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View Full Version : DM Help Thought experiment: potential consequences of a global terrorist plot.



Bulhakov
2014-10-08, 06:22 AM
I want some ideas of the consequences of the following event on a typical modern-day campaign setting (with a hint of World of Darkness, but I want to leave the supernatural factors out of this as much as possible).

A large hacker/terrorist conspiracy (think "Anonymous" but with financial resources to hire numerous hitmen/mercenaries) manages a coordinated assassination of the world's 100 richest persons. They die in very different ways (snipers, drive-by's, plane crashes, carbombs, drone/missile/mortar strikes even some suicide bombings) through a multitude of independent agents (many of them professionals, but also a lot of amateurs and low level thugs, as well as few religious fanatics). Most of the agents were unaware of the scale of the event they were participating in. There will be a lot of potential plot-hooks (and a lot of dead ends) during the investigation of each death, but what I'm looking for are the economical and political consequences of the conspiracy, especially that the terrorists released a statement that they will repeat the attacks in a year (and every year if they are not caught).

The combined wealth of the victims is greater than the combined wealth of the bottom half of Earth's population. Most of it will get inherited by immediate family, but a lot of the wealth would get carved up very quickly by inheritance disputes and competitors seizing the opportunity. I see a lot of the next "top 100" building private armies (many already do), disappearing from public life and/or giving away enough of their wealth to charity to drop off the list (this is stated as the terrorist's intended goal).

I'm looking for all sorts of potential consequences rising up within the next year. What would happen to the stock markets? US and world politics? (a lot of the victims are extremely powerful lobbyists) What would be the public's response?

Storm_Of_Snow
2014-10-08, 07:14 AM
Stock markets - thinking of the list as it is now (and without mentioning actual names), some of the corporate people on that list aren't involved in the day to day running of their companies anymore, others are effectively the face of that company and their loss could have a tremendous impact on their companies stocks, even with succession plans in place.

Politics wouldn't be that badly affected - for the most part, it's industrial groups and occasionally corporations that lobby, rather than individuals. Maybe some of the charitable focussed lobbying would vanish.

That said, there's a few countries where the leader is kept in place mainly thanks to the rich in that country (if the leader's not actually on the list themselves - with their countries security services protecting them, and possibly those of other countries on the basis that they're a better bet than any of the alternatives, they're someone it's going to be next to impossible to get anywhere near to), so there may be some instability, possibly even a few revolutions.

You'd almost certainly get unaffiliated groups rising up in the aftermath - either pushing their own agendas, trying to claim responsibility, or just seeking to exploit the events for their own ends. And counter-groups to those - "white-hatters" investigating the events on their own and causing all sorts of rumours and false leads, people using it as an excuse to "protect" the world from whichever group they dislike etc. And the inevitable conspiracy theorists who say it was all faked and the "victims" are all alive and well and living somewhere secluded, a plot by any number of choices of a list of groups, or whatever.

For the public, you'd get shock, outrage and anger, then everyone would carry on with their lives, only getting shocked, outraged and angered if something else happened, or if reminded of the events.

tomandtish
2014-10-08, 02:18 PM
When it comes to the richest people in the world, the impact on companies may not be as significant as one might think. A lot depends on whether the companies or industries the person is associated with are publicly traded or privately owned.

Software company Banana is publicly traded and the #1 software company in the world. The founder, Jared Sunstar, is top of the richest people list, and is company president (figurehead role) and owns 10% of stock (willed to his wife). However, he hasn't been involved in software writing in years. Impact of his death on the company will be minimal.

Macebook is the #1 social media site in the world, and is not publically traded. Owned entirely by Gilda Oakshield. She's number 54 on the richest people list. She plays an active role in all company decisions, and still plays a major role in new software development. Impact of her death on the company would be significant.

