That depends a lot on your style of game. If it's the 'runners can drive off the roof in a motorcycle, ramp through the helicopter, land safely on the roof on the other side, all without mussing his hair' sort of game, where they ultimately get whatever they want, I'd say sure, 'they win'. In a standard game, I'd say no chance. Well... not no chance. But they'd need to really think outside of the box. Buying a factory and making guns won't cut it. Sure, Knight did it, but Knight did it largely by knowing the right people, and cheating. None of that is mentioned in the OP, so I would tell them, unless they're running a boutique (like kzt pointed out), they either roll a few 25s on their 6-sided dice, or they fail.

If they do want to make a corporation, it's a different process. First, you get in with some people who are already established, who have the capital and political push to back you up. You get yourself some major capital and political swag, to be ready for when they backstab you. You create a market need. You lay plans for being backstabbed. You begin exploiting that market niche, and take advantage of that place to do as much crazy, profitable illegal stuff as you can manage, while playing every dick trick in the joke to nail your competitors and blackmail your allies. Then, when everything seems to be going more or less okay, you screw over all of your allies by pulling the rug out from under them in order to make a tidy, personal profit, while making sure those old allies of yours are so destroyed they could never possibly be a threat to you in the future.

If your players did that then yes, I would agree, they get to have a corporation.


The other alternative is some MAJOR identity theft.

And why aren't there a bunch of other guys doing the same thing?

Answer: there is. If you want to make money, you have to find a niche market, and have a really good idea, and be great at developing, producing, selling, managing, etc. It almost allt cases it will take experience, talent, and lots of hard work. It is very unlikely that a shadowrunner will enter the corp world and succeed doing it on the side. He's up against people who devote all their energy to doing it better than him, and who have being trying their hand at it for a long time.

Does anyone else who saw their television show imagine some of the folks at Howe & Howe tech might have been Shadowrunners or mercenaries in their past?







-karma

Ohh...what colour is the sky in your Shadowrun world?

All those read as perfectly valid daytime "opportunities" - just got to make sure your boys don't get caught. That's what shadowrun is all about, isn't it?

If you're selling a service, it's harder to disrupt than a product (people move around. they also don't walk away from carbombs, either....so there's a downside). Magical products (If you're mage-heavy) will sell. Technology, not so much, programs, hmmm....information, ah, but it's hard to store and harder to keep fresh...

All these things require extensive player thought (Can they count to potato?) or it's going to crash and burn...all great for a GM

-Tir

The players have no idea. It's Cyberpunk, so I always have the pollution index so high they never see the sky.

And it's usually raining, too. That annoying, stinging rain that's a pain to walk in, but doesn't actually do anything to clean the streets in any way.

Oh, and it's a hot rain, as well. Typically.

So I'm the player in Crimsons game making his own corp.
Basically the whole idea of my corp is its the legitimate face of my conspiracy to take over the world.

At the moment I am concluding an arms deal with the Tir government.With all that capital I'll go to Cairo and start the "Ultimate Mech Fighting League" in Egypt. I'm buying up three properties in the Eastern Sahara, Marrah Mountains and the Mediterranean Coast. These places will serve as the first Arenas I use. And that's just step one

My organization is a corporate conglomerate called Millennium (shocker right?). Under its umbrella I will have several smaller companies working in different trades. They will all be protected by security forces that include my own paramilitary corp, intelligence agency, and elite guard corp among other things. Leaders in Millennium will be hand picked from my secret magical order "Order of Scion", this helps my slightly with the loyalty issues.

Barring critical failure (very likely haha) I plan to have A status by the end of 2073 and AA status sometime around 2076 or 7. During that time I'm gonna be working on several secret Mega Projects including :
Project Genesis: Creating a nanovirus based on the HMHVV IA virus to make superhuman sleeper agents.
Project Zion: Build a 2 km Standford Torus space colony at the Lagrange 5 point in space. built for roughly 500,000 people.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. During the rise of Millennium, My character with his resources will carefully manipulate the governments of the world, and play the MegaCorps against each other. All these plots and manipulations are but for one purpose: To bring the world to the brink of world war!

Sometime in 2077 my labors will bear fruit at last. While Corporate Court is in session I will have a team of elite shadowrunners break in to Zurich Orbital and attempt to sabotage it. What they wont know is that they are just the decoy. The true threat will be our AI PC Raven XIII(One of my invaluable assets). He will smuggle himself on board and open the airlocks, vent out the air and killing everyone aboard. Then he will use the stations maneuvering systems to deorbit the station and crash it into a populated area (probably Paris).

