The Next Great Shadowrun Metaplot
At least as far as my victims, er players are concerned


Things happen chummer. Random chance pops up all around us, affecting situations all around us. Mr. Johnson says his company in Seattle desperately needs the data from X’s research labs, yet eight days after you deliver the goods a corporation half a world away announces a breakthrough using that same information. A new public transit way just happens to run right through the middle of your neighborhood, isolating the largest percentage of metahumans that live there. The target of your successful extraction gets hit by a bus while walking across the street two weeks later. Just random occurrences right? Maybe. Maybe not. Keep your eyes open and remember, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. – Robroy


The central premise that occurred to me late at night after too many hours without sleep or Dos Equis was to return to an idea from way back in 2nd edition; the return of the Horrors. I didn’t want to redo the Horrors themselves except as a side note. My focus is on what the mundane world will do to ensure their survival. Thus…

For lack of a better name let’s call them the Bilderberg Group, but even that name throws too wide a net. This is the core of that secret club; a conspiracy of the .1%. A small and exclusive group of people controlling 50% of the world’s wealth. At any given time they can buy whichever continent they wish and have change left over. They could start a nuclear winter or accelerate global warming if they so desired (and who says they haven’t?). This conspiracy spreads across national, theological and corporate lines. It is human-centric and adamantly opposed to any power other than their own.

The conspiracy is known by dozens of different, misleading, deflecting names. The manner in which they are organized is a closely guarded secret. The best analog would be Hydra; decentralized, widespread and without an obvious central authority that can be targeted. They epitomize the worst of the neo conservatives of the early 21st century. They have the welcoming attitude toward compromise as evidenced by the Tea Party, the tolerance for other points of as shown by (the conservative fundamentalist religion of your choice), and the inclusiveness and open arms of the Aryan Nation and Humanis.

Somehow they have learned something of the history of the 4th world, and have decided that the only way to survive the eventuality of the Horrors is to recreate the Theran Empire, or something similar (a rose by any other name). They plan a lifeboat for the elite of the human race, and those necessary to serve them. To that end they are seeking out any and all information of the 4th Age, the Horrors and how to survive them. Their immediate targets are the Elven Nations and the Great Dragons. To their knowledge the Dragons and the Elves didn’t do anything to save humans the last time the Horrors showed up, so f*** ‘em. (Maybe if we leave them out in the cold they won’t survive the Horrors)

As their plans organize and coalesce they set up dozens of runs to gather materials, force companies into alignment with their organization, manipulate political parties and mold public opinion. They plan to suborn the Atlantean Foundation and other archaeological organizations to gain knowledge and artifacts. They actively attempt to isolate and minimalize the influence of the AI’s, otaku and other denizens of the Matrix. They plan and activate operations directly opposing the aims and power of the Dragons and the Elves. They mask their operations and motives by blaming third parties, the underworld, chaos from the third world, etc.

Ideally this should be a huge campaign. The entire Bilderberg project will not be completed for a couple of hundred years, going by the scant records of the 4th Age. They can afford losses, giving runners opposed to them the opportunity for some local successes and the possibility of modifying the conspiracy’s plans. The primary conundrum faced by the runners should be whether to oppose or further the group’s plans. This is similar to what John Cusack’s character faced in 2012. Do they work for the oligarchs and maybe secure a place for themselves and their loved ones, or do they oppose them for the greater part of metahumanity that will be left to fend for themselves.

The actual discovery of the conspiracy’s existence should come about gradually, with hints and odd occurrences occurring throughout several runs. Once aware of them, the runners will have more operational choices than they can count. There will be operations for and against corporate targets and operations, operations affecting organized crime alignments, political machinations in every party in every polity, seemingly random and unrelated shadowland ops. They will be running against or for the Dragons, the Elves, the Orcs, the Dwarves, the AIs, the NAN etc. They will discover that the (body snatcher version of the GM’s choice) is a) the Bilderberg’s fault b) a stalking horse for the conspiracy to draw the world’s attention c) a goal of the conspiracy to change/reduce/control metahumanity d) <insert GM’s evil idea here>

This metaplot can encompass literally every previous source book. Every adventure to date can be tangentially tied in either as a precursor or as a goal of the conspiracy. It avoids the criticism of Stolen Souls as the nth version of the Body Snatchers. To my mind it returns to the gritty underdog Us vs. Them air of the early Shadowrun, and can be just as desperate and hopeless as the GM wants to make it. This can even tie back to Dunkelzahn’s Secrets. How much did the dragon foresee this and how much do his bequests further or hinder the conspiracy’s aims? The campaign can be scaled as large or small as your group desires, from multi-country ops against one of the Bilderberg’s larger operators and his machinations to trying to protect their local neighborhood from the conspiracy’s faceless unfeeling projects.

