Creating a fictional conspiracy

[Omnis]

In the first book set in my fictional universe, I'm planning to detail the uncovering of a plot by a secretive cabal of conspirators to take over an entire planet. Their plans are to gradually infiltrate its government, swiftly execute a coup/takeover which will give them absolute power over the entire populace. Their plans are then to completely re-engineer the society of the planet from the top down according to their own ideological vision, a process which will leave millions dead and reduce virtually the entire civilian population to a state of inhuman slavery. The book will involve the protagonists getting wind of this conspiracy and engaging in a race against time to stop it, leading up to an ultimate climax and twist ending. Right now, this is about as far as I've been able to get in setting up the plot. I've been trying to overcome my writer's block and get some ideas for the actual details by reading conspiracy thrillers, but almost all the ones I've come across either focus on the actions of small terrorist cells (who cause a significant amount of destruction but never actually seize power), organized crime, or the covering up of singular murders. None of them seem to deal with anything involving the infiltration and overthrow of a government from the inside out such as I'm hoping to portray. Could anyone recommend some authors who DO deal with this sort of thing? Thanks.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

The only "plot to overthrow government" story that comes to mind right now is The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert A Heinlein, although that was more like the American Revolution staged on the moon.

 

[Gumboot]

Given how popular this topic is in the "real world", I would recommend looking into actual conspiracy theories rather than authors that have covered it. If you do this you're more likely to uncover inspiring details that will give you plot ideas of your own, as opposed to copying someone else's.

 

[Piousflea]

I agree with Gumboot. Read some historical nonfiction about just about any war, there'll be plenty of conspiracies around. Maybe do some wikipedia surfing and go for some obscure ones. The obvious stuff like Operation Valkyrie, Benedict Arnold, Guy Fawkes, Julius Ceasar, etc etc have all been done to death. (and that's not even mentioning religious/scriptural tales)

 

[Venusian Broon]

Problem is of course, if your reading a non-fiction book about a (secret) conspiracy, then of course it's failed.

When I first read your plot basics Omnis, I kinda thought about the communist revolution in China and what has happened post WW2 - it (sorta) fits the bill - and then you've got a secretive cabal (the Gang of Four in the 1970s) that were involved in the cultural revolution (which was pretty nasty for the Chinese people) was eventually removed by coup d'etat.

So if I was looking for historical clues, that's a suggestion.

Off the top of my head the only SF (ish) fiction work that heavily involves conspiratory theories is The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton - but it's not really a thriller and a its child of its time i.e. a bit of a hippy! But it's still a great book. Oh, And of course there is the big favourite of mine Focaults Pendulum - by Umberto Eco. But again, probably doesn't really intersect material-wise with what you are looking for.

Of course in SF it much more natural to have aliens (= red commie scum!) secretly take over the world in the way that you have suggested, rather than just a bunch of boring humans - which I think is the reason I'm struggling to come up with any suggestions from SF.

 

[Gumboot]

I was thinking more of reading up on actual conspiracy theories, as opposed to actual conspiracies.

So stuff like the JFK assassination, moon landings, free masons, Illuminati, NWO, the UN taking over America (black helicopters), 9/11, etc.

The conspiracy theories surrounding these events and topics are all false, of course, but they all feed into the "shadowy organisation trying to take over the world" so you're likely to find some ideas there.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I was thinking of JFK as a potential place to look when I was writing my reply above - so the films JFK and to a lesser extent Nixon (good old O. Stone) are good starting points to take you down that road.

The problem with the vast bulk of conspiracy theories though is, simply put, they are batsh*te insane and to make work in the real world* you realise that it just couldn't happen.


* Or a fictional world that you want to feel very realistic.

 

[Piousflea]

On second thought,

The problem with conspiracies big enough to attempt to overthrow an entire government is that they tend to involve a lot of people. Once you have too many people in on a conspiracy, one of them will eventually betray the rest of the conspiracy somehow. And by definition, a conspiracy plot doesn't have the popular or military support to win a direct conflict against the existing government. (If they did, they would be a revolution, coup d'etat, or legitimate elected government) So once a conspiracy is discovered it is essentially dead.

One of my biggest complaints about the common modern-day conspiracy theories (whether they involve the Masons, Illuminati, UN, US military, or oil companies) is that the most popular verisons of the conspiracies assume that just about anyone with wealth or power is part of the conspiracy. From a logical and historical perspective, it is absurd to think that a conspiracy could include thousands of rich, powerful, willful people. There are enough crazy risk-taking entrepeneurs among the "1%" that at least a few of them would risk death or worse just to mess with the conspirators, and they'd very quickly bring down any conspiracy.