Due in part to my efforts fingers will be pointed at each other. Mostly toward Aztlan. The idea here is to get Ares and Aztechnology to team up in an "Evil Empire" style pact. They will fight the combined forces of Saeder-Krupp, Evo and Neo-Net on one side. On another side I will try and make the Japanese Megacorps to team up (also maybe with Wuxing) in a greater Asian Corp Alliance. Horizon at this stage in the plan is a variable. They will probably be caught between the ambitions of Ares-Aztlan and Asia.

I plan for this "Corporate World War" to spread into every facet of shadorun society. Matrix,Astral Planes, Land, Air, and Space. IT will be a complete total war the likes of which has not been seen since the 1940s. During the war Millennium will stand back and watch as the world tears itself apart, all the while maintaining a neutral stance. I will provide aid to besiege nations caught in the midst of the conflict, Help war refugees and the like. What this does is it provides my Corp with the good image of a neutral third party (Publicly against the war). The people will flock to me by the millions (wuhahahahaha)

After 3 years of war the Corporate nations of the world should be like punch drunk boxers by now. I will arrange for the European Corporate Alliance to attempt an invasion of New York around April 2079. On May 1st of that year I will initiate an Endgame. With all of my power gained in this war I will move all of my pieces here for the final checkmate. See On May 1st 2079 there's a Total solar eclipse that will have totality right over NEW YORK. I'm going to lure Aztlan here with the promise of killing his enemy Lofwyr. In reality I will be using the shadow cast by the Moon in an elaborate Ritual that will destroy one(Aztlan) or both dragons.

With Aztlan and Ares Completely destroyed or otherwise incapacitated theres nothing stopping Mellinnium from getting its AAA rating.

Thats the plan in a nutshell. There's lots of details omitted and most likely ALOT of holes that you fine people will probably find. I've been working on this character and his plans for a good while now, but there is Always room for improvment.

That... is an incredibly optimistic plan. First, your timeline is very accelerated. You should probably expect a much longer period for achieving A, for instance.

Otherwise, there are indeed a lot of holes: I don't even know where to start. I think it's good you have a framework, but you'll need to fine tune it greatly. I think one of the other big parts is underestimating your enemies, especially Zurich Orbital.

I'll say this, though: at least you're ambitious.

What sort of arms deal do you have with the Tir government (IE, what can you possibly offer them that they can't get from someone else)? Where are you getting the money to buy the land (and why is the land for sale in the first place)? Where are you getting the money and tech to start having Mech fights (and why hasn't someone else already done so, if it's possible)? Why are you Shadowrunning at all, if you're character has the tech and business savvy to come up with this sort of plan? Why hasn't someone else done what you've done -- someone who already has unlimited resources and remarkable stats and skills -- if it will be this easy?

More importantly, though? What's the rest of your gaming group think about all this (and do you care)? How does this sort of scheme fit in with the campaign your GM has planned (and do you care)? Is everyone else at the game table going to have fun along the way (and do you care)?

Your absolutely right Inpu, The timeline is indeed short. My character is a Chaos Mage so my philosophy is chaos creates order, chaos rewards you. By causing chaos in the world I pave the way for my rise. The accelerated timeline for my plans was one of the things I considered when I was first creating the character. I studied the shadowrun history. I noticed the only way for a corp to become AAA was for another one to die basically. I wanted to base my rise on quick upstarts like Horizon, or Neo-Net. Again you are right its probably a over ambitious timeline, and I may have to make it longer. Only question though is how long I am willing to spend playing shadowrun to make it happen.




Fortunately I've had the company since near the campaign start. Currently it is only a local company mostley based in CAS. My H.Q. is in Denver currently but that's about to change. This corp makes ends meet selling arms & ammo currently but the real money is in the Mechs. I already have a well established R&D dept. and they have been churning out Mech Tech for months now. The deal with Tir involves me selling Mechs and Mech Tech to their military. (It also involves some serious political intrigue but that's another story.)

That money plus other investments is the start up capital for Mech Fights. Then after that becomes a hit (which incidentally depends on "Hits") I start up Millennium proper along with six more affiliate corps. These will be located in six different countries making Millennium multinational, one of the requirements for A status.

Of course the rest of the player know about the plan. Some are gonna try and foil me. Some are totally gonna help me. One character (Raven XIII) is actually an affiliate of my company. Get this if you think my Idea is crazy, his character is an AI and he owns corporation as well!

