokemon realizes what is happening they will likely respond in a similar fashion- directly targeting this prey Pokemon's tribe exclusively, encouraging other predator Pokemon to help wipe these Pokemon out, intimidating and bullying this prey Pokemon as much as they can get away with, and whatever techniques  they can use short of outright violence to make this prey Pokemon's life as unpleasant as possible.

11. This escalation will spiral into factionalism as both of these embittered, vengeful Pokemon seek allies in to give them the edge in their continual grudge. Eventually this toxic hatred and distrust will spread throughout the community, resulting in splinters of predator/prey Pokemon both inside and outside of the guild refuses to cooperate with each other.

12. Eventually these bitter rivalries will run so deep across the entire guild that even if the guildmaster intervenes, the entire organization will eventually implode in a sudden outburst of direct violence between the two groups or a significant portion of members abandoning the guild entirely.

The "dilemma" is therefore the following- what rules or intervention policies can a guildmaster put into place to prevent the above scenario from happening? Is there any way that these policies can be fair to both predator and prey Pokemon across the board? Is it possible to be an effective guild member while still holding loyalties to family members outside the guild?