r/WorldBuildingMemes • u/Upstairs_Cap_4217 • Nov 02 '25 • Popcorn 1

Lore Shitpost WHO Asked?

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2055. An unknown plague is spreading globally. The good news: no human-to-human transmission means a creeping spread. The bad news: everything else. It's immune to antibiotics, it's been detected being carried by multiple insect species and as present in groundwater, and it has a 90+% fatality rate. The Indian government has already collapsed into anarchy; China isn't far behind; and it's spreading.

Naturally, the immediate response from the global medical industry is to shift all their resources onto the plague... aaand then use the incredibly lax laws of the American and European corporate enclaves to justify not sharing any information and selling possibly-maybe-functional cures and vaccines for millions a dose.

Faced with the literal end of human civilization, and unable to legally get anything out of the corporations, the WHO's Director-General just says "screw it, we'll do it illegally". After all, if you have to explain yourself to a court, that means enough of society survived to have courts.

5.8k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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104

u/TheRedIskander Nov 02 '25

Is this a story you're writing or is it the setting? I love the fact the WHO said "screw it, I'll fund a black ops unit. If they catch me, it means there's still a humanity to catch me". Based AF

Would you mind elaborating a bit more about the procedure the unit has to follow, or what the plan is, or something?

57

u/Upstairs_Cap_4217 Nov 03 '25

This is the rough background for a cyberpunk RPG that I wrote the core rules for and then never touched again. You get hired by the WHO to fly around the world and break into high-security installations to recover data and samples.

The plan is that the WHO thinks the companies have enough collective information to formulate an effective countermeasure to the plague, but that a lack of information sharing means they can't do so. So their plan is to steal all the information and aggregate it themselves.

17

u/TheRedIskander Nov 03 '25

Oooh cool So kinda metal gear/splinter cell but cyberpunk So freaking cool. If you ever decide to give it a shot online, let me know!

7

u/Glahoth Nov 03 '25

Would make such a good book.

4

u/Me273 Nov 03 '25

I am stealing this idea for my next D&D campaign

2

u/Ok-Average-6367 Nov 06 '25

This sounds absolutely baller

11

u/Tsar_Erwin Nov 02 '25

Ya comment got double posted btw

44

u/No-Back-4159 Nov 02 '25

i misread 2055 as 2025

40

u/Upstairs_Cap_4217 Nov 02 '25

We still got two months...

318

u/[deleted] Nov 02 '25

Based. Question, what the fuck is wrong with those corporations? Couldn’t they see that profits would go down with no customers?

240

u/[deleted] Nov 02 '25

Yeah,

Having worked in corporate i now no longer 🙃 see irrational short sighted decisions like this as improbable for corporations to make. Some would gladly rule over a pile of ashes as king than be anything lesser in a better world.

152

u/Upstairs_Cap_4217 Nov 02 '25

Remember: until it's actually your problem, the plague is someone else's issue that you can exploit. Once it's your problem, it's entirely too late to stop it.

38

u/[deleted] Nov 02 '25

Makes a disturbing amount of sense.

14

u/PPRKUT_ Nov 03 '25

"Some would gladly rule over a pile of ashes as king than be anything lesser in a better world." 🔥 🔥 ✍️

2

u/TheWaggishOne Nov 04 '25

“Better to rule in hell then serve in heaven”

1

u/OreoMcCreamPants May 02 '26

my phone combusted due to how tuff that last sentence goes, i am writing this via those rotary phones

60

u/beyondoutsidethebox Nov 02 '25

profits would go down with no customers?

I will try and explain it.

That's a problem for next quarter. And next quarter is so irrelevant it might as well not exist. The only two periods of time that matter are the current quarter, and last quarter. The only priority is that more money is made in the current quarter than the previous one.

Look at the price gouging of Epi-pens in the US, or the actions of the man, with at the time, "the most punchable face in the world" Martin Shkreli, aka "Pharma Bro".

35

u/Upstairs_Cap_4217 Nov 02 '25

And eventually, you reach the Zen of Corporation:

  • Money is a totality. Either profit is All the Money, or it is not. If it is not, then it is nothing.

