Quelle, en: Conspiracy Theories Outtakes/Kopie

(Shadowgrid/Tumblr) Here's some material that didn't get into Conspiracy Theories for one reason or another. I should, and am required to, point out that this is NON-CANON material. However, it was written so I figured I might as well share it. From the Who Do You Know In This Town? subchapter of DeeCee. ROZILYN HERNANDEZ Professor Hernandez is a hugely influential person in DeeCee. She was the one who really made people stop and look at how DeeCee had embraced magicians and magic into its very heart, and the world didn’t end. She founded the Illuminate of the New Dawn, which is one of the largest independent fraternal organizations for magicians and their supporters in the world. The Illuminates engage in public advocacy and lobbying programs throughout the world, and especially in the UCAS, and she’s at the heart of it all. Meanwhile, she’s still a tenured professor of Sociology at Georgetown, and the chair of the New Century Party, which is often seen as synonymous with the IOND. However, there is a growing call for the party, which was founded by disgruntled Technocrats following the 2056 election scandal, to rejoin the Technocrats. Her 2057 running mate, Ramsay McMulkin, did just that. He eventually became the UCAS party chair, and then improbably became CAS President last year. The more important issue directly affecting her, and applicable to our discussion is that after several decades, Hernandez is quietly looking for someone to succeed her as High Magus. The top suspect is Nicholas Grace. He’s been a senior member in the Inner Circle for decades, and has eyed the job for years. However, she may be looking for a younger, more pliant successor like Claudia Morgan. Morgan is a young, but dedicated acolyte who lives and breathes magic, but also has some impressive family connections in DeeCee. There are a half-dozen Sylvestrines, all professors at Georgetown or CUA, who are all in the IOND Inner Circle. There is a theory that she was already in the Black Lodge, but she “came to God” and eventually founded the IOND in response. Another takes that one step further and asserts that she was “deprogrammed” by the Templars. This is the best part. She was the face of the IOND, and recruited other Lodge members, but those Sylvestrines (Templars) control it behind the the scenes. Pistons Pistons ? New Jesuits agents don't get to just quit. Fianchetto Fianchetto ? Here’s a thought. She’s another one of those politicos nostalgic for the old USA, rules an international order of politically connected mages, and her old running mate is the damn Yankee carpetbagger who weaseled his way into the Manor House. There’s your New Revolution ringleader. I normally don’t mess with politicos, but I could make an exception in this case. Kane Kane ? Calm down. Let’s take this offline. Riser Riser ? (Shadowgrid) This is in a separate section. I will leave it up to you all to figure out where. If I may, I’d like to mention something I’ve been thinking about. Fallen Angels The whole subject of DeeCee encompasses a variety of conspiratorial talk. I haven’t worked in the sprawl much, but it’s hard to avoid the overlap of talk of spies, politics, magic, the Church, and the megacorps. Shiawase and Ares are the two biggest boys around. The former has its largest subsidiary headquartered in Washington. However, Ares and the UCAS, especially the military, are virtually synonymous for most people. Ares is on the outs, though, with Colloton, and it’s been suffering its own setback of late. When I look at the anti-Ares politics, espionage, and all happening in a city where the Church has a presence big enough to hide conspiracies within, I think of one thing: The Seraphim. The Seraphim was the name of a covert intelligence, security, and special operations unit that reported directly to Lucien Cross and did his bidding for decades. It also operated with distinct Catholic motifs, names, and other influences. Common lore goes that when Cross died, Ares made its move and his Seraphim were wiped out. Many field ops were exposed and killed. Some were turned. Others disappeared, either into the shadows or deeper within the remains of CATCo. Some joined SIS, the CAS-based intelligence corp. Others from the Quebecois mega joined their French cousins in SDEI, Esprit’s intelligence arm. Others, I’ve noticed, took refuge in the UCAS as it has rebuilt its decimated security programs. Nine years on, Ares is in trouble with the UCAS, Esprit has dug in, SIS has been doing contract work for the CIA, and the Church seems to be getting bolder in its local actions towards the government and the megacorps. I’m not going to say that it is