In the end though its most likely possible that I will fail somehow in someway. Course that's not the end of the world ...er shadowrun world. I have fail safes in place (Heirs and successors people!) so in case something doesn't work out I have a backup.

There are several parts of your plan that are...a little vague. For example:



I would really want a few more details on these. How, exactly, do you intend to manipulate every country and megacorp into a massive global conflict which your company will remain uninvolved in? How, exactly, are you going to invent new superviruses which no one else in the world can successfully develop. What, for most people, would be the satisfying climax of a long, involved, and high-powered campaign (like killing a great dragon) is written here as "Step 12". How exactly are you going to kill Lofwyr with an eclipse?

As a practical matter, I would voice concerns with your initial plans, the part where you sell weapons to people who probably won't buy them from you so you can set up gladiatorial arenas halfway around the world for mech fights, which (unless SR4 is very different) you can't provide and that somehow will make enough profit to afford you your own private army, intelligence service, massive satellite facility, and state of the art biochem division.

I agree, I have left things a little vague and there are detail's I've defiantly left out. Some ideas aren't fully formed, and some I'm not even gonna use. Rest assured I'm running about 10 "Doomsday Plots" at any one time. Things like Genesis are already coming down the pipeline as far as R&D goes.

See my trump card here is my good friend Raven XIII. As an AI he can do things that would require hundreds people to do and at ridiculous speeds at that. That of course has its drawbacks and I have put alot of hope into this PC. But thats what makes it fun for the group, I mean I can't just make this my conspiracy. Its good to have PCs part of it.

I have found that when confronted with a major hole in the plan its best to improvise. Not saying that thinking as I go will always work however. As far as the plan goes its more like step 1 through 200 instead of 1 through 12. And alot of those steps between 1 and 200 are completely blank! haha

I'm happy that crimson posted this though, I really wanna hear what the SR community thinks. Hopefully you guys have some suggestions I could use.

Surely, you have a backup plan in case for exemple Lofwyr wants to interfere with your plan ? (Or any other IE or any other GD for instance)

Lets hope not! lol So far I've been choosy on who I've let in on the full scope of the conspiracy. At the moment only 2 beings are aware of my true plans(one is my mentor spirit) and I intend to keep it that way for now.
As for what to do when the dragons come knocking? Well dealing with them is risky business for sure, especially if I'm on the shitlist. I'd like to point out that in my best case scenario I would want Lofwyr as my ally not enemy. Aztechnology & Ares are my prime enemies in my character's eyes. Especially Aztlan, kinda gotta a death vendetta against them.

I'm still curious about step 1 - The Tir buys weapons from a corporation originally in the CAS. Are you of elven nobility? Do you know someone at court? Who did you sleep with to get this deal through, and how much time do you invest in keeping him interested in you?

I would say that, if this is what you, your GM, and your group want to play, go for it. It sounds like a lot of fun (although good luck making the mechanics work for it!) The Shadowrun backdrop is perfect for a setup like this.

HOWEVER, if the question is, 'is this a realistic plan that I should be able to use with any GM who happens to follow the Shadowrun rules', the answer is decisively no. The first step of illegally acquiring a weapons FACILITY worth a cool $1M was questionable, but I'll swallow it. Basically every step since has huge holes in it I couldn't really overlook. In other words, what have you been feeding Crimson so he follows your verbal commands, and where can I get it.

You don't want that. It is like when you start cheating in a computer game. With the challenge gone, it gets really old really fast.

Hey now, don't knock the GM guys. He acquired that facility through alot of work and he himself almost died getting it. I realize I'm a little more lenient than most GMs on dumpshock but I don't hand /anything/ to my players, if they want it they have to work for it. All I'm trying to do with this campaign is offer the players a little more variety than most are used to in Shadowrun. I realize his plans are far-fetched more than anyone but why should I put him down and say it's impossible? (That's yalls job, lol.) He can at least try. (evil laughter)

Don't worry, wasn't planning on using it for gaming ;P

re: Crimson
Don't get me wrong, I never said it's IMPOSSIBLE, nor am I saying you're a bad GM. If your players are having fun, you've succeeded. However, in the Shadowrun world, it is extremely, extremely unlikely without the proper moving and shaking (and then it's only extremely unlikely).

Let's take some examples. Selling equipment to the Tir (I assume to the Tir military specifically, I'm assuming).

