Political Secrets

[Obso1e7e]

I've been running a campaign recently in a homebrew semi-steampunk setting. The party is hired by a generally neutral good nation, expansionist until about 200 years previous when they largely ran out of room to expand into without ending up attacked on all sides. They've been pulled into the "Department of Sanitation" as a "cleaning crew", aka, an expendable special forces team that the nation of Ordos can disavow knowledge of in the event of things going too nasty.

The big villain of the campaign is a man who has decided that the world's governments have no right to keep secrets from their people and should be run fully by the people. His plan is to destabilize all nations of the world except for one which he will be taking over, using the period of chaos to unite them under a single allegiance and then rewrite the government in such a way that secrets can't be kept from their people.

I'm wanting the party to run into some dirty secrets of Ordos. "Necessary" crimes against their people and other forms of dirty laundry. My idea is to give the party the option to embrace the revolution and switch sides, or stand by the side of the imperfect and less idealistic system, but perhaps the more realistic. Problem? I can't think of dirty secrets. Any ideas?

[Hyena]

How about forcibly brainwashing criminals into soldiers?

[Obso1e7e]

How about forcibly brainwashing criminals into soldiers?

Ironically? That's about the only one I currently have. The government is trying to find a way to forcibly create warforged via implanting souls into golems, while binding the control elsewhere so the souls can be reused over and over. Kill the body and the same soldier is back on the front line in a week at the mere cost of some sculpted rocks.

[Firest Kathon]

Maybe they find out that the nation has expendable special forces teams that they can disavow knowledge of in the event of things going too nasty :smallamused:

[Asheram]

1. The Ordos are taxating the larger smuggling rings and being paid off for their silence in order to keep a larger budget, somtimes even killing off the smugglers and selling the product as their own.

2. The Ordos occasionally prune the dissident tree, making sure that political enemies disappear.

3. The Ordos are occasionally using blackmail and threats to keep the current goverment in power, even occasionally murdering "enemies of the state".



Best tip I would give is to start looking up every dirty rumor about the CIA, GRU and KGB ever in circulation and start picking.

[Driderman]

- A violent dissident group is actually a puppet organization of the government, as a useful diversion tool. When they need a distraction from a scandal, the dissidents blow up something, when they need a boogeyman the dissidents kill innocent civilians in a way that will make the people question their government less and support it more.

- Ordos special forces assist evil nations in fighting their enemies in return for economic/political considerations.

- Ordos operatives are actually involved in illegal activities in their own country; Selling weapons/drugs/slaves/whatever appropriate

[Obso1e7e]

I've already got sort of a morally neutral and sketchy vibe going so far. The party kidnapped the banker of the financial backer of a rebellion and left the head on the doorstep of the financial backer to "send a message".

It's one thing to do scummy things to your enemies for political gain. It's another to do them to your own people.

I like the idea of the party being requested to cause a terrorist attack to divert from a scandal and keep the order. I might use that one.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

- A violent dissident group is actually a puppet organization of the government, as a useful diversion tool. When they need a distraction from a scandal, the dissidents blow up something, when they need a boogeyman the dissidents kill innocent civilians in a way that will make the people question their government less and support it more.

- Ordos special forces assist evil nations in fighting their enemies in return for economic/political considerations.

- Ordos operatives are actually involved in illegal activities in their own country; Selling weapons/drugs/slaves/whatever appropriate

These ones are all ones I was going to come up with.

Basically, make the political secrets ones where the "enemies" of the state are actually placed their by the state to keep their real enemies weakened. Everything becomes secondary to maintaining the state, maintaining those in power, in power. If that means organizing a mutiny to get rid of troublesome military leaders, so be it. If that means poisoning a hospital with the aim of scapegoating a rising political figure, that also goes.

If that means supporting a rebellion in a region to discredit a regional governor, then that works too.

