So in my story there's a corporation that is trying to start a war between three separate factions in order to profit from arms sales. How would they go about starting this war? Perhaps they assassinate on faction's leader? Perhaps they sell arms for cheap to another faction? What else could they do? Thanks for your help!
A good eye on today's politics will give you information above, plus lots more. As the majority of wars are created by corporate warlords.
I'm assuming that the idea is for them to ignite the war subtly. Well, how they start the war depends on who the factions are, and what is important to them. Its not enough for them to pass along her rumors and such, they need to really upset the fabric of what these groups stand for. Assassinating one leader would only bring heat back on themselves. Selling weapons cheaper to one faction than another, would also bring heat on themselves and bring the war to them, not the others. So use the groups motives against them. Without more information about the groups we are talking about i unfortunately cant help any more than that. Good luck!
It would also help if certain politicians and leaders from at least one of the sides are working with the corporations, or at the least are easily influenced by them. Another thing to consider is to have something the two countries are already competing over or arguing over (like a plot of land, sphere of influence over a minor country, economic rights to a certain region, etc.), and then use that as a context for war. For instance, WWI happened not simply because Archduke Ferdinand got assassinated. It happened because of a complex web of alliances throughout Europe, where different nations sought to protect each other in order to protect their own interests, and for certain countries, that was defending the stability (or lack thereof) in the Balkans. Anyhow, the whole end of all this is to get the common people angry. Once people support a war, even if for the stupidest reasons, then the leadership of a country will have more than enough support they need to start it. Thus, perhaps the most important thing for you to focus on is how to get the people to support the war; if people didn't support the war in the first place, then the leadership would be facing a very angry population, which is something even the most authoritarian governments have to worry about. Anyhow, this could all get very complex. One of my current projects currently deals with similar issues (although they sort of take a back seat to the main focuses), where different factions vying for power throughout the world are trying to manipulate and beat each other and stuff like that. There are many factors that could easily come into play - political, international, economic, cultural, historical, geographical, sheer luck, etc. - and there are simply many ways you can go about this, for better or worse.
Very well said. The whole idea would be to undermine the other factions without them knowing, and subsequently turn them against each other.
Ok here's a bit more information for you:: The world in which this takes place is a fantasy setting that has been brought into the modern day world. Imagine if Lord of the Rings/Eragon/Wheel of Time met Sin City/Gangs of New York/The Departed. The three factions in question are elves, dwarves, and goblins. The corporation is called "Spellcorp" and it is a corporation that develops, engineers, perfects, and owns production rights to magic spells and other magic objects. They wish to manufacture a war for profit, but their CEO also has his own secret agenda that I won't go into now. The first act of the story takes place in the capital, where the three races have intermixed, somewhat, with some racial tension. The motivations for war are: --Goblins are tired of being second-class citizens to the higher class, snobby elves. They have formed a mob (think like the Black Panthers) fighting for Goblin supremacy. Spellcorp indirectly supplied the Goblin Mob with weapons by subtly "leaking" information of a shipment of machine guns and other magic weapons, which they poorly defended, allowing the Goblins to attacks it and seize the weapons. --Spellcorp sent assassins to kill the Dwarf King, whom they slayed and made it look like it was done by Goblins, including leaving slain Goblin corpses as if they had been killed in defense of the King. --I need a reason for why the Elves want to enter into the war, besides just wanting to maintain the peace between the other two races. Ultimately I just want all the races to hate each other and be clamoring for war. I need more ways for Spellcorp to ensure that this war takes place. Hope this helps!
Hi, The goblins as an underlass is a good idea. But you need a movement for them to follow - Goblin Rights! or some such. Then give the movement credibility even as you wipe away leaders in mysterious circumstances which other goblins will assume are due to the ruling classes. Soon you'll have protests, riots and if the state cracks down hard enough imposing strict controls, open rebellion. Political assassinations on their own seldom are enough to start wars, the assassination of the arch duke and WWI being an exception. But wars are often ignited by these sorts of things after other things have been going on. Competition for mineral resources, trade barriers, disputes over fishing rights,and maybe another terrorist group setting bombs or some such in the background. Religion is also always a good reason for people to hate one another. As for the elves, in most books they're a stay at home, magical tree loving bunch. So why would they go to war? The answer would probably be if they felt threatened. So say the goblins wanted to chop down their forests, technology upset the smooth operation of magic, or maybe a church that hated people with sharp ears. A few good kidnappings and executions of prominent leaders / princesses might not go astray either. And if elven traders were being lockedup and their goods seized, so much the better. Cheers.
There's a lot of ways to start a war. All it takes is tenuous relations and most anything could set it off. Kill off a leader and frame another faction, kill or hurt civilians in the faction, make it look like one faction is planning to steal food/resources from another.. It doesn't matter if the evidence is circumstantial. If people are suspicious of one another to begin with they won't be logical about it.
Hmmmm... as psychotick says, it's a hard task to convince Elves to do anything brash. Perhaps a poison is developed and an Elvan Queen \ someone high up is dying (of course, done by Spellcorp) and the only known antidote is thought to be held by one of the other factions? Just a thought
Ok, thanks for the advice. I think I'm going to have someone (or something) killing off Elves in the forest, like the keep finding bodies all over so they impose a martial law in their Elven capital city and keep people barricaded within it for their protection. Then Spellcorp sets off a huge bomb in the middle of the city and kill a certain amount of them (this is just the elven capital, not the capital of the whole nation which is the assimilated races together). This draws the Elves into the conflict because they blame the dwarves, who's expertise in technology makes them the likely targets. So we have almost a rock-paper-scissors dichotomy where the Goblins hate the Elves for putting them down, The Elves hate the dwarves because they think they set off a bomb in their capital, and the Dwarves hate the Goblins for assassinating their King. From there I suppose the three factions begin subtly moving their soldiers toward the capital city, where the climax will occur in a fiery battle. How does that sound? Any other ideas?
i've seen several... can't recall titles other than 'war, inc.' with john and joan cusack, but you can find out for yourself with a plot search on IMDb... there's at least one british one and several hollywood flicks based on the premise...
You say that The Elves were consider snobbish by the Goblins, so maybe The Elves want to enter the war to make the other factors less powerful so they can be the dominant species in your world.
Ok, I've decided that what I'm going to have the Dwarf King assassinated and Spellcorp leaves bodies of Goblins so that the blame is on them. The dwarves then want to enter into war with the Goblins, and look to the Elves to join them. The Elves want to stay out of the conflict though because Elves are more just out for themselves. This sours relations between Dwarves and Elves. Then, the Elf capital is hit by "fire-bombs" by Spellcorp which do exactly what they sound like. There are some that are purposefully left undetonated and which let them be identified as Dwarven made, thus making the Elves join the war against the Dwarves. Then the whole story culminates in a huge battle at the central capital of the whole nation. This pretty much covers the help I needed. This is just the backdrop for my main story anyway.
