Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-4830106-20130810030606/@comment-10390252-20130916184039

I wonder if the Fauna are a recent occurance - genetic mutations caused by poor working conditions and inadequate safeguards whilst working with raw Dust (which is mildly mutagenic but only in vast quantities).

In any case, I'm pretty sure that the SDC is a mix between a modern defence multinational and a petroleum giant: practically a law unto itself with its own army (laughingly described as 'paramilitary security contractors'). Out in the Tribal Lands where the Dust is quarried and refined, there are no Hunters and Huntresses and certainly no police. The plant and quarry managers are practically petty vassal kings and have the power of life and death over their work-forces.

Of late, improvements in communications have allowed the wider world to learn just what is happening out there. Additionally, Faunus who have migrated to the City States (previously too cowed by the threats of reprisals against family members they left behind) have suddenly started getting very good at lobbying and publicly protesting conditions in the quarries and refineries.

The SDC is now fighting a desperate rearguard action against stricter regulation and maybe even criminal charges against its most 'efficient' managers and supervisors. It is a corporate crisis made all the worse by the fact that White Fang, previously just another protest group amongst the Faunus, has abruptly turned into a terrifyingly effective terrorist organisation.

On the SDC's side is that old, regrettable fact that money talks and never talks louder than with politicians. Many of the political leaders of the City-States are in the company's pocket and are trying to block/dilute legislation as well as trying to confuse the matter by attempting to criminalise whistleblowers. Additionally, the company is using sposorship and advertising to try to put pressure on news organisations like VNN to marginalise those who oppose the status quo and even frame White Fang for attacks on civil rights protests by SDC 'security contractors'.