Depending on the level of mind-altering and mind-replacing (AI) tech in a given sci-fi multiverse, shadowy conspiracies running an entire planet could be significantly more plausible than in real-life.

 

[Montero]

. Their plans are to gradually infiltrate its government, swiftly execute a coup/takeover which will give them absolute power over the entire populace. .

Sorry to be a wet blanket but my immediate reaction is that it wouldn't be that easy. It would be incredibly difficult to get people into enough key positions, with people in place some subordinates would rebel when "the moment" came, you'd have resistance cells, the works.

Basically what other folks are suggesting with mentioning powerful aliens and AI etc.

Where you have swift coup - my mind runs to African countries - it is so often the army that is taking power. Or generals with enough support to be successful, and even then you do on occasion get parts of the army saying "not today thank you".

In terms of SF, Babylon 5 does have something along the lines of what you are suggesting. There is a take over of the military and political structure rapidly followed by civil war as some parts of human society say "you must be kidding".


On the other hand, religion/other strong belief can influence behaviour massively. Look at the rise of the Green movement. They've gone from hand knitted hippy to green policies in all political parties in the UK. But that took 20 to 30 years.

Would also suggest trying to find examples from different cultures. Remember reading something in an online discussion somewhere (might even be SFF lounge) where there was the comment that the Mexican (think it was Mexican) government is far more careful not to annoy the populace than the US government, because the Mexican people are far more likely to take direct action than folks in the US so their government is a bit scared of its people.

So that is another thought. How homogeneous are the cultures on your planet? Would one approach fit all or does it need to be more tailored?

Further to previous.
OK, just realised that I concentrated too much on one bit of what you said. You are not talking about a successful almost instant takeover, but the plans for one which are uncovered and it may or may not succeed.

However, I think a lot of what I said above still applies. Because to make the book credible, the conspiracy has to have a real chance of succeeding so......


Further thought - you mention only being able to find fiction on small terrorist cells, organized crime and murder. I think it could be very, very difficult to write the overthrow of an entire government and make it appealing and human to the reader. If you write almost entirely from the viewpoint of the group trying to stop the overthow that could be more human. But, for the size/reach of the conspiracy, there is going to be an awful of lot of "OMG I've just found another bit" for the good guys point of view.
I like well rounded villains in a story - so writing on the conspiracy side would be a must for me as a reader.
There is also the parts of
What is the government structure that is being overthrown. (So making hierarchies and bureaucracy interesting and the reader caring that they are going to be lost)
How do those who are uninvolved on either side at the start of the book react as it all progresses?


For where to go to, as well as reading round the subject, you might just try playing "what if". So almost flow chart style, play with if I do this, what could follow? If you get multiple branches those could lead to other multiples and you may well have far too many threads for one book and then pick through what comes.

 

[Kamosis]

Last year we played a rpg game with a similar theme, there was this big corporation trying to take over the world and the first step in their agenda was to cause chaos and destruction, in the spam of three sessions they were able to plant poisonous seeds that would turn the arable lands in deserts, they destroyed inumerous oil rigs using brainwashed green fanatics and caused a global colapse in comunications with a high altitude EMP taking of a lot of satelites.

 

[Montero]

All of the above would most certainly cause global chaos and not run into the thought of green fanatics vs oil rigs or turning arable lands into deserts. But

1. Is the world worth being in charge of after that level of destruction?
2. How would the corporates/conspiracy cabal communicate without satellites?

and

I could see the corporates living off tinned food in their armed compounds, but with enough starving people they'd be over-run by unarmed mobs just by weight of numbers despite all the stockpiled machine guns and missiles.

Yeah, I guess for "we want to re-engineer society" you could plan to bump off a lot of people by those ideas and then be the only ones with any answers and people have to accept your answer to get fed but......

Maybe I'm expecting the conspiracy cabal/corporate to understand too much.
I've done a fair amount of 17th century re-enactment, read/watched documentaries on a moderate chunk of social and technological development and our western lifestyle has taken centuries to build, is incredibly networked and dependent and would take a very long time to re-build.

A small example. In the 17th century needles were valuable - as metal was all extracted by hand and it took a lot of skill to make a fine needle. So any woman owning a needle kept it in a special carrying case. If your house caught fire and you grabbed stuff quickly as you ran out the door - it would be your needle, possibly your spinning wheel, any metal tool and your cast iron cook pot (if you were rich enough to have one).
So what I am getting at is if you decimate the planetary population, who will farm the food, mine the metal, run the factories, deliver the raw materials and the manufactured goods?

