Basically a system cannot be accountable to only itself. There must be an outside entity that can hold the system accountable. However, even if you have two sy

Basically a system cannot be accountable to only itself. There must be an outside entity that can hold the system accountable. However, even if you have two systems accountable to each other, once they realize that there's no third party that's holding the gestalt accountable, they're free to play tit-for-tat and essentially become a single entity. It's kind of why "internal affairs" doesn't really work in police departments. They are part of the same system. If internal affairs clears the police, the police won't mess with internal affairs. And I'm not saying there are easy solutions to implement. Because even if you have an entire web of systems configured in such a way that cooperation among some would be detrimental to the others so they would have incentives to keep each other in check, it would only take a sustained imbalance of power in order for the cooperators to neutralize the others so that they could create their own fiefdom. But anywhere you do have a system that is only accountable to itself, you have a system that is likely rotting from the inside.