WCG

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World Coalition Government

Rebel manifesto

From the manual:

It's 2032 and the world ain't what it used to be.

We have one government where there used to be hundreds. Big brother is alive and well.

Things are pretty good in the big cities if you don't mind the fact that World Coalition Government tracks your every move. They claim they do it in the interest of the common good but it can make you feel insignificant and pretty damned helpless. No matter where you go "they" are watching you.

In the cities most people have enough money to live quite well by the standards of the old world. An average family can afford a nice place to live, timeshare on a vehicle and a terminal that links them to the WorldNet. For most it's an acceptable payoff for a near total loss of privacy and systematic violations of our personal freedoms.

It's best not to think about life outside the cities. The powers that be would never admit it, but the air has gone bad. The forbidden zones they euphemistically call "Wilderness Preserves" are actually massive tracts of quarantined land.

The poor wretches who can't afford to live in the cities get as close to the atmosphere processors as they can and eke out a miserable (and dangerous) existence working on the reclamation teams who beat back the corrosive stain of the wilderness.

From time to time someone tries to improve public awareness of the ecological nightmare but World Coalition Government controls the media and silences them before any outcry can gain momentum. There is a growing awareness that something has gone horribly wrong and that something has to be done.

Something has to give. It's only a matter of time.

WCG history

From the manual:

On January 12th, [2012] the newborn World Coalition Government annexed 80% of the countries of the world. The holdouts either reconsidered and signed treaties or were "dissolved" in a matter of months.

The leaders of the new regime gave us all kinds of rationalizations for their actions, ranging from endless border skirmishes between impoverished nations to environmental problems that they claimed could only be solved if all of the "citizens of earth" worked together.

If the truth were told, it was all about the money.

Years of boom markets and reckless spending finally took their toll, leaving small countries bankrupt and superpowers teetering on the brink of collapse. By uniting the economies of the world all of the old debt was erased and everyone got a clean slate. It was a real mess but at the time it seemed like the only way out.

At first World Coalition Government gave a lot of lip service to representing the annexed governments. There was even an advisory council modeled on the United Nations. As the representatives began to enjoy the benefits of a global marketplace they fell silent. In a matter of years all traces of the old governments faded away. It was an economic coup on an unprecedented scale.

World Coalition Government accomplished most of what they promised. They created "peacekeeping forces" capable of putting down any infighting and they turned around the economy.

What they don't tell you is that the poor stayed poor and there are more of them than ever before. Sure, we have bright and beautiful cities but we pay for them by sacrificing our freedom and the well being of most of our population to the so-called "greater good".

It is a golden age for the privileged. Their ivory towers are everything we hoped the future would be.

TCTF history

From the manual:

One of the excuses World Coalition Government used to grab the reigns was the use of biological weapons by a few of the countries involved in border skirmishes at the time.

Biotech is to us what nukes were to our great grandparents - an emerging technology that scares the hell out of the ignorant. Everyone was terrified that some genetically engineered super virus would spread farther than its creators intended. Horror stories of weapons that made your bones melt and your eyes explode blinded the public to the less tangible threat of a totalitarian government.

Once the puppet masters behind the World Coalition Government had what they wanted they continued to exploit techno-phobia to keep them on top. They told us that abuse of technology was the enemy and that the Technology Crimes Task Force was our guardian. In the name of the common good they granted the TCTF blanket authority to investigate wherever and however they see fit.

Sure, the TCTF does everything it is supposed to. They keep most of the "cyber drugs" and illegal weapons off the streets but law enforcement is a smokescreen to excuse their actual purpose.

World Coalition Government uses the TCTF to control the evolution and distribution of new technologies. They suppress anything that could be used to undermine their authority. Their investigations are also used to violate the rights of anyone deemed "dangerous" by World Coalition Government.

The real abuse of technology begins and ends with the government and its TCTF enforcers.

History of the Syndicate

In-game echo of the manual...

When the new geopolitical order of the World Coalition Government was instituted many technologies were identified as dangerous to world stability and were banned or reserved to restricted access. The Network survived the chaos of the world riots by establishing and maintaining a reliable technological black market. That's about the only in-game mention of the World/Freedom Riots (one more is HERE).

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Added value

Some of that stuff could make it into the factual section above. Neither section is anywhere near complete...

Some things may end up on other pages, too. Hasegawa's, Daodan's, Griffin's...

WCG Today... East and West

WCG and EU

The WCG looks like an extrapolation of the European Union entity at global scale. While its outposts all around the world could be hosted in more or less regular diplomatic buildings and business centers, it's interesting to consider today's analogies in the "Old World", i.e.:

• The EU quarter in Brussels
• European Parliament & Courts in Strasbourg

Personally, I like Strasbourg a lot better (been there, and actually spent a whole day at the old Palais de l'Europe, which was hosting the plenary sessions of the European Parliament at the time). geyser

Futuristic architecture

Antonio Sant'Elia was a Milanese architect responsible for the Manifest of Futurist Architecture and a collection of sketches such as this one. First cited (without being named ^_^) in the Oni context by Guido, along with Frank Lloyd Wright.

Paris Welcomes WCG

A series of pics scanned and processed a bit by geyser.

Available HERE. Be sure to read the README.

