Oni2:Slaves of War/Factions

WCG

When the worldwide network of ACCs falls, the main question for the WCG is, "How quickly can we restore or build new ACCs?" Because this is an extremely costly project, the areas which formerly made up each sovereign nation, each with their own national identity, entered a "me first" state of mind. Why should their people's tax money be used to pay for ACCs somewhere else? Any nation unsure that it had enough of the WCG's attention was bound to break off from the world government and start hoarding resources. Like World War I resulted from the germ of chaos in the Balkans, the nations that defected first caused a chain reaction of defections and new alliances that took down the WCG almost overnight (on a political time scale).

Even though each nation is prepared to stab the other in the back, they are still forming coalitions. Nobody wants to be the one country that's left after everyone else has picked a side. The natural result is that the political situation is restored to how it was before unification by the WCG. What was that situation, exactly? I can think of no better extrapolation of today's politics than the situation that was described in Gundam 00. Admittedly, Gundam 00 takes place 300 years in our future, and Oni is more like 30 years in the future. Also, the main reason for Gundam 00's prediction of north-south power consolidation was the development of the orbital elevators, which would ideally be placed near the equator, thus requiring some measure of cooperation between hemispheres. However, orbital elevators would be a long way off in Oni's future — even if it shouldn't take us 300 years to make them, the world of Oni is suffering from the BioCrisis, so I don't think they're very concerned with the "final frontier" right now. Here are where some of the nations of the world lie in Gundam's version of 2307 A.D.:

• Union of Solar Energy and Free Nations
  • North America
  • Japan
  • South and Central America
  • Australasia

• Human Reform League
  • China & Mongolia
  • Siberian Russia
  • Ceylon
  • India
  • ASEAN
  • Korea
  • Taiwan
  • Papua New Guinea

• Advanced European Union
  • Mainland Europe
  • United Kingdom
  • Iceland & Greenland
  • European Russia
  • Turkey
  • Palestine
  • Africa has no member states but African land is used by the AEU for their orbital elevator

Some notable nations missing from the above list: Israel (surely this would be in the Union with America?), and Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Middle East. The Middle East in Gundam 00 has lost all its power due to the exhaustion of the oil supply, and has descended into rank poverty; the question we might have to answer is, would this already have happened by Oni's time or not? Finally, the whole continent of Africa is without representation, although this is hardly surprising from a historical perspective.

In any case, this world situation is the farthest thing from stable. It's entirely possible that the blocs will be going to war with each other, or even within themselves as they jockey for position, finally leading to a third world war.

P.S.: The Oni manual has a conspiracy theory that resembles an actual conspiracy theory: that globalists want to form a one-world government in order to increase their power. But here’s an interesting part of the real-world theory: currently the globalists are going bankrupt, and the only way to clear their debts (something the Oni manual also makes reference to) is to reduce the population to, say, one billion. Wouldn’t the BioCrisis seem to be working in favor of this goal?

P.P.S.: There are many current coalitions of nations that could be precursors and/or descendants of the WCG: BRICS, ASEAN, G8, Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), etc.

TCTF

As a law enforcement arm of the erstwhile WCG, the TCTF as a pan-national agency is naturally no longer in existence. The actual personnel for the TCTF and other police/intelligence agencies are still working in regional branches for their own governments.

Neo-Syndicate

Broken up after the Cataclysm by in-fighting and raids by the WCG, the Neo-Syndicate consists of local bosses and warlords. Each branch wants to gain the advantage that they will need in order to become the head of the new Syndicate.

• Some of them are supplying arms to nations that are rebuilding their militaries in preparation for a possible World War III.
• One piece (Muro's surviving cronies) has data on the use of the Chrysalis, and is trying to sell Daodan-powered super-soldiers to unscrupulous countries as a private militia (of course they won't actually share the data on how to produce Daodan symbiotes).
• Other factions of the Syndicate might use their private armies and pre-existing connections (see here, third screen) to seize control over cities, or even a whole nation or two. Heh. Syndicastan.

The notion of a Daodan army, or elite group of soldiers, is one that would definitely add some spice to an Oni sequel, but if the Neo-Syndicate, or at least this group within it, has a wise new leader, they might opt not to make an army of Chrysalis-powered super-soldiers. That would be raising the stakes, and if the data on Chrysalises is going to become known to the nations sooner or later, they too can grow the same army. That means escalation, which could lead to the Neo-Syndicate being wiped out by a super-powered TCTF or WCG. But if the WCG falls apart post-Cataclysm, there is less they could do against the Syndicate. Result: Syndie baddies that make Tankers look like playthings. At the same time, we should expect the Syndicate factions without knowledge of the Daodan to continue to refine their combat SLD technology.

P.S.: "Syndicate" was the TCTF's name for the group in the first place, not their own. So "Neo-Syndicate" is also not intended as a term that would be used by this group to apply to itself. In fact, it's little more than a corny placeholder for whatever that group or groups would be called, although it's not impossible that the WCG would really use that term to apply to the new criminal organization(s).

BGI

We need to ensure that BGI is not too reminiscent of Umbrella Corporation. One way we can make the distinction is to not have BGI be the public-facing entity, but more of a supra-corporation that owns regular companies.

Rebellion

There must still be a Rebellion. See this article for interesting insights into what makes an intellectual turn violent. Will the Rebellion be overly violent, causing Konoko to turn against them? And how exactly would we handle this, since there’s a conflict between a narrative where Konoko supports an unethical organization and the gameplay that requires the player to guide Konoko in taking part in missions that they don’t approve of?

Agency RED

Despite the global fragmentation at the time of Oni 2, Griffin has been placed in charge of a new, trans-national agency called Agency RED. Supposedly this name is not an acronym, but simply describes an agency dedicated to solving the highest (red-level) threats to international security, i.e., terrorism. In truth, the agency only has one mission, and what "RED" really stands for is "Restrain or Eliminate Daodan". The term "Daodan" is not public knowledge, and this acronymic expansion will not be found in writing in even the most classified documents in the offices of the world's governments. Why Griffin would be placed in this important position when he was directly responsible for the creation of one of the prime Daodan symbiotes, as well as the actual source of his group's funding, is known by very few people in the world.

Those behind the agency consider the Daodan to be the most dangerous force in the world, and Griffin wholeheartedly agrees. Their basic goal is to try to keep Pandora's Box from opening all the way, before something causes the world to completely descend into chaos. Agency RED's short-term mission is to track down new symbiotes and capture them, or kill them if they cannot be captured. The long-term mission of Agency RED is to find a "cure" for the Daodan threat, that is, some means of neutralizing or killing the Chrysalis. To that end, they are seeking a certain old scientist by the name of Hasegawa, who went missing some years ago....

Church of the Chrysalis

Might there be a Church of the Daodan/Chrysalis? They worship the symbiotes, the elect few. Cf. Henry Dunn, who wrote, “the election of the few are for the benefit of the many.”

Daomen

A placeholder name for the intelligent alien race on the other side of the phase veil. See my story notes for ideas on their identity and nature.