In a fit of alcohol free inspiration (or indigestion) I would like to open this up to ideas from everyone else, to create a document of hooks similar to D’s Secrets. IIRC there 128 separate hooks in that book.

Feel free to criticize or comment. I was simply trying to come up with a way to tie the disparate tangents of the Shadowrun world together and secondly recreate the feel of the earlier editions. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

As you mentioned, this is quite a lengthy post. Since, I really loathe this old SR=ED Idea, I did not get past "the return of the Horrors". So I wonder is there anything else in there? Just making sure I don't miss anything.

As for a metaplot, it does not appear to be a strong suit of SR so far - this includes the body snatchers parody of SR5. More than a civil war of dragons and evil spirits from the matrix, I would have loved to see a metaplot about the one thing, that was affecting the world at the launch of SR5: Establishing the new matrix and the "rise" of the new cyberdecks and maybe their way into the hands of criminals. There was room for major corp and syndicate schemes, and the struggle over monopolys and power, with a lot of room for neo-anarchists and with long shadows. Something more Shadowrun, maybe even a bit more cyberpunk, and defintively less Earthdawn 2k.

In the scope of a Shadowrun campaign the Horrors should never make an appearance except as a motivator for the oligarch's actions. The rest is an attempt to tie it all together into a massive conspiracy theory.

Question of plausibility. How fine can you slice the pie that these individuals can control that much of the world's wealth without the megacorps and Great Dragons ever noticing them? I mean, Lofwyr considers Saeder-Krupp (the #1 AAA mega since 2054, big enough that it fields nuclear-powered supercarriers in its navy) to be a rather attractive part of his horde?

So it's basically the Human Nation and the Black Lodge combined.


Well, the coming of the Enemy is known throughout the Shadowrun Elites to some degree, even beyond dragons. Renraku certainly knows; the writeup of the Arcology in the old Seattle book already suggests this, but their long-time association with Leonardus and immortal Elves in general (they're the only megacorp that's on speaking terms with the Seelie Court, for instance). Saeder-Krupp and NeoNET probably know in large parts for obvious reasons. I think the same can be said for Evo (Buttercup certainly should know). MCT has associated themselves with the Gestalt (at least until the current authors decided to maybe ignore that), and is deep with magic, so they probably know something, too; same goes for Wuxing. Aztechnology really should know, given they arguably had a Horror on the board at one point. Shiawase and Ares may be the nes left in the dark - Ares spends most of it's magical ressources on going full Umbrella about Invae, and Shiawase is pretty content with itself it seems. Horizon might have heared something from the Tír, but they probably know least of all the SR 3A-megas.

Of the smaller megas, Proteus AG was founded to basically be what you want Hydra to be (it was a conspiracy run by a dragon to create next generation Kaérs, basically); Tan Tien knows things, Universal Omnitech probably has a good dea of what's coming via their association with Aztechnology during their super evil phase, AG Chemie has absorbed a company run by ancient vampires, and Manadyne at least knows the deeper metaplanes. Nobody knows what became of EBM², but they could feature in there, too. And then there's the arcanarchaeological societies - Atlantean Foundation (the elves), Draco Foundation (Dunkelzahn's and Hestaby's loyalists), and APEP (Aztechnology, Proteus AG and other assorted evil corporations). Oh, and there's the Black Lodge, who represent an often overlooked type of Shadowrun Immortals, the Denaiastras.

I think the Shadowrun upper class already knows quite a bit about the Enemy to some degree. Not the specifics maybe, but that something is coming.


You know, that really does sound like what I think the authors want the Black Lodge to be. They even have the associated gazillionnaires' club, the Ordo Maimus, for all that Koch Brothers charm. Maybe postulate an alliance with the Human Nation (which would bring a number of 2A corps like Yakashima and Genom of Switzerland into the picture for muscle, as well as the host of terrorist organizations like Alamo 20K, Hands of Five, and Flaming Sword, and Humanis, Purity and their ilk for foot soldiers).

I'd set the whole thing up as a war o more than two fronts, though. Many powerful conspiracies exist in the Shadowrun world, and they may be at odds with some but not others. I'm thinking about Loose Alliances meets Threats or the netbook project.

Just some thoughts and ideas.