all because of the Seraphim, but I see their hands engaging and encouraging behavior that was already headed in that direction. They were loyal and faithful to Cross as a man and an idea, and that included a zealous hatred of Ares, and especially Damien Knight. I would not put it against them to continue waging a long war against Knight. I am near certain Seraphim are plotting some righteous vengeance, but Knight is not stupid and their people can see the same thing I did. So there’s bound to be action on both sides in the sprawl for a while. Thorn Thorn ? (Tumblr) Again, just to reiterate this is not canon. It is my own material. (Shadowgrid) My birthday present to you: DeeCee Underworld. Again, none of this is canon, or even necessarily complete (The Triads never got written up, for example). THE UNDERWORLD MAFIA Dona Vanessa Marconi is the current head of the Marconi family, and has taken on her father’s role as the Mafia’s emissary to the UCAS government, and that whole government sector. Don Victor Marconi retired on Christmas Day, 2064. By most accounts, it was a matter of pride. The old man took the idea of what had happened in DeeCee very hard. He should have seen the New Revolution coup coming, and various other failings on his part led to him taking a permanent vacation up in the Eastern Shore. However, others suggest that Vanessa simply hung several setbacks around his neck, as failings to smooth things with the government, and then kicked out the legs on him by lining up several politicos behind her, and most importantly, Don Franco Mueller, the operational don of DeeCee. Don Franco Mueller is a strong functionary, running the Mafia operations throughout the sprawl, and overseeing smuggling operations all along the eastern seaboard from the time it leaves the edge of Gianelli Family territory in Charlotte and makes its way to South Jersey/Philadelphia, where the Five Families take over. Mueller had become enamored with the Draco Foundation and Nadja Daviar back in the day, and it used to anger Victor Marconi something awful. Then Daviar disappeared, and the new management team at the DF had different ideas than she did. Seeing the productivity of his smuggling operation, and knowing that he had close ties to the Gianellis in Atlanta, they have had a strong relationship for the past decade in going after the Atlantean Foundation and other competitors. He also took the initiative in the post-Crash environment to go after the Yakuza with their tacit approval, picking off the hardest-hit operations and annihilating the Mizugumo-rengo and Fudo-rengo. However, now that Daviar has returned, the situation has gone awry. Mueller was struck dumb when he saw that she returned, but she does not want to have anything to do with him or the Mafia, and now the largest syndicate in the sprawl is being run by a man scorned. After all of those years of being joined at the hip to the interests of the foundation have now made him an appealing target to the many other magical institutions in the sprawl, with the Atlanteans coming in at number one with a bullet. That is quite literal. Aztechnology sent emissaries to visit his office in Rosslyn, but when their elevator reached the top floor of the Winter Tower, both men were dead. Each had two bullets in their heads, and there was no evidence of the assassin. However, the Mystic Crusaders’ message could not be more clear. Elijah Elijah ? YAKUZA Did you know that there used to be seven different groups of Yakuza operating in DeeCee? The Chong-Pak-Pa finally broke free in 2053, and has been engaged in clandestine thuggery and Matrix crimes since then. The Mizugumo and Fudo rengos were torn apart by the Mafia in early 2065, and the Shonen-gireina were mercifully taken out just this summer. They had a serious backer in former Draco Foundation Chief Consultant Kanagawa. After he and half of their number were murdered, the rest were picked apart in less than a week. They had given up their psychoboy, kill anything that moves style and become a professional kick squad for Kanagawa, and it’s suspected, former DF board member Midori Kanematsu. Oh, well. Good riddance anyway. Meanwhile, the other four consolidated under the Yamaguchi-rengo in the late fifties. The Saidoh are the diplomats of the group, serving in the same role as Dona Marconi. Oyabun Kohno is considered to be more powerful and influential than Imperial Ambassador Fujikawa. Overall, the Yakuza focuses on smuggling, non-violent crime (depending on your view of human trafficking), and industrial espionage. The Mafia may control trucking and air cargo, but the Yakuza control Potomac Yard and virtually all train cargo that passes through