Syndicate IPO

Basics

• This is actually getting submitted for the Onyx Path, so it must be a Revised-edition book taking into account the events of the Week of Nightmares.
• As with Iteration X Revised, the Syndicate should be playable as protagonists and heroes as well as antiheroes, obstructive bureaucrats, and outright villains.
• Fuck Captain Planet Villain Bullshit
• The Syndicate are not in control and probably never were fully in control. They just like to think they are.

History

• The current state of the 'dismal science' of economics is not a Technocratic invention. The Technocracy far preferred Mercantilism due to its controllability, rather than Adam Smith's views of the Invisible Hand.
• Adam Smith was probably a Sleeper. He somehow managed to completely throw the Exchequers into disarray and slow death.
• The 'Invisible Hand' is a statement that the markets cannot be controlled and is therefore against Technocratic design, which is all about control.
• Modern economics is an attempt to recapture the orderliness of Mercantilism. Failed experiments like communism are more validly Syndicate than Free Market Fundamentalism.

Retcons?

• Free Market Fundamentalism does, however, help the elites. Those more interested in personal gain than the work of the Technocracy could validly believe in things like the Austrian school. And of course, vampires.

Background

• The Syndicate should echo modern financial and analytic firms. It should also echo modern business.
  • Therefore, it spends a non-trivial amount of time chasing its own tail and trying to set itself on fire. Having strong (if outdated and out of touch) leadership and an Ascension War helped keep it seemingly unified before, now its unity is coming apart as dozens of people with their own theories (that objectively work, see these experiments and mathematical equations say so and the applications work out!)
  • Less 'black-suited enforcers', more 'bring the cops (and conveniently lock down your ability to use magic)'.
  • The Syndicate are talent thieves. They try to steal the best and brightest from the other Conventions. Especially the Void Engineers due to general hostility. You'd be surprised how much astrophysics applies to economics (after all, the Black-Scholes model is based off of chemistry, and a lot of MIT engineering grads end up in finance...)

Operations

• FUCK PENTEX. That is all. Assume a post-2000 purge of the SPD. This further disorganizes the Syndicate (Nephandi controlling an entire division? Who can you trust at this point) and is one of the impetuses to break it into disorganization.

Gameplay

• An all-Syndicate game is likely to be a social setup, akin to Mad Men or Suits, focusing more heavily on the office than blasting RDs. Subtlety, social engineering, and their wide-ranging influence are themes here, but also the fact that using market adjustments to crush one guy is like killing a fly with a nuclear bomb. You can do it, but you're probably going to hit a lot more than the fly.

• Syndicate versus Syndicate. The Enforcers exist as internal security, this is what they do. A combination of police procedural and office drama while hunting for corrupt individuals/Nephandi/Traditionalist spies.

• Multi-character play. Syndicate mages work well as a support role, so roll up some Syndicate characters and some sleepers/NWO ops/HITMarks/whatever.

• Mixed play. The Syndicate poaches bright young Technocrats all the time, so you can have fish out of water. On the other hand, having a guy with influence and money can help a lot for any Amalgam.

• Mixed Trad-Techno groups?

Magic

• Syndicate foci are often large-scale and philosophical. Entire firms, schools of thought, and modes of behavior are their foci. You are a Syndicate focus. Yes, you.
  • The NWO hacks camera networks to know where you are. The Syndicate looks at one of your receipts and knows where you will be. Analysis is just as much a form of control as surveillance.
  • In the event shit hits the fan, the Syndicate just borrow technology from other Conventions. Why reinvent the wheel when you can buy the limousine?
  • The primary Syndicate focus will be their holdings and personal favor network. They can call up a company and have an armed helicopter there in a few minutes, because they have connections with the Wolf's Dragoons or whoever's the mercenary of the month.
  • Syndicate Devices and Charms should be more mundane than the NWO's stuff as a differentiation. The NWO gets laser spy watches that shoot missiles. The Syndicate have really, really impressive watches that distract the other guy. The NWO uses high-tech machine guns disguised as laptops. The Syndicate buy prototype guns (cancelled due to political reasons by [insert government here]). They rarely go in-house, but their stuff tends to work rather suspiciously well for prototypes and cancelled equipment.
  • Syndicate Charms will often be things like 'additional time on the quantum supercomputer' or 'advertising airtime'. Example: Mind 3 Prime 3 anti-magic via disproving rumors of (X) Tradition's mystic bullshit working. Get a Mythbusters marathon showing focusing on that a week ahead of time, then roll in.