Kal
Whispers
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Officially, FAAD is but one of many divisions within Multistellar Consolidated Financials, a thoroughly boring financial management firm best known for not being involved in a single scandal, tax fraud scheme, or unfulfilled contract. It is, in other words, very good at being boring.
In reality, most of Multistellar Consolidated Financials is a smokescreen for the unofficial parts of FAAD - the blacksites manned by emotionless aliens and prescient brain-creatures that are necessary for large-scale 'prescient investment'. Indeed, the juiciest opportunities are generally sent to entirely different corporate structures, shadowy holding companies designed to generate massive wealth then dissolve into the ether.
In order to maintain the facade, FAAD frequently and purposefully loses money - on two separate occasions, it was even ordered to lose a fourth of its total assets to assuage suspicion. Despite this, it is impossible to deny that it is suspiciously profitable, despite its bizarre behaviour. After various audits, most regulatory bodies have been convinced that FAAD is either lucky or relying on some kind of 'insane AI system'.
The few employees aware of FAAD's true nature are all trained to resist telepathic interrogation. Despite this and other precautions, contingencies exist in case of full exposure - FAAD and MCF as a whole will be dissolved (and the employees compensated through a generous pension fund) and the blacksites transferred to other parts of Greystone's operations until a replacement can be formed.
In such an eventuality, the few employees aware of Greystone will have a choice - forget or relocate to Masque. While using the Force to predict the market is not strictly speaking illegal, the Grand Mercantile has determined that it is unlikely to sit well with the masses.
- Intent: A division dedicated to using the Force to predict the stock market.
- Image Credit: Bullish and Bearish in Stock Market by forbritballanimate
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: N/A
- Organization Name: Financial Augury and Analytics Division
- Officially the Financial Assessment and Analytics Divison
- Classification: Corporate Subdivision / Private Intelligence Agency
- Affiliation: Greystone Mercantile via Multistellar Consolidated Financials
- Organization Symbol: 'FAAD' in a bland font but tasteful font; rarely used.
- Description: FAAD is an opaque, inoffensive financial institution able to deliver consistently impressive results despite its bizarre investment strategies. It shuns publicity like the plague, preferring to increase its assets by rapidly shunting money back and forth - in order to conceal its uncanny ability to react to market trends before they occur, many of its investments are made through shell companies or done by buying and selling shares in index funds at oddly opportune moments. It is not unusual for FAAD to beat trading bots by a fraction of a second.
- Headquarters: Prosperia, Lorinia
- Actually the Grand Mercantile, Masque.
- Domain: N/A, negligible permanent real estate holdings.
- Notable Assets: FAAD operates out of a handful of luxurious branch offices, most of them located in the core worlds. Various surveillance centres and blacksites housing precognitive neurocogitators are the source of FAAD's quite frankly unnatural financial success.
- Hierarchy: FAAD operates under a veil of secrecy, its true nature known only to a handful of its organic employees. Individual branch offices are far more egalitarian, with managers being instructed to treat their subordinates well and evaluate their feedback fairly. Given the nature of FAAD's backers, poor managers tend to be removed from their position with nearly unerring efficacy.
- Membership: FAAD employs a few thousand accountants, financial analysts, middle managers, sentient resources personnel, and the like, as well as hundreds of thousands of Grey Ones and Neurocogitators. The latter group are a closely kept secret even to most managers and live out their entire natural lifespans in isolated blacksites and surveillance centres - they are assets, not employees, and can be expended.
- Climate: Friendly, almost strangely so. Despite the high paychecks and stringent employment criteria, a not insignificant number of FAAD's employees are liable to find that their work is barely being tracked - managers seem more concerned with keeping morale high than getting results. Despite this, the division as a whole is massively profitable. Many assume a supercomputer / 'the Algorithm' is compiling their work.
- Reputation: As a financial management company, the general public is largely oblivious so long as scandals are avoided - and FAAD has a nearly flawless track record of neatly sidestepping problematic investments. In the financial world, the division is viewed with confusion and awe - despite strange practices like selling and re-buying the same stock dozens of times in a single day, FAAD is consistently and massively profitable. Surprisingly, not one of the numerous audits it has faced has revealed even the faintest whiff of corruption or insider trading.
- Curios: With the exception of tasteful ID badges on lanyards, no clear symbology or equipment identifies someone as a FAAD employee.
- Rules: Employees are expected to do their job, not attempt embezzlement, and not look too closely into the division's inner workings. The Grey Ones, Neurocogitators, and other 'organic assets' FAAD utilises are expected to live and die for its goals.
- Goals: Procure the funding Greystone needs to operate effectively in Realspace.
- The reports compiled by its organic employees are an 'occasionally useful byproduct'.
- Marc Vespri, Senior Analyst. This middle-aged human has worked for FAAD since graduating from university; as a recent hire, he tried to figure out the inner workings of 'the Algorithm', with no real success. These days he primarily gossips, drinks caf, and writes overly verbose reports about agricultural yields in the Inner Rim. He has recently begun adding poetry to his reports without management complaining.
- Anitali Hiteli, Director of Employee Wellness. This perpetually-cheerful Zeltron is responsible for keeping employees happy and cooperative; it is within her authority to fire even the most competent of employees should they hurt morale, but she tends to prefer the carrot to the stick. Despite seemingly being uninvolved with the finance aspects of the division, she is one of the few that know of its true nature.
- Vodus Myrr, Director of Data Security. This deeply asocial Givin is charged with ensuring the security of FAAD's computer systems, a task he approaches with near-fanatical zeal. He is rarely seen by employees and even more rarely interacts with them - even Director Hiteli seems to avoid him. He is rumoured to 'sleep upside down, like a bat', but actually lives in a modest apartment with plenty of greenery.
- Testia Sakari, Senior Data Security Officer. Generally viewed as Myrr's right hand woman, this Zabrak at least makes a token effort to be nice, but tends to look at anyone with a dubious relationship to data security with open contempt. Given Myrr's asocial nature, most who mess up in some way are likely to find themselves meeting Sakari instead - she is widely considered to be 'if nothing else better than that spook'.
Officially, FAAD is but one of many divisions within Multistellar Consolidated Financials, a thoroughly boring financial management firm best known for not being involved in a single scandal, tax fraud scheme, or unfulfilled contract. It is, in other words, very good at being boring.
In reality, most of Multistellar Consolidated Financials is a smokescreen for the unofficial parts of FAAD - the blacksites manned by emotionless aliens and prescient brain-creatures that are necessary for large-scale 'prescient investment'. Indeed, the juiciest opportunities are generally sent to entirely different corporate structures, shadowy holding companies designed to generate massive wealth then dissolve into the ether.
In order to maintain the facade, FAAD frequently and purposefully loses money - on two separate occasions, it was even ordered to lose a fourth of its total assets to assuage suspicion. Despite this, it is impossible to deny that it is suspiciously profitable, despite its bizarre behaviour. After various audits, most regulatory bodies have been convinced that FAAD is either lucky or relying on some kind of 'insane AI system'.
The few employees aware of FAAD's true nature are all trained to resist telepathic interrogation. Despite this and other precautions, contingencies exist in case of full exposure - FAAD and MCF as a whole will be dissolved (and the employees compensated through a generous pension fund) and the blacksites transferred to other parts of Greystone's operations until a replacement can be formed.
In such an eventuality, the few employees aware of Greystone will have a choice - forget or relocate to Masque. While using the Force to predict the market is not strictly speaking illegal, the Grand Mercantile has determined that it is unlikely to sit well with the masses.