From my experience, conspiracies that are too big and too powerful makes bad plots. Give them limitations so that they have a reason to act the way they do. Make them too big and the audience will be left to wonder as to why they haven't already won. And please don't tell me it would be because "they need to stay low-profile"... the very point of the campaign is going to be a team of ragtag shadowrunners is about to discover the whole truth, so obviously they are not maximizing secrecy as much as they could with so much wealth and time available.

If you come up with a conspiracy that have fingers in all government and all corporations, with an infinite supply of appropriate henchmen, then there is no point for the protagonists to try to learn about them. And it's the learning part that make a conspiracy story enjoyable IMO. If you send the PC Red Samurais the first week, Mossad hitmen the second one and Azanian mercenaries the third times, they'll just wait for whatever comes their way on week four (and shoot it in the face). Because obviously it is totally unimportant. But send the Red Samurais a second time, far from any of Renraku interests, when it seems not appropriate, even a risky move. Then they'll start to wonder about Renraku role in the conspiracy, the reason why they took the risk of leaving such signature, if the top management is involved, or otherwise who has the authority to order the hit, maybe they'll search a way to cut that branch, seek allies inside Neonet or Shiawase...

When the conspiracy is an infinite beast, the only story you can tell is "run for your life" (or wait and chomp them as they come, as far as dragons are concerned). If it looks like it can be beaten, or pushed back, then the protagonists ought to find them and pick up a fight.

Besides, "controlling 50% of the world's wealth" sounds cool, but it is pretty meaningless. First, you'd need some economists to agree on the number. Then you'd find out that much of that wealth is house mortgage on banks' balance sheet. At some point, money is an abstraction. And having a bigger abstraction than the others is not going to make a difference. What they need are henchmen, supercomputers and secret facilities. A Mossad division head may make less than a million year, yet he's probably a better recruit for a conspiracy than most billionaires. Moreover, it is harder to recruit someone who's already rich.

I'd say the Human Nation organization taking on the goals of the Black Lodge. Otherwise, the Black Lodge has a very specific structure of tiered magical lodges, and only actual mages can be full-fledged members (the only mundanes are henchmen). Black Lodge membership is restricted to the powerful, as in magical power, not wealth.

On the other hand, Threats suggests the Human Nation may have been founded by wealthy people in the early 1900s, originally to defend themselves against the masses, labor unions, democracy and all that. The anti-metahuman agenda only appeared after the Awakening. So I wouldn't find far-fetched to imagine that this organization would update its agenda if its members were to discover another threat to their position.

Well, Brightlight/Leonardo association with Renraku started in may or june 2057 and ended in june 2059 with the former deleting every file that featured the tiniest reference to his workings before leaving. I wouldn't call that "long-term".

I know Augmentation had MCT extracting '"dissident" cybermantic technicians' from Aztechnology but in which book is the Blood Gestalt specically called out?

The fact they focus on the immediate insect spirits threat doesn't mean they don't know about the rest and don't prepare for it. It is likely Dunkelzahn personally briefed Damien Knight at least about the Invae, but he possibly told him more. Nadja Daviar also used to sit on Ares board and she certainly knew about the Horrors, and when she disappeared, her portfolion was managed by the Draco Foundation headed by Aina. And I would actually have expected Aina to have focused the Foundation on nothing else than preparing fore the next Scourge, so maybe picking Nicholas Aurelius to sit on Ares board was part of a plan. And finally, Arthur Vogel, an ecologist with backing from Hestaby who seized control of Ares space activities, has a profile that could be engaged against the Horrors.

More precisely, the original connection that allowed Aztechnology and UO to hammer a deal is the fact Thomas Roxborough is a shareholder of both. So it depends first on Oscuro willingness to share with Roxborough, and then on Roxborough willingness to share with UO management, because you don't get to the top without proper information security.

But there could be another link that has yet to be explored. While Augmentation removed the ties between Aztechnology and UO cybermancy capabilities (giving instead the latter access to some Heavenherd renegades in Southern Africa), I still wonder how close UO and Tamanous are, and if Tamanous would not have access to blood magic (considering the name is a reference to Amerindian cannibalistic rituals that likely trace their origin back to the same point than the Aztec culture).

Well, I remember EBMM being mentionned two times in English, in the rigger write-up in Shadowrun 1st and 2nd edition, and in the list of available "programmable ASIST biofeedback unit" in Shadowbeat and Cannon Companion. It seems it was fleshed out in German books, because otherwise, I don't see what could make someone think it would be an even remotely important corp.