mid-Atlantic, which benefits them tremendously since most of those are durable and other manufactured goods. Counterfeiting and other forms of piracy are common business methods. With Kansai Village complete, the Yakuza have been working hard to make inroads into that location. Part of it is to benefit the Watada-Rengo interests that coincide with Shiawase, but it is also a method of exploiting the outside visitors. Their presence is indelible to the area thanks to their ties to the entertainment and consumer businesses that Shiawase and outside users enjoy. As Shiawase builds its brand on the sprawl, however, the Yakuza are expected to follow alongside. There was a new startup, actually a breakaway group of younger members, that appeared a couple years ago. However, they were wild cards, and starting drawing attention from people who'd have preferred they stay in the shadows. So the group was quietly eliminated last year on MCT's orders, and the rest of the Yaks took that under considerable advice to keep things quiet in their own affairs or others would do it for them. Mihoshi Oni Mihoshi Oni ? That was Sticks' work as I recall him admitting last year in the megacorp compilation. Pistons Pistons ? CHONG-PAK-PA The Chong-Pak-Pa used to be the Korean Yakuza. In 2052, the Chong-Pak-Pa broke from the Yamaguchi-rengo before there was a repeat of the Seattle Schism. Marcus Song managed to broker a peaceful separation, which is saying something considering that the different gumis used to fight all the time over turf and percentages of the different enterprises they ran. No one ran magical crimes in DeeCee at that time, and the Chong-Pak-Pa filled that void by recruiting from the diverse populations, especially Southeast Asians and some Africans, and went into magic-based, and magical crimes. Most of the immigrants, especially magicians, didn’t want to have anything to do with them. However, they did appeal to the young and rebellious, and it didn’t take long for Chong-Pak-Pa to be a fairly large Seoulpa Ring with around forty members. Then Tempo came, and the Chong-Pak-Pa became the distributor to gangs throughout the sprawl. When the government did crack down, they unleashed Hell. The Army came in because of the magical nature of the distribution group, and when the smoke cleared much of the ring was dead or in federal prison. There were only five members of the ring left, but they have not given up. With magical incidents on the rise, they are the one syndicate willing to deal with the weirdness. VORY V ZAKONE There are a lot of Russians and others from the former Soviet Bloc living in the DeeCee Sprawl, and here’s the best part, many of them have lived in the sprawl long enough to have made a significant contribution to the Old Army, with emphasis on Old Army. This created no short of resentment among a community that had previous made itself indispensable to the government and the defense field. The Vory didn’t have much of a presence beyond the Russian and Eastern European communities for a long time, and kept their operations fairly insular. The one exception was their decker crews who would carry out every kind of byzantine fraud and theft one could imagine. Naturally, they were very useful for money laundering, and it was rumored that they got a pass from the government for the business they did by doing contract work for the FBI and military. However, when otaku tribes started killing each other just before the Renraku Arcology went dark in Seattle, some of the tribes, like Probe, turned to the one group that they feared enough to serve. After Crash 2.0, some of the tribes were wiped out. The Electron Sorcerers and 000 000 000 remain independent, but the Vory have no problem running a virtual crew with technomancers working from the Motherland. Given the multinational nature of the Vory, it was simply a matter of pragmatism that a Georgian was made tsar of DeeCee. He is an ork-sized human with a sadistic streak and a military background. He is a focused leader, driving the Vory to incorporate as many of their potential recruits as possible, preferring to use them as a means to break into the Mafia and Yakuza stronghold on smuggling. GANGS There are still numerous gangs throughout the sprawl, but the main ones to consider are the Ancients, the Cutters, and the Sables. The Ancients took over the Princes of Blood a decade ago, and by that I mean they slaughtered the Princes to a man, bringing a cadre of hardcase Tír elves to DeeCee. They have managed to carve a small niche in the I-95 smuggling route through persistence and share with the Mafia a healthy mutual hatred of the Yakuza. In return for taking on the Yaks, the Mafia has granted