Singapore

Singapore is somewhat of a modern utopia because of its pragmatic government policies. It basically bridges the gap between capitalism and communism (and Big Brother). Thus, the WCG can also be seen as an extrapolation of Singapore to Asia and beyond.

Daodan and the WCG

Early on

Hasegawa and Kerr "couldn't get backup from any legitimate source" for their Daodan experimentation, and the reason is that a hyperevolutive upgrade of individuals is more than likely to undermine the authority of an organism such as the WCG.

With the Syndicate, Hasegawa and Kerr expected to be funded on the sole basis of their renegade status, and to get away with little or no monitoring of their activity (not to mention ethical issues, which never apply anyway for Syndicate science; the more unethical, the more illegal, the better).

At the WCG, the situation is quite different: the WCG will want to assume full intellectual control of the project right from the start. New technology has to be certified (by experts or committees) as serving the WCG and, more importantly, "harmless" i.e. unlikely to undermine the WCG's authority in any foreseeable future.

Hyperevolution of Man sounds cool, but apart from being unethical (which the WCG can live with) it's uncontrollable by design, which will be a major concern to an entity mainly preoccupied with its long-term stability.

Hasegawa may try as he can to present hyperevolution as "just a resilience patch", primarily aimed to deal with the toxic atmosphere. Inevitably, hyperevolution will come to mean "supersoldier" or "superman" to anyone, expert or no expert, Syndicate or WCG.

Both entities have reasons to reject the project because of how it breaks the balance, but the WCG, with their "Big Brother" approach, seem much more likely to make a detailed and objective analysis of the project and its perspectives. They seemed a lot harder to fool than the Syndicate, too.

That's more or less why Hasegawa and Kerr didn't get/seek WCG support for the Daodan project. Another reason is that Hasegawa had already become a dissident through the episode of Jamie's death. He had de facto become a renegade scientist by trespassing the contaminated area around an ACC.

Also, the Daodan project is aimed to deal with the pollution, and actually calls for an acknowledgement (by the WCG) of the dramatic scales taken on by ecological issues. At the time of the events, the WCG would probably have regarded such action as out of proportion with the actual problem, and highly inconsistent with what their policy had been until then. Offensive, almost.

Oni's material, however, mentions a BioCrisis Subcommittee, suggesting that the episode of Jamie's death has triggered official action from the WCG. This is action at the WCG's own pace, unrelated in any way to Hasegawa's "resilience patch".

After Hasegawa

One often remembers the CHAPTER 09 . TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES console (THIS ONE) as evidence of the WCG's integrity and high morals. Actually, Griffin is being considered for investigation by the TCTF's Directorate, so the topic is closer to Griffin or the TCTF.

At a first glance, the reason of the Directorate's concern is Griffin's "the end justifies the means" attitude. On the whole, there's nothing there but common sense – at first sight, at least.

It's interesting to see this note as specifically addressing Griffin's Daodan project, which is unethical and irresponsible (because of the possible "loss of control" over a human weapon). In a way, the WCG knows what's good for it

No matter what benefit the corporate elite could obtain from the Daodan, the fact that hyperevolved humans can break the corporate balance and undermine the WCG's authority is dissuasive enough. Maintaining status quo is essential, and hyperevolution means violent change.

After what happened to the Syndicate, the Daodan is increasingly regarded as a threat by the WCG and TCTF. On the whole. Griffin excepted.

Griffin happens to see beyond the WCG's logic: his project is aimed at countering the threat of a human weapon wielded by the Syndicate. He acknowledges the risk of developing one such human weapon himself, and proceeds because the threat Muro poses to Mankind seems to justify that risk.

Actually, it would seem that Griffin has higher morals than the WCG, caring for the long-term safety of Mankind rather than the stability of the corporate state. His main mistake is to take the control of the Daodan entity for granted. That's where his approach is irresponsible rather than just unethical, and makes it prone to criticism by the WCG... or us ^^

After the Cataclysm

If I was the WCG, I'd just nuke Mai and Muro and any Daodan I could get. That's the "due procedure" Griffin tried to apply, too late, when he blew up Shinatama in CHAPTER 08 . AN INNOCENT LIFE. As the "rogue" Konoko fights for her life towards the end of the game, the official, responsible point of view is made increasingly clear:

We must hope that Konoko was destroyed when she fell into the biomatter disposal vats. If not then she may be even closer to her final evolutionary stage: what form that might take, and what the presence of such a creature might portend for humanity we cannot know.

Technically, the Daodan symbiotes are not considered human, and constitute a major (potential, and somewhat effective) threat to Mankind (not to mention the WCG's stability). Destroying the symbiotes is the "due procedure".

As for the forms this might take, the WCG will have much to deal with in the wake of the Cataclysm. For one thing, the "remnants" of the Syndicate (beheaded, but still strong and well-prepared to worldwide pollution). Just how the WCG can be expected to "deal" with the Syndicate... that's another story.

As for the symbiotes, it's much easier for the WCG to "pin" the Cataclysm on them (except they really did it: Muro and Mai, and originally Hasegawa). If the mob turns against the Daodan (and it's quite likely that they will), that's one problem solved already. And the nicest bit is that it is ethical.

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Related

• TCTF
• Syndicate