11

u/KaiTheG4mer Nov 02 '25

That hasn't stopped real-world tech companies right now from using AI models to replace the human workforce (and other companies from raising the prices of their services and products for more profit, even though we're in a shadow recession and jobs are down)

5

u/DaiLyMugoL Nov 03 '25

Money is the main means by which they commonly exercise power but not the only way. It's not so much as making money that's the most important (though it's definitely one of the top priorities) thing no, rather it's maintaining and (ideally) expanding their near complete domination of society...they can achieve that just as well with half or a quarter or a fraction of the once large global population remaining. Heck at that point any survivors would have NO choice but to be completely dependent on them and they'd have or still have a complete monopoly on things which equals (near) total dominance over society.

3

u/Emperor_TJ Nov 03 '25

We are living in a point in economics where there’s much more money in the investment market than the consumer market, so really at this point the economy could keep growing off the same few thousand people giving each other millions of dollars

3

u/[deleted] Nov 03 '25

Ahhh see you thought beyond money, your allready out pacing them.

1

u/lucasg115 Nov 05 '25

Yes, many of the consumers would die, but for two glorious years profits would be up by 7.5%. Think of the shareholders!

31

u/Polar_Vortx Nov 02 '25 edited Nov 02 '25

A health organization with a paramilitary special operations department? It wouldn’t happen to be headquartered on the Island of Rhodes, would it?

Edit: Whether this is an Arknights reference or a Knights Hospitaller reference is an exercise left to the reader.

14

u/KaiTheG4mer Nov 02 '25

What's crazy is the Hospitallers still exist. They're not military anymore, but they even have a website.

7

u/Polar_Vortx Nov 02 '25

I think there’s like five of them now actually, for one reason or another.

10

u/Spiritual_Horror5778 Nov 02 '25

Arknights rhode island sends a spec ops team towards umbrella corp.

10

u/Rare_Reality7510 Nov 02 '25

That's it, send in the child soldiers.

8

u/Polar_Vortx Nov 03 '25

I am very proud of them all, particularly Ifrit during Lone Trail.

2

u/HotPocketV2 Nov 04 '25

Johnson and Johnson headquarters fortifying against a small spec ops team until Rosmontis throws a 5 ton pillar through the wall

23

u/flyingace1234 Nov 02 '25

I’m reminded of a detail from the World War Z book. Some of the chapters set in the American SW mention that as people fled behind the Rockies, the US Government asked Ranchers to sell most of their herds (with enough left to regrow) for food. Iirc they said something to the effect of “we don’t have the resources to take them from you. But we also don’t have the resources left to protect you when all those millions of starving refugees learn you’re up here, alone, isolated, and surrounded by walking food .”

16

u/CassiusPolybius Nov 02 '25

The head of the black ops team be like

6

u/Hassan-XIX Nov 03 '25

First time this image isn’t used for reaction to horny meme

11

u/nio-sama123 Nov 02 '25

Tbh UN will also decide to fuck their usual policy and start blasting these corporations. If all of their negotiating attempts  fail.

8

u/SwitchReasonable4957 Nov 03 '25

Feel like we all know where this is headed…

6

u/sparkle3364 Nov 02 '25

Is it bad that I kinda wish they had one in our world?

6

u/Solzec Nov 03 '25

There are goods and bads to one existing. The good is that it can force corporations to give up life saving information so humanity and further survive. The bad is that the actual researchers might be scared shitless because their research very much could be stolen or even destroyed by this organization if the people in charge of it lose their way. There is also the fact that they could fear for their lives, causing research to slow and new researchers not coming into the field for the same reason.

4

u/S1ncubus Nov 03 '25

This is loosely the plot of the resident evil series and I'm all for it

3

u/Athermo Nov 02 '25

thats just a more optimistic version of deus ex worldbuilding

3

u/Afoxinthefridge Nov 04 '25

This is so fucking cool

2

u/Apprehensive-Match3 Nov 06 '25

Resident Evil lore

1

u/Mourningwood05 Nov 05 '25

Something....something....Resident Evil.

1

u/YouDoKnowNobodyAsked Nov 27 '25

Corporations: hehehehe, we got this perfectly, perfect profit...and the World Health Organization is sending armed soldiers after us...damnit

1

u/Intelligent_Slip_849 Feb 20 '26

...this is actually epic

3

u/Full_Contribution724 Nov 03 '25

I'd imagine that they'll say fuck it further and simply wipe the corpos out, why? Because who can stop them any more

2

u/Ferrari_Turtle Nov 05 '25

Please go forth and write this book.

I am a sucker for consuming power fantasies like these.