Quote:
Originally Posted by Empada
My opinion is probably heavly biased in my lost of faith in institutions here, and it was more about them don’t want to do something than them can’t do it.
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In my experience,
institutions do not have good intentions and mostly default to perpetuating their own existence and importance. Individuals, anywhere in the world, may or may not have good intentions, but a key point about societies is that the unconscious forces that affect them and the uncaring instutions that bestride them are usually much more powerful than any personality or intention. Change is always occuring, but outside of inspirational fiction, it cannot usually be directed or controlled. Fighting the system can be heroic, but even without any concerted plan or united effort, the system will win.
This isn't just a negative point of view, as the systems of most successful societies happen to be set up so that most people who desire power over other people will spend most of their time and focus fighting each other and institutions that by design oppose each other and end up not being able to do too much damage. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is what the rest of us manage to get up to while those who pursue power are busy with each other.
From a setting design point of view, the world of my campaign was our world until the supernatural started to emerge (or reemerge) in the 1980s and 1990s. Even into the 2000s, it was still effectively our world, because rare and unprovable supernatural influences that mostly occurred at night in outnof the way places mostly didn't change history. And when some people discovered the supernatural along the way, but failed to secure any scientific evidence or reproduce any effects in a laboratory setting, they found out how resistant the institutions of the world are to paradigm-altering change.
Most nations in the setting have a government that is unaware of the supernatural, even in 2018-2019, even with violence and instability in the world perhaps an order of magnitiude than it is in our real world. Most nations also have lots of small groups of trusted friends, coworkers or other allies who've encountered the supernatural through their private and professional lives, but had no success with convincing the official authorities.
As a result, what amount to extralegal factions of supernaturally-savvy people exist within many agencies, bureaucracies, departments and organizations in the world, working around regulations and supervisors that insist on ignoring the truth of a huge threat to humanity.
Brazil is different than many other nations not because I believe that demographic institutions and the rule of law are stronger there than elsewhere, but precisely because elements of the armed forces, intelligence and security services, very much including the police, are already experienced and prepared in working secretly and against official laws, for purposes that the democratic government may not support. That is bad in the real world, but makes it easier for shadowy groups of monster hunters to spring up and grow in power.
Essentially, the Brazil I plan to feature in my campaign has a Deep State of those in power within the intelligence, military and security apparatus who know about the supernatural and have formed an informal allegiance to fight it.