But it's important to remember that economic and political impact is often based on perception. Recessions and depressions are as much based on a lack of confidence as actual circumstances. Political changes can be based on what people think something means versus what it actually means. Why are the terrorists doing this? I see that the group claims credit for it and says they'll do it again next year, but other than giving it to charity, I don't see stated goals. After all, charity is a very broad term. Remember, there are charities out there with opposing goals. This could be very interesting, because those involved with each victim may have their own theories. Some may assume that liberal extremists are taking out people with sound conservative values. Others may think it's actually a foreign terrorist group targeting their country (note that a plurality of the current actual list comes from one country). Still others might think it's an ABC agency plot to further a particular country's control (and the victims from that country are sacrifices to maintain the cover).

One important thing to remember is there can often be a backlash against an act of terror (which this definitively is). The terrorists killed the president of the Banana company? We'll show our support by buying more of their products.

More importantly, is charitable giving the real reason for the assassinations? Or is it a smoke screen? I ask because given the use of a wide variety of assassins, I suspect most governments are not going to buy this excuse (at least for a while). Thus the perception argument above applies not only to citizens and potential targets, but also to those investigating the attacks.

Beleriphon
2014-10-08, 02:38 PM
I'm looking for all sorts of potential consequences rising up within the next year. What would happen to the stock markets? US and world politics? (a lot of the victims are extremely powerful lobbyists) What would be the public's response?

Given the wide range of targets, and methods of assassination public perception would probably be minimal, largely because they wont know that it was orchestrated by the same group. Humans are surprisingly good at not caring about things that don't directly affect them or the people inside of their monkeysphere. As long as people have food in their bellies and nobody actively trying to kill them they'll generally just go along with things as they are.

Segev
2014-10-08, 02:48 PM
The trouble with the premise is the assumption - at least, I am getting the impression there's at least an implicit one - that the richest people in the world are all private citizens. This isn't true; most of those assassinated in this plot (assuming anything resembling the real world) will be Sheiks, Party Apratchniks (in China, for instance), tin-pot dictators, and Russian oligarchs. There ARE private sector individuals on the list; at one time, the Kennedys and the Rockefellers would have qualified (and might still), but there'd also be a lot of bleed-over into Senators and similar politicians.

So the impact would be felt in the response of these governments to the assassinations. Some would respond violently in an effort to find the killers. Others would collapse into turmoil due to the loss of the iron fist holding them together (as happens every generation in Banana republics and similar dictatorships).

A similar premise, though targeted at a different group of elites, is portrayed in the Vince Flynn novel Term Limits.

Beleriphon
2014-10-08, 03:01 PM
The trouble with the premise is the assumption - at least, I am getting the impression there's at least an implicit one - that the richest people in the world are all private citizens. This isn't true; most of those assassinated in this plot (assuming anything resembling the real world) will be Sheiks, Party Apratchniks (in China, for instance), tin-pot dictators, and Russian oligarchs. There ARE private sector individuals on the list; at one time, the Kennedys and the Rockefellers would have qualified (and might still), but there'd also be a lot of bleed-over into Senators and similar politicians.

I knew I forgot to mention something. One of the richest people in the world is the King of Saudi Arabia. If he gets assassinated what do you think happens to Saudi Arabia, and by extension much of the Middle East?

Also, the US according to Forbes has 452 billionaires as of 2014, China follows up with 115. A substantial number of those people are going to live in the US.

Segev
2014-10-08, 03:10 PM
I knew I forgot to mention something. One of the richest people in the world is the King of Saudi Arabia. If he gets assassinated what do you think happens to Saudi Arabia, and by extension much of the Middle East?

In our world? Another Saudi inherits and things move on. They're not exactly in a peaceful or stable region; the life of the King is replaced by that of another King.

veti
2014-10-08, 04:45 PM
OK, first things first: "Anonymous" is a really, really bad template for this imagined group. They're neither terrorists, nor a conspiracy, nor hackers.

But to address your question directly...

Political impact: would be huge. You thought the fallout from 9/11 was harsh? - you ain't seen nothin' yet. A lot of these people live in one country (the USA), and a lot of them have high political profiles; a tremendous number of senior politicians, and otherwise Very Important People such as the heads of intelligence agencies and media conglomerates, consider them personal friends. The American government, and many of its allies, would go to tremendous lengths to track down and "bring to justice" those responsible (where "bring to justice" means "die resisting an 'arrest' that has not even a fig-leaf's worth of lawfulness").