Also, mining of metal in 17th century level was pits into the ground. We've probably mined most of the surface available metal and any stuff that you can get at with basic tools.
There has been a ladder of development, with each step including better tools which enabled the next step.

So, if you are plotting a serious drop in standard of living for the whole world (or at least the parts of it currently living western lifestyle), then you would actually need to build a seriously defensible area first, with farms, factories and mines and ideally your own oil well. That way you have carrots plus a good supply of sticks to ensure you stay on top.

You might want to look at some of the websites relating to end of the world for ideas as well. I've forgotten the name but there are folks in the US in particular who've withdrawn from modern society, live up in the hills, refuse to pay taxes etc. Look at stuff on them maybe.

Or in other words I'm highlighting a whole additional set of problems for Omnis, loosely labelled "by how much is it practical for the conspiracy to break the world"? With the sub-set options of them getting the plans right, and them getting the plans wrong.

Final thought - if you are re-engineer society, you will need to keep a communications media of some form working in order to spread the word.

 

[chrispenycate]

The only "plot to overthrow government" story that comes to mind right now is The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert A Heinlein, although that was more like the American Revolution staged on the moon.

Well, if you want Heinlein, you could try "Revolt in 2100" or "Sixth column"; but in both cases the “good guys” were the ones trying to overthrow a corrupt government (the difference between "freedom fighter" and "terrorist" being very much a matter of viewpoint. Innocents die, either way). There are plenty of would-be world dominators in print, but very often they are written as thrillers, without much concentration on practical details.

However, for pure conspiracy, not to be taken over seriously, have you read the Illuminatus triloggy (Robert Anton Wilson, not Heinlein, and Robert Shea); It's been a long time since I read it, and perhaps I wouldn't find it as amusing now, but at the time I enjoyed it.

 

[Venusian Broon]

oh what made me forget PKD's work!

Quite a lot of PKD's books have paranoic and conspiracy backgrounds (although none to memory involve the protagonist successfully overthrowing the 'black iron prison'.)

Again perhaps not really what you want - they're a bit more meta-physical and not really action orientated, but if you haven't read books such as "Man in the High Castle", "Ubik", "Flow my Tears, The Policeman Said", "Counterclock World", "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" or "Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep" then I would definitely recommend them!

 

[assasin]

try this. its fantasy, but it has a conspiracy in it, and its free.

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/drafts/warbreaker/Warbreaker_hardcover_1st_ed.pdf

 

[Scott R. Forshaw]

It may well interest you to take a look at world history. Adolf Hitler did something similar when he brought the Nazi party to power. I think you'll find it most informative. I studied it in school (albeit a long time ago, now) and it was certainly an eye opener.

 

[Vladd67]

If you want conspiracies, all be it of the tin foil hat brigade type check out David Icke's forum good for a laugh if nothing else.

 

[M3thiossis]

After spending ten years and on going researching conspiracies, I present the following;

The following are documented conspiracies and events:
-JFK Assassination
-A Plan for a New World Order
-Man Made UFOs and Patents
-The Threat of Nuclear War Hoax
-Free Energy Patents
-The Yugoslavian Space Program and NASA

The following are conspiracy theories which still require validation or are Flase:
-Aliens
-9/11 False Flag event
-Freemasons Rule the World
-The Apollo Moon Landing Hoax
-The Bunge Corporation
-The Gaalt Corporation
-Alternative 3
-The Report from Iron Mountain
-The Black Knight Satellite
-The James Bond Code
-The Vril Society
-Hollow Earth
-The Illuminati
-The Holy Bloodline of David (Holy Grail)
-Albert Einstein did not write his physics papers
-The Gemstone File
-The Denver International Airport Conspiracy

Notice the ratio. Ofcourse, these are just a few out of hundreds that are out there, but is enough to spark some inspiration.

 

[RJM Corbet]

A successful conspiracy, as Dave once observed, must be tight? There are a lot of disturbing 'coincidences' around 9/11 for instance (there really are) but too many people would have had to know about it ...

 

[M3thiossis]

The main problem, which could also feature as a tool in literature works, is distinguishing between emotion and spin, which you get from depending on another medium to attain a sense of truth and your own investigation of documents and science. Self conviction of truth is all you can be sure of. With regard to 9/11 I can only regard it as a list entry until the facts are brought out, yes there are many uncomfortable coincidences and I can understand that it is hard not be emotional about it. Impartiality is key.

What can be said about conspiracies in general though is, if you dig deep enough, you can find things which transform your life and after that, as much as it sounds cliche', there truly is no going back from your old life.