them a piece of the action. With some Tír refugees coming to DeeCee, the Laésa have tried to make inroads, but the Ancients keep shutting them down. Back in the summer, there was a lot of Ancients activity, and the day after the Watergate Incident, the whole gang took off towards Philadelphia. Many people were displeased when they returned a week later. The Cutters seem like the kind of gang that would be perfect for DeeCee if they were outmanned and far less connected than the big groups. However, they manage a tight, but efficient group and still have an effective smuggling and fixer network going. They bypass North Virginia for West Virginia, where the Mafia is less inclined to dominate the trade. While they aren’t as powerful or connected as the Mafia, William Jennings has some loyal friends on both sides of that border who are willing to look the other way while the Cutters cross the border. Cutters have also been spotting doing recon on the mercs and spies throughout the region, but it’s not sure whether it’s to recruit them or simply picking up tips. Since they operate in Britain and Europe, there is a strong chance that there are Cutter affiliates training or working out west. The FBI and HEAD are keeping their eyes open because the Cutters may be small, but Don Mueller can’t run cargo if he’s dead, and these are the kind of men and women who could pull that off. The Sables are actually the largest and oldest gang in DeeCee, but they don’t engage in the high-level activities that the other gangs do. They were simply the biggest and the de facto police and government in the Anacostia Barrens. Over the last few decades, they have expanded into Prince George’s County and crossed the Anacostia, swelling their ranks with Latin Americans and Asians. However, they also now surround Compville. To put this indelicately, many of the people staring across each other along the Compville walls don’t look alike, or much like each other. The Sables are still heavily African-American, and it is only a matter of time before the Latinos form their own group. However, Compvillians don’t like the Sables, especially the metas, and violence has broken out on several occasions. One additional subject is Potomac piracy. Hear me out. There had been a trio of ork and troll gangs that ran smuggling jobs throughout the regional waterways. However, when the Sequoia was denied a part of the action, Captain Adamson organized her own group and ambushed all of the Triples simultaneously. Those who survived were given a choice to join her or die, and that is how Zuri Adamson became the Potomac Queen. She still captains the Sequoia, and has three other boats in her little fleet. They are remarkably effective, and using them is a good way to avoid dealing with the other syndicates if you really value your cargo, especially if it is live cargo. INDEPENDENTS DeeCee is a media nexus. The government still draws the constant attention of the major media networks, newsfaxes, and professional MeFeed streamers. It produces news, sometimes important, other times superfluous. Culture and personality have become huge commodities in DeeCee, though not to the extent of Los Angeles. Given the above-average per capita income and education levels in the sprawl, DeeCee is also a voracious consumer of news and other media. The presence of the government and the news media drew the attention of pirate broadcasters decades ago, and even though it is more difficult to jam and pirate the Matrix feeds than the old, often analog or simple digital radio wave broadcasts, there are still those why try. The Hill Watchers maintain a presence throughout the sprawl, and it is one of the few groups that have managed to keep pace with technology. It should come as little surprise that this is because there are several former government hackers in the group. The pirates hire runners all the time for protection, or to help gather information on the power players in the sprawl. I would also be remiss if I forgot to mention the Puzzle Palace. This is the DeeCee Shadow Matrix node, like ShadowSea in Seattle. The name is alternately a reference to the Pentagon and NSA, and it should not surprise anyone that Pistons is a key figure on the site. It takes a lot of guts to keep the node running under the government’s nose, but there was a Shadowland site in Washington for nearly eight decades, and folks like Pistons and have ensured that it remains. The node is much like ShadowSea with hiring halls, discussion boards, training rooms, and so forth. There is familiar Washington iconography, but the node also has innumerable little puzzles and ciphers which lead to PLTGs, VPNs, and all sorts of goodies.