I would expect there to be enormous collateral damage, probably running to tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent people caught in the dragnet, and yet another massive upgrade to global surveillance infrastructure. Every security service in every country would be hugely embarrassed at having been so totally caught off guard, and you could expect a big flurry of activity from them - basically, rounding up the usual suspects - as they hunted for the perps. A tremendous amount of backside-covering by mid-level officials suddenly terrified of being singled out in the inquiry as someone who should have spotted/done something. Very likely, groups like Anonymous would be targetted at this stage, because they'd be easy to catch.

There would be significant public protest at all this, but it would be marginalised in the media and almost completely ignored. Attempts to organise opposition by social media would be thwarted by any means necessary (remember that the owners of Macebook and Splatter were among the victims). No fuss, they'd just amend terms of service to allow them to censor content on any grounds they want, and any posts they don't like would simply be "lost".

Economic impact: immediately it happens, there would be a tremendous dive in the stock market as everyone waits for "what happens next". After all, if something this big can happen, then The World Is Not As We Thought It Was, and markets hate uncertainty. The prices of gold and land would increase sharply. There would be an immediate and sharp recession, which would result in falling oil prices. Expect budget crises in every industrialised country (with the possible exception of Australia, as the Chinese government intervenes massively to prop up its economy and sucks in yet more Australian primary imports). The falling oil prices would have their own fallout in the Middle East (where a handful of very important people have been hit), but in the global crackdown already imposed by the CIA et al, the resultant unrest would be pretty much lost in the noise.

The public: it would be (even more) hard to tell what "the public" thinks about anything, because "public opinion" is already being massaged and spun fifty ways from Sunday, and an event like this would amplify that effort tenfold. Remember that media moguls, owners of social networking and marketing companies have been targeted, and their successors assume (hope) they will be again. Most people in the first world would probably stake out a position somewhere between "these terrorists must be stopped at any cost" and "I admire their organisation and their guts, but they really have gone too far this time". Public commentators, talking heads on TV etc. would give their expert opinions, and they'd be 95% behind the establishment; a few licensed mavericks would play devils' advocate, but they'd be spun as lunatics/simply ignored by everyone else.

However: there would be some places where public opinion was powerfully inclined the other direction, and in those places, people would firmly believe that the whole world was behind them and the revolution could be only days away. This feeling would grow deeper as the recession bites. There'd be widespread civil unrest, very possibly rioting in depressed areas of the US and Europe, and much larger areas of the third world. Probably wars and revolutions would break out in many places (think of the Arab Spring, but extended across most of Africa, South Asia and much of Latin America), but arguably that would just be bringing forward things that were going to happen sooner or later anyway. The US might try to intervene to prevent war in Mexico, or it might simply seal the border and let them get on with it - depending, probably, on how quickly the major corporations could pull their investments out.

Bulhakov
2014-10-08, 04:46 PM
The terrorist hackers claim to have done this "4 the lulz" and will just throw the charity/wealth distribution thing as an offhand comment in one of their official statements. (e.g. "there's a very easy way to get off the list for next year... spread your wealth")

There will be some revolutions/fighting for power in the middle east and the old soviet block, but the campaign action will probably focus on the US.

I actually still haven't made up my mind about the make up of the terrorist group and whether they're actually in charge, or someone else is manipulating them.

Some ideas for the group members:
- actual hackers with various driving motivations (anarchy, socialism, wanting fame or to change the world)
- top security experts from the US govt (derailing/sabotaging the investigation)
- greedy sponsors that got rich thanks to anticipating the stock market reactions
- a person or two from the top 100 list that faked their deaths and disappeared
- supernatural/immortal beings who are doing it for their own agenda and/or entertainment

Another twist - the group also sent assassins to the 100 poorest persons in the world and waits to see if anyone in the world will notice the several strange deaths in remote 3rd world villages, make a connection and actually care. (and investigating those might give the players some valuable clues)

Berenger
2014-10-09, 03:42 AM
Another twist - the group also sent assassins to the 100 poorest persons in the world and waits to see if anyone in the world will notice the several strange deaths in remote 3rd world villages, make a connection and actually care. (and investigating those might give the players some valuable clues)

I'm not sure how to "rank" extreme poverty. There is a depressingly large number of people that own virtually nothing, not even the most basic things like food or clothing. You'd have to pick your 100 targets at random from a giant pool of people. Or would you target the persons with the biggest financial debt (those would generally still have a higher standard of living than people that have been poor for their entire lives...)?