The Tir is a very paranoid, very self-contained, very picky nation. They don't just go out on the open market and see who is selling. It's all about politics - and politics with a group of immortal elves and elves who think they're immortal at that. If there is a reason they would not buy from you, they won't. You're not Elven? Off you go. Not nobility or related to nobility? Operating out of one of our historical enemies? Are your weapons anything less than SOTA? Are they aesthetically pleasing? And of course, can they compete with our current supplier who has been doing this for twenty years, has relatives in the court, who has a very exclusive clientele (us), and who has offered us a generous service package?

Now, being a Shadowrunner, your PCs may be able to overcome some of these hurdles. The council is what, ten people? So if you get blackmail on seven of them, you should have a vote strong enough to get your company chosen (and now you just have to deal with seven Tir councilmembers who either want your company to fail due to other causes, or who want you to be dead). That's pretty exciting. Or maybe you attack the current supplier directly, maybe by discretely replacing key members with dopplegangers. I don't know. But needless to say, this step is *extremely* difficult. You don't just buy a $1M facility in the boonies of Louisiana and send a nice e-mail offering 1 free gun when you buy 10, otherwise Ares would have already done that through an intermediary. Selling to Lone Star would actually be tougher, because there's more focus on the bottom line, which the PCs can't meet while being profitable. That might just come down to having more dirt on your supplier than the other companies do (and having more dirt on a steel supplier than Ares does might be difficult).

At some point, you're going to piss someone off enough to bring the hammer down, and when I mean someone, I mean people like Ares, Tir council members, or Lofwyr. People who have five ways to Sunday to shut you down, some involving very, very many lawyers. And this is all step 1.

Moving on to one of the later steps, refitting the HMHVV virus. Yes, if you manage to successfully modify the HMHVV virus you will make a LOT of money (until the information is stolen). The reason why no one else has done it is because it's extremely hard. So this will be something broken into a series of tasks. Some would be biotech tests, physiology tests, thaumaturgy tests, etc., with TNs ranging from 6 (get a sample) to around 120 or 140, with a threshold of 200 successes (determine the active gene sequence for magical sensitivity). This modifier is reduced by things like the number of delta-level labs you have available, the number of scientists working on it and so on. These are mega-corp level tasks. It's definitely not something you can say 'this will be solved in 2 years', because people said that 40-60 years ago, and it's still not solved. In regards to 'huge technical advancements', I'd say you have better odds inventing a nanofabricator or a warp drive than you do of unlocking HMHVV to that degree of understanding. At least no one has been working on nanofabricators really, so you don't know how difficult it might truly be. Maybe it's easy

But again, this comes down to what your party enjoys playing. If you like playing the conspiracy thing, go for it! It looks like a hoot. But if you're trying to play a vanilla shadowrun game and your player comes out and wants to do something crazy profitable like this, the first question should be 'why hasn't it been done already'. Oftentimes the answer is because it is mind-numbingly difficult, to the point that 200 scientists locked in a room with the best equipment haven't solved it after forty years (we know because we've tried). Sometimes there are other reasons (politics, bribes, dragons, whatever). All of these are open to creative PCs putting their hoops on the line to circumvent those odds, but for some challenges the solution is going to have to be awfully creative.

And remember, if at some point Lofwyr gets interested in you, you're screwed. You either become his cell room inmate ... or if he doesnt manage to get you in his bed by conventional means (Law, crime, warfare even) he can still take things in hands (claws) personaly.
Should you succeed in such confrontation, then congratz, you've just won the game.
This reminds me of the letter sent to Gary Gygax about guys asking for a new "Deities and Demigods" because they had already killed all the gods described in the first one ...

Ha Ha Ha! Ok!!

I was going to write a whole thing about the differences between companies and IPO's answering to shareholders. Plus the potential infeasability of even becoming a single "A". But now I just met the owner of this business. And I take it all back (not that I ever wrote it down).

You go girl. I love this plan. I seen nothing that can go wrong with it. Brilliant. The bit with the AI crashing Zurich into Paris, genius. I wish more businness models were this thought out. I wish you luck and live in mortal fear.

There is this BattleRun sourcebook that came out in the beginning of April, that could come in handy.

http://www.battlecorps.com/catalog/product...roducts_id=2259

Tray Reven (My PC) is an Elf from New Orleans, no nobility as far as I know. One reason Tir is helping me is because I'm on the inside track with their government currently. Especially ever since the crazy events at Crater Lake where I found both Lugh Surehand and Harlequin among other crazieness. Not to mentions the conspiracy against the government I uncovered that implicated Larry Zincin and Aztechnology among others.
Also I wanna note that my dealing with Tir is not my only money making scheme out there, its just the one that's currently on the burner.