The Ordo Maximus is a facade to the vampire conspiracy, not the Black Lodge.

The premise of a lifeboat for the elite is immensely plausible. Some details bother me though.

Why would such a conspiracy be human-centric or possess qualities of various right wing political movements? It would make more sense to befriend anyone able to further their goals; ideology is a tool for manipulating others.

I think you should reduce the vastness and interconnectedness of the conspiracy a couple of notches.

You may enjoy this novella about deep politics and the Cthulhu mythos. Oliver North is in it.

A Colder War
Plot synopsis
About the author


Google shows only one hit for that term, and it's your post. I'd like to know more about it.

Denairastas was "the Outcast" in an unpublished ED dragons supplement, a Big Bad of the Fourth World who bred his own strain of draco-humanity to take over the world. I have plans for him to make an appearance in an SR campaign myself.

I like the idea of a major human conspiracy operating at the highest levels in the Sixth World, and of its being a group of humans who are aware of the Horror threat (and they don't have to be all-dominating and all-knowing to be effective, they just have to have influence over the right people and the right strategic choke-points). FASA products contained way too much Great Dragon / immortal elves-wank for my tastes; ancient powers of the Fourth World might well think of themselves as the major movers and shakers, but their advantages in lifespan and experience should be decidedly dulled by the sheer alienness of the new environment (IOW they should be decidedly at sea in a world full of billions of humans who also have ultra-tech and the Matrix at their disposal). An idea very like this one is the spine of a campaign I'm planning, with the difference that they're in league with and using Denairastas (who survives the Fourth World in this version, and thinks he's using them), and that far from shunning Matrix tech and AIs, they embrace them as the major advantages of humanity, in particular their sort of humanity.

My whole take on the Horrors in Shadowrun is that they don't understand that they're outclassed. They think they're going to show up as the destroyers of the world... but they're in for a terrible surprise when they discover that humanity doesn't need magic as a crutch anymore, and has spent the entire 5000 years of the Fifth World learning how to make war with nothing more than physics.

But on the other hand Humanity builds their entire hope on a single "weapon" to defeat them, what if the actual danger is that this "one weapon" is doomed to failure ?

just because it's apparent to you /us as readers .. does not necessarily make it apparent to the factions in game.

just take real life as an example ... we don't have adequate protection in place against Ebola as it is such an "old and vague" threat.

Westerners wander into Africa to try and help with their weapons of hygiene and protection that make them impervious to this aged threat ...

westerners start taking casualties from it due to their arrogance and complacency.

Ebola spreads and grows in influence killing thousands...

____

* I know that is a real boiled down version that I made up on the spot and bears no relation to any actual events (apologies to anyone with RL experience out there)

but the Horrors would essentially win out over Metahuman reliance on the "physics" weapon

Ebola would honestly be a pretty simple thing to deal with in SR, compared to what they've already seen. It's massively less infectious than VITAS, for example. Which they've already weathered. Repeatedly.

Honestly, I think we have have hit a language barrier. By 'learning how to make war with nothing more than physics', I am pointing out that mundane technological warfare is massively more advanced than in any previous Age. The biggest threat that the Horrors offer is corruption of both magic and the spirit... which isn't going to be very effective at stopping drone strikes and Thor shots.

Sorry, I was using it as a metaphor, human reliance on modern stuff vs. an old and now underestimated enemy... rather than the specifics of the virus.

Oh I get what you're saying, and that's the point ... every current piece of media lately is 'Murica's military might vs. the rest of the EVIL EMPIRE.
it's such amazing propaganda, it's almost DPRK-esque.

Now just add 60 years and the complacency of the Dragons and the CEOs of megacorps who are invulnerable in their ivory towers.

And then the Horrors break through with their "Magic" ... admittedly the first ones through the gate might have their asses kicked in a direct confrontation.

But aren't we talking here about Aeons old intelligences of malign intent ... I don't think a full frontal attack has ever been part of their MO ?

it's mind games and manipulation... the same as when the Dragons rose ... which one was it that started taking airplanes out of the sky and laying waste ?...
it got taken out physically, but the others quickly realised that the game had changed.

Bullets can't kill nightmares.! and that's where the horrors are ... in your nightmares.

agreed, in a direct confrontation modern military could win

but playing by their own rules the Horrors tactics are WAY more powerful,

you just corrupt the biggest military force you can get at ... once you have puppeteered a few generals in a dark back water ... you send them and their armies out to war.

rinse and repeat

Sorry to go off-topic.