Bulhakov
2014-10-09, 04:50 AM
I'm not sure how to "rank" extreme poverty....)?

My plan was to just "ask for directions". Send agents to the statistically poorest regions in the world and ask "what's the poorest village in this area? -> who's the poorest villager in your village?"

Tracking the progress of such an agent could lead the players to some valuable clues.

Brother Oni
2014-10-09, 05:35 AM
My plan was to just "ask for directions". Send agents to the statistically poorest regions in the world and ask "what's the poorest village in this area? -> who's the poorest villager in your village?"

Tracking the progress of such an agent could lead the players to some valuable clues.

There are tribes in the Amazon rainforest who have limited to no contact with the outside world, so theoretically speaking they would be your 100.

They also wouldn't show up on any news story unless loggers or other folk come across the massacred village and tracking a person through the Amazon is going to be difficult to say the least.

Bulhakov
2014-10-09, 06:29 AM
That's why the bottom 100 will be randomly spread out around the globe and go by local subjective measurements of "poor".

The top 100 will be concentrated in the US, but aside from the easily recognizable top few names I plan to include a lot of fictional victims and "unofficial" billionaires (e.g. oligarchs from Russia and the old soviet block or corrupt Chinese govt. officials).

Segev
2014-10-09, 10:52 AM
I do think people are overestimating the chaos. It will have impact, and the news will go wild with speculation. Depending on whether the terrorist group's list of "top 100" is honestly going for everybody based on wealth they command, rather than based on a more narrow but obscured political agenda (e.g. "we hate capitalists" or "we hate dictators" or "we hate politicians" or "we hate left-handed people") that just happens to let them CLAIM their list is based on wealth, then the assertion that the media will try to bend public opinion for or against the "anti-terrorist" effort depends strongly on what the perceived political agenda is.

There won't be a sudden recession or depression unless governments take action trying to "prevent" it or the like; organizations move on without their leaders, replacing them or collapsing and being themselves replaced. The deaths in nations where these are the leaders will be the most impacted, and the more central to the power structure and the more violent the factions seeking to put a new leader in place, the more impact on the country in question it will have.

The more genuine the republic or democracy, the smoother the transition(s) to new leadership will be.

There WILL be outrage and high-level governmental efforts to find the culprits. But there won't be the enormous "our way or the highway" that others have implied. Not unless the "terrorists" are actually the leaders who are trying to impose "our way or the highway" through fear and manipulation, and thus have things set up to push that agenda well before they start the murders.

JusticeZero
2014-10-09, 01:37 PM
It would have a big impact - it would give rise to a corporate police state. The ultra-rich would probably work more tax cuts out of it. Most of it would come on the backs of the poor.

Segev
2014-10-10, 09:21 AM
*facepalm* Tax cuts don't come "on the backs" of anybody. Tax hikes do. Inflation impacts the poor more than the rich, and is a result of increased government spending (printing/borrowing money). It wouldn't give rise to a police state simply because the threat is too narrow. Systems are too distributed for the 100 richest people in the world to do more than cause irritating shake-ups when assassinated. There'd be problems, but most things would trundle on.

I will strive not to veer off into a dissertation on how tax cuts really affect revenues, but it bears re-emphasis: cutting taxes does not increase the burden on anybody. Raising them increases the burden on everybody. Carve-outs are bad as a general rule because they make the system more byzantine and costly.

The real abuse of corporate bigwigs cronying up with governmental leaders isn't in the tax code (though there is a little bit, which is how GE pays no taxes at all while getting billions in government grants), but in the regulatory agencies. Regulations do more to protect the bigwigs than the public; they are in place to increase the cost of entry for competition to the point that competition cannot compete.

