'children of a magenta god' please
You are obviously an Airbus pilot! On just about any other civvy glass cockpit, as is generally known here, the aeroplane flies itself entirely without human input along the purple line between chocks off to chocks on. Unless, of course, it goes tech then it is blind panic stations for us civvy pilots as we have to actually fly by hand until we can get it to work again.
I think it is a different colour on Airbi, but same principle.
If you want to understand better the "sponsored reservist" commitment, there is plenty of information about the commitment on the Air Tanker website. It is a bit like being in the TA/RNR/RMR/RAuxAF except that it is contractually compulsory. So you might, in extremis, have to accept "orders".
Having said that, can anybody explain why Air Tanker reservists will not simply become part of the RAuxAF - was there some legal impediment to this route?