I honestly ADORE the potential in any plot involving darkness and horror ..

the Meta plot sounds very nWoD & Hunter: the Vigil conspiracies and compacts with dark forces that are hidden from the daylight minions.

There is much to be gained from either having it always in the background as fluff .. or as a direct threat to the players,

but as ever in RPG .. you stat it, they will kill it..

as for the liferafts, totally agree that Powerful Humanity would and could seek to save them selves over the minor races,

it could be the next arms race or space race, the Tir' could already be working on a magical version of saving their race.

and then there's all the industrial espionage and sabotage and ... someone is going to get the contract to build 10,000,000 ears for a bat mask ...

do they ask questions or just follow orders ?

so much potential and nastiness

Sure, but they had relations with the Seelie Court ever since teh Tir na nÓg book. His work apparently also led to the SCIRE, i I am not mistaken, so maybe there were offline storage copies of his works stashed soemwhere. Printouts maybe, resonance safe.


Right, my bad. The Human Nation already are Ariosophics. They're fully sufficient on their own.


I think in Loose Alliances. I'll have to try and look that up, but am at my parents' over the holidays, away from books.


It was also in Corporate Shadowfiles (the section about how the Desert Wars got started), and extensively featured in one of the Ka-Ge magazine issues. I mean, I guess they dropped it because it was too close to P 2020s EBM, but still, I'd like to see what happened to the companies of old SR - like Seretech, EBMM, Kuze Nihon/Nihon Enterprises - in-game.


Oops. Yeah, sure.

Google didn't provide you any result because hermit mispelled it the first time The name is Denairastas.

There were introduced in Earthdawn first edition, albeit only a small paragraph. To the world, Denairastas is the name of a family of magicians who rule the city of Iopos, northwest of Barsaive, and preparing for a war. It was later revealed the Denairastas were immortal humans created by a dragon, banned by the other dragons for this act, and only referred to as "the outcast" since. Denairastas came to be used as also being a name of the dragon, though I can't remember if there actually was a book who say so, or if it's just became an established practice on the mailing lists and forums at the time (note that, during the Earthdawn era, the fact that a dragon ruled the Denairatas clan is a real secret, so obviously the fact that a dragon went by the name of Denairastas before being banned by his kind also is).

The book BigJake is referring to is Dragons, a sourcebook FASA released for free as a PDF before shutting down (however, is was later published on paper by LRG as The Book of Dragons). It is considered as a major source of information on the Denairastas dragon, as the second part of the book is presented as portraits of the other dragons of Barsaive the dragon handed to the Denairastas magicians. The Denairastas dragon himself is not described, but his view on the other dragons, along with the annotations added to those documents by great dragon Mountainshadow revealed some information.

The connection between the Black Lodge and the Denairastas is based on the claims by the leader of the BL, the "Penultimate Master", to be Jacques de Molay, born in 1264 (in the fiction) or French-Scottish knight Oliver Sinclair (in Game Information) and thus be an immortal human, which the Denairastas magicians were the only known case so far. The "Penultimate Master" title also suggests the existence of an "Ultimate Master", which would be Denairastas dragon in this theory.
However, Game Information in Threats are worded in a way that rather suggest as the primary option that, while the Black Lodge may be a very ancient organization, the Penultimate Master himself is a poser and lying about his age (describing adopting an historical persona as a standard procedure for the top members of the BL).

The "truth" went away with the original authors. A few years later, Peter "Synner" Taylor (before he became line developper) proposed to write another history for the Black Lodge, but this one ended up just as unofficial as the one above, by lack of actual publishing.

Sorry I haven't responded earlier, but real life has an irritating way of eating up my time.

First I want to thank everyone who responded to the post, even the criticisms. Any attempt at writing has to be vetted by those familiar with the subject. It was essentially an attempt to come up with something semi-canon to counter the umpteenth version of the body snatchers, yet could be scalable to the group's tastes.



Agreed. Refer back to the "too many hours without sleep and Dos Equis" part. I was trying to wing it in between episodes of El Senor de Los Cielos. (Any show that flaunts babes and offs 5 to 8 people every 45 minute episode tends to catch my eye. Gotta love 74 episodes per season. And its all in Espanol!)

More to come as I have an opportunity to contemplate the responses.

The thought behind that was set them in opposition to Tir na Nog and Tir Tairngire, and whatever the dragons have planned. Personal confession - my political leanings go are to the left, so imagining a dark Republican-esque conspiracy was effortless (its just too easy to see Cheney leading this). As such I couldn't see them being very accepting of the "other". There have been several instances government discrimination against orcs and trolls so getting to human centric was easy.