The assassinations proposed would have no impact on this. It might make the cronies at the top panic a bit, but they'd never be able to use "the terrorist threat" to get the kinds of things by that would give rise to a police state, not when it's so obviously narrowly confined to "the richest 100 people in the world." You'd have a hard time convincing the majority (or even a plurality) of people that this makes them in danger sufficient to justify giving up freedoms.

tomandtish
2014-10-10, 11:43 AM
The trouble with the premise is the assumption - at least, I am getting the impression there's at least an implicit one - that the richest people in the world are all private citizens. This isn't true; most of those assassinated in this plot (assuming anything resembling the real world) will be Sheiks, Party Apratchniks (in China, for instance), tin-pot dictators, and Russian oligarchs. There ARE private sector individuals on the list; at one time, the Kennedys and the Rockefellers would have qualified (and might still), but there'd also be a lot of bleed-over into Senators and similar politicians.

So the impact would be felt in the response of these governments to the assassinations. Some would respond violently in an effort to find the killers. Others would collapse into turmoil due to the loss of the iron fist holding them together (as happens every generation in Banana republics and similar dictatorships).

A similar premise, though targeted at a different group of elites, is portrayed in the Vince Flynn novel Term Limits.

Actually, a lot depends on how the group itself is defining richest. Since they are targeting richest individuals, they probably are using a methodology similar to Forbes: How much money does the person actually have.

From Forbes:


We do not include royal family members or dictators who derive their fortunes entirely as a result of their position of power, nor do we include royalty who, often with large families, control the riches in trust for their nation. Over the years Forbes has valued the fortunes of these wealthy despots, dictators and royals but have listed them separately as they do not truly reflect individual, entrepreneurial wealth that could be passed down to a younger generation or truly given away.

So most dictators, princes, etc. don't make the list unless the money is actually theirs, and not just money they control because of position. In the current top 100 I only saw two who qualify as princes, dictators, or politicians (politician is not active as such), and they have all made their money as a result of other activities, not as a direct result of their position.

It's certainly possible the group in this game could use different criteria. But then they aren't targeting the actual richest people in the world, but the people who control the most money (not the same thing). I certainly agree, the impact from that could actually be more severe.


There are tribes in the Amazon rainforest who have limited to no contact with the outside world, so theoretically speaking they would be your 100.

They also wouldn't show up on any news story unless loggers or other folk come across the massacred village and tracking a person through the Amazon is going to be difficult to say the least.

This certainly goes to show that "poor" is subjective. If the tribe is able to feed, clothe, and care for itself to a standard that all members feel is acceptable, are they poor?

An interesting way to do it might be to take one person from country (I'd actually do same city) where you took one of the richest. Then see if anyone puts that together. Is everyone paying so much attention to the gun shot death of the president of the Banana company and the strangulation death of the owner of Macebook that they fail to pay any attention to the two homeless people who died in the exact same way and at the exact same time (leave subtle clues).

Brother Oni
2014-10-10, 12:34 PM
This certainly goes to show that "poor" is subjective. If the tribe is able to feed, clothe, and care for itself to a standard that all members feel is acceptable, are they poor?


Normally I'd agree with you, except that the metric the OP originally proposed was by going to the statistically poorest regions, before he altered it to a local subjective measurement of 'poor'.

Slipperychicken
2014-10-10, 12:47 PM
It would probably help to read up on who these people are exactly. Here's a list (http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#tab:overall).


Honestly? I think markets would plunge for a while, these people would be quickly replaced, billionaires would be on-edge and beef up their security, business would continue as usual, the conspiracy would be immediately dogpiled and stamped into nonexistence, and nutjob conspiracy-theorists would never stop talking about it.

Segev
2014-10-10, 01:07 PM
It would probably help to read up on who these people are exactly. Here's a list (http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#tab:overall).


Honestly? I think markets would plunge for a while, these people would be quickly replaced, billionaires would be on-edge and beef up their security, business would continue as usual, the conspiracy would be immediately dogpiled and stamped into nonexistence, and nutjob conspiracy-theorists would never stop talking about it.

This is much closer to what I think might actually happen.

Even if the conspiracy wasn't taken out and kept up its reign of terror, the stock market would eventually stop caring as it would just be another factor of life that the richest people periodically die.