Thanks! Glad to know some people think my idea is not 100% foolhardy. I admit I take alot of inspiration from evil genius like Palpatine (My favorite, Clone Wars anyone?) from Star Wars or Kazundo Gouda from Ghost in the Shell.
I definitely have devoted a bunch time and effort to this character and his ambitions. In the whole grand scheme of things I'm probably biting off more than I can chew. In my 200 some odd step plan I think I'm really only at like step 5? maybe 4? Ideally after all this time I should be like at step 10 but alas, that is the way things are. This is a more relaxed shadowrun setting than some games, we use the same rules but the basics of the game is less about just Shadowrunning and more Epic character development.

I think my plan to get adopted by Damien Knight is more reasonable and realistic.

Of course there's competetion on that sectir - but it's on a far more mangeable than the bulk market megacorporations are involed into. I didn't think 'garanteed sucess', rather that on that sort of markets sucess is at least possible

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now that I have an outline of the 'aim for AAA' plan, I see a slight problem : as far as I know, Ares and Aztechology aren't exactly the likeliest potential allies. Ares has a very (north)-amreicano centric feel, which would make siding with the azzies a rather unlikely move. I'd rather see them siding with whoever is trying to bury the chicanos. It also supposes you'll be able to manipulate things the way you want and especially that the other players fail to notice. Which will get increasingly hard to achieve. The bigger you grow, the more attention you'll attract, and the more ressources will be roiented to figure out what you're doing and how to screw with it.

There's also a rather nig problem : if you're folating around a brand spanking new military tech that turns out as likely to make most current hardware outmoded, expect the big boys to take a keen interested in what you're doing and try to snatch as much as they can of it from you. And since it's msotly a one-man control structure, don't expect stock market shennanigans but rather data theft, extractions, the whole nine yards. At a stage where your corp is still small and vulnerable.

Very good point. On both ends.
The corporate alliances I have planned are of course not set in stone as is the rest of the entire plan. While my corp is growing I intend to spend time manipulating the world subtlety to increase tensions and move the corps into the right alliances. Its hard to fool dragons and getting the plot off the ground without them noticing is gonna be absurdly difficult. This part of my plan is very fleshed out at this stage. Before I know what to do I must know exactly what I'm capable of first.

As for the corps using the shadows against me, This was one of the eventuality that I planned on from the very beginning. My character has always had a dual life as shadowrunner/businessman and he know all too well what both worlds can do. As far as I'm concerned one of the best ways (but not the only) to deal with shadowrunners is to use other shadowrunners. And in that field I am already well established.

Also Millennium is going to try and stay ahead of the curve in products thats for sure. But at the same time I am going to try and promote a image of compassion and philanthropy. I'm gonna stay as far away from the arms sector as feasible. (Thats Raven XIII's job) All this goodwill towards humanity is aimed at swinging the world over to my favor. By making allies out of potential haters I can defend myself against the corporate onslaught. If I have enough kids on the playground on my side those 10 big bullies would be hard pressed to pound my face without getting their ass kicked as well.





Yeah that would be one route to could go lol. In my scenario I am basically making Damien Knight one of my mortal enemies.

Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Remember. First you get the money. Then you get the power. Then you get the women.

"The world is yours, man."

And money is nothing without power. And power is nothing without purpose.


Edit: Since my character is a mage, one of his plans is to use intelligence augmenting spells on himself to help him with the diabolical plan. Most of my spells so far have been physical combat spells and mental manipulation spells. Are there any spells or homebrew spells you guys could suggest that would help my plan out?

One, but "Wish" is from D&D.

HAHA or i could try and make a "Deck of Many Things"

Seriously though maybe a precognition spell or the diving metamagic?

Once again, I just have to ask...if you can do it, why hasn't someone else done it already? Some of the existing nation-states or megacorps, with the well-nigh unlimited resources, and (often) with folks that have attributes -- like Intelligence, and linked skills for running a business, etc -- that are double or triple yours?

If you can divine, read the future, and base business plans on it...why hasn't Lofwyr? Why haven't the Princes of the Tir, who you're dealing with?

I played a DnD game once where our GM had included characters or bosses that were so powerful there was absolutely no way of defeating them or even fooling them somehow. No matter what we obtained or what level we reached there was no way we could ever match up to these characters or the organizations the represented. The whole game became just a grand statement of his ego and we eventually quit playing. Crimson will tell you its one of the reasons he hates DnD so much,Though I still like DnD personally.