Frankly a lot more of the setting should be way more human-centric than it is.

Your personal confession wasn't really necessary. Your political leanings were pretty obvious in your first post, wherein you basically lumped conservatives and religious fundamentalists in with the Aryan Nation.

Please note that not everyone around here shares your political leanings and some could find them offensive.

Please also note the ToS explicitly precludes discussions related to real world politics, so it would be wise to stop referring to any particular real world political party, ideology or person.

Otherwise I find the idea rather intriguing...

It's unavoidable that any fictional setting or idea extrapolating from real-life politics and human nature will offend some people. That's not relevant to whether it works or makes sense.

That is true to an extent, but not to the extent of likening whole groups of people to Neo-Nazi skin heads. There really isn't anything productive to be had from that kind of rhetoric. His point has been made and any further such references will serve only as blatant and intentional ToS violations.

But I have faith that we can keep this discussion SR relevant and continue exploring this idea based on its own merits.

My apologies to anyone I may have offended. It certainly was not my intent. Thank you for pointing out my oversight.

- The OP didn't liken all neocons to the Aryan Nations, just "the worst" of them (your initial claim that he had lumped "all conservatives and religious fundamentalists in" with the AN was inaccurate);
- This is a factually accurate description of a contemporary circumstance -- yes, the worst of the conservative movement old or new does include and has always included openly racist groups, among them many elements of the militia movement including the Aryan Nations, and it would be easy to visualize people who've led contemporary versions of this type of coalition as analogous to leaders of the fantasy group he is talking about -- which helped make clear, with economy and vividness, a relevant point about the SR setting he was proposing;
- Since the ToS allows for political discussion only insofar as it's relevant to a point about SR, I don't see what the problem is or who should care that you are (or some nebulous other party might be) offended. That offense is not relevant to the factual content or descriptive usefulness of his statement, which was made in the context of a specific point about SR. So I don't see why you're talking about ToS violations.

I imagine it is because as an Admin he is trying to nip something in the bud early than wait until an actual problem arises.

He didn't rush in with a banhammer, but rather just gave a friendly reminder to rein it in a bit.

It was intended as a friendly reminder, and instead derailed the thread for 6+ posts.

I am sick of reading 'offend'/'offended'/'offending'/'offensive' on the internet,
you could say it offends me to no end.

Agreed. And it also helps a reminder to look "friendly" if it doesn't start out by misrepresenting the post it's responding to. But enough said.

To the topic then.

The plot reminds me a lot of what goes on behind the return of the Bug Spirits in Shadowrun Returns: Deadman's Switch.
There too, a conspiracy exists to fight a menace from a long time ago.

That is why I do not see this as a problem. Why should Lofwyr not have his hands in the conspiracy? He was around back then, was he not? And if you were beginning that kind of Conspiracy, why would you not approach Lofwyr to join/lead?
The great problem in the world of Shadowrun is that in all world-wide conspiracies, you will find a dragon somewhere, if not more. It is just a quirk of the setting. Though it is still more optimistic than Dark Sun, so that's nice.

That sounds friggin' baddass! Love it.

I totally agree. But strictly speaking if that applies to Horrors (and it should), it should also apply to dragons (which are not as powerful as the Horrors). That's part of why humans shouldn't be approaching dragons to solve their problems for them (aside from the basic implausibility of humans wanting to share power and wealth with overgrown lizards -- when they have enough trouble sharing it with sufficiently different humans -- although that shouldn't rule out a dragon trying with variable success to manipulate them through proxies and double agents).

I really like this, and BigJake's thoughts as well. And it makes sense--not everyone is looking for 'profit next quarter'. And if these people have enough power, they can absolutely nudge things in the right direction; a land acquisition by a favorable agency here; increased resources in developing a particular technology there.

Of course, this doesn't mean that everything is square. Sooner or later word will leak. Lots of people like the idea of a lifeboat, and they want their people to be the ones on it. So there would be competition with other major organizations in securing the most desirable locations and resources, and in gaining the political leverage to ensure their picks are the ones with guaranteed slots in the kaerns. Other people will take advantage of their business knowledge to force the organization to pay for the resources they want.

But overall, I really like the idea. The runners are still doing dirty work, likely for dirty people, but they're also racing the clock and ultimately doing something good. They know they won't have seats in the kaerns. Your Bildeburg group will throw them away when it's done. But they're still saving lives. It's a nice conflict I haven't really seen done before.