[paladinofshojo]

How about the current government of Ordos was put in place in reaction to some economic/military/political chaos whose responsibility for its existence is complicated at best. The current government came to power by blaming some minority group: Gnomes, Dwarves, Orcs, Trolls, whatever. Seeing them as "Undesirables" and "Responsible for all the sufferings to the Great Nation", the government then usurps ALL political power, under the pretenses that democracy is a conception that the Undesirables and Enemies of the State use to weaken and deteriorate Ordos from the inside. Then, the government goes under a massive militarization and infrastructure building campaign. In about two decades, the entire country is rebuilt with one of the best armed forces in the world. Then they begin to invade and conquer their neighbors, one by one. Under the pretenses of "self-defense" after some dead body in another army uniform was conveniently found on their border or just to "share our greatness" with the rest of the world. Ordos goes on a campaign for world conquest. And what of the Undesirables, many of whom had "completely disappeared"? Well no one talks about it, but everyone knows that soldiers had rounded them up in several "camps" on the outskirts of their territories, where they cannot escape. There unspeakable horrors befall these poor souls.

How about your party is scouting a forest and finds one of these "camps", seeing completely starved men with lashes on their backs and terror in their eyes?

What's more, just to add irony, how about the "Big Villian" hails from Ordos as well, but he's also a member of the "Undesirables" the government is trying to purge. His viewpoint didn't help his cause so he's pretty much "Public Enemy #1" and equivalent to the "boogeyman" as the government literally blames him for EVERYTHING. Natural disasters? he consorted some powerful magi to cause it. War Campaigns turning sour? He used his spy network to take Ordos military secrets and sell them to the enemy for asylum. To further slander the villain's reputation they also portray him as a sexual deviant or a cannibal, just to further dehumanize (you know that I mean) him towards the Ordos citizens.

[Slipperychicken]

After severe pay cuts, many officials became corrupt, taking money in exchange for favors. Not all of them, mind you, just enough to give the right impression. At times, it feels like you need to graft to make the system work at all. There are good souls in there too, loyally doing their jobs and trying to fight the corruption.

During one of the wars, the Ordo government persecuted their enemy's main ethnic group, sending them to internment camps and seizing their assets without recompense. They struck that from the history books, of course, the victors write history. There is very little official recognition.

Ordo maintains secret overseas prison/torture facilites, where it sends enemies of the state without fair trial. It treats detainees very poorly, often torturing, starving, and abusing them.

[Dr.Epic]

Watch Game of Thrones. I'm pretty sure that show has just about every possible political secret imaginable.

[genmoose]

Personally if it's a neutral good nation, then I don't think the idea about planting revolutionaries as a distraction is a good idea. To me that's more of an evil act, or at the very least lawful neutral (law and order at all costs). Instead if you really want to keep Ordos as a generally good nation with a few skeletons in the closet I have two ideas:

Honest mistake cover up that maybe went too far. Let's say the government at some point was working on some grand social project; something that would provide cheap and easy energy/food/transportation/housing for the masses. Something goes horribly wrong with the project (zombie uprising, widespread disease, etc) and a lot of people end up dead. The government covers it up and plays it as a horrible natural disaster. The government did the best it could and made some tough decisions, but if the people found out it would provide enough popular pressure to collapse the government. The next group most likely to take power may be worse and thousands will die/suffer in the chaos of the transition.


Ok so I blatantly stole this from South Park. Perhaps the government purposely creates convoluted conspiracies and periodically leaks them to the press. It's never anything horrible, but the whole purpose is to make people think that the government is way more competent than it really is. In truth they can barely provide basic services, fiscal problems abound, and general mismanagement. The 'brilliant' conspiracies keep media attention off real problems and let people think that the government is some all powerful entity that can do 'anything' and only gets caught because of intrepid reporters.

They do it so the people give them more time to actually try to fix their problems. Maybe it happened accidentally at first, but once the government saw how everyone forgot about the real issues, they kept the lies going. Kind of like continuing to drink rather than dealing with the hangover. Like the first example if the extent of the lie becomes public the government might fall and lead to more trouble than currently exists.


Edit: And I realized the first idea is basically Serenity. So maybe it isn't as original as I thought.

[Obso1e7e]

I'm not restricting it to neutral good acts obviously, even though the country itself is generally neutral good. This is because good countries can do bad things for the greater good. Bad people in a good government can get away with doing bad things. People who have learned to do what it takes to keep the nation secure are more likely to do a numbers game "Sacrifice 100 people to save 1000? Done."