Now my point here is simple. The game we're running here is not set up for hardcore gaming(Crimson has another group for that), the setting is a more relaxed reality where impossible things have a chance of happening. It doesn't make sense to have people or organizations that can't be defeated or fooled no matter what. And after nearly 3 years, we've done some pretty impossible stuff. The game is set to where the characters handle most of the story building. There is a main plot of course but it often appears in the background or relative to our own plots.

This can cause frustration sometimes because as it stands the whole group is rarely ever together anymore in the game world so it presents a hassle to the GM to monitor so many plot lines at once. Sometimes he sticks us in hopelessly impossible situations in that the only way to survive is to stick together as a way of actually getting us to stay together! We definitely play the game more like supervillians than shadowrunners.

True the odds I am fighting against are pretty ridiculous. But in this game a no chance is more like a slim chance.

optimistic? fine tune? a lot of holes? you are being extremely kind, sir..

the only way to develop a corporation is to see into the future and see how the world will shape out in the future..

case in point.. VR.. before VR it was all fully jacked into the net or nothing at all.. Neonet was visionary enough to see into the future and see a need for both physical and virtual interactions at the same time.. they were thus able to capitalize on the upcoming needs of the world's population and make a fortune off it...

case in point 2 .. windows.. before windows, hardware ruled the computing world.. then windows and gates get together and made software the king of the computing world instead... how did this happen? cos gates was visionary enough to see that the future world dominance of a product which IBM dumped .

wars are for 8-yr-old kiddies.. more likely than not, all the AAA megas will gang up and kill the little pup who fantasizes that he is a wolf... even if you wanna create a world war, where the hell are you gonna get the capital and resources?

and once you get the capital and resources, how will you hide them from the other AAAs while using the same capital and resources to strike at them?

most importantly, in the game of subterfuge, the biggest fishes will always be targeted just like how everyone are targeting the AAAs now.. best to remain the power pulling the puppets' strings..

Who's to say Lofwyr hasn't? Dragons have been around long enough to understand the cycles of time, and holding the Jewel of Memory is just going to give him ready access to what the figure is going down in this cycle.

Might not be precognition, but it certainly brings the odds in line with being favorable.

Makes sense. There's a reason History repeats itself...

The problem is that this "world war" has consequences too severe for ALL the megas.. And Shadowrun history has shown that any threat which topples the balance of power for one player at the expense of all the other players will be eliminated..

By players, i mean the mega-corps, the govts, and the mobs/triads/yakuzas..

Look at the insect bug spirits and the Universal Brotherhood. Look at Azetechnology and their nationalization of other megas' assets. Look at Deus and the Otakus..

Each of them is a world-wide threat which endangers all the megas and each of them got put down like the rabid dogs which they are. Ok maybe the rabid dogs are not dead yet but they still suffered a painful kick in the ass.

My point is .. if you wanna be a player .. you gotta grow in power without letting the other major players know that you are growing in power and thus poses a threat to them... you gotta hide your power and play nice on the surface at least..

I vote for Millenium to submit his world domination plans to catalyst. They would make a martyr and a sourcebook out of his corp. Heh..

Which just proves my point -- if everyone is using Divination to gain a business advantage, then either no one has an advantage, or only those who divine the best will get a business advantage from it, right?

And I'm willing to bet Lofwyr, or those Tir Princes I mentioned, or Draco Foundation agents, or whatever-grade-Initiate mages advice the JIS Emperor, Buttercup for EVO, or the Third Coin of Luck for Wuxing...are all going to be better at it, or at least as good at it as some PC with half a scheme to take the corporate world by storm.

When a PC's half-assed plan to run a business is "I use Divination to know what to do next," it just means that surely everyone else has had the same idea first, and can do it better than he can.

But what if Divination is only used to predict a certain future outcome based on certain factions at the time of the divination?

So say at the time of the divination, ares is planning to build a robot in 2 years time. Then 2 months before the deadline, ares suddenly have a change of heart.

Surely, that will result in a changed future?

A world where divination works suggests strongly that "free will" is an illusion.

Sweet Creeping Zombie Jesus, if you're gonna do thread necromancy, why pick one as absurd as this one?

As I said to myself in a dream once: "Free Will, by it's very definition, is Fate.".

Did I say dream? I meant total freakshow NIGHTMARE, sorry.

If we consider that Divination show the most probable outcome - what is likely to be rather than what will be, free will still exist.