A real life Nod?

[Commander32]

Perfect! Just become the pope, and walla! Your very own Brotherhood!

Well any major Religion out there well do IMO.

[Klandri]

Well any major Religion out there well do IMO.

Nope. The Catholic Church is the only one. Islam has no central leadership, no absolute authority figure, neither does protestantism, you have bishops and archbishops but that's all. Same with most other religions except for Buddhism but somehow I find the pope as a better candidate than the Dalai Lama.

Also regarding "the strength of a nation" thingy. It depends on the nation, take McDonalds for example, it has almost five times as many employees as the entire nation of Iceland. Also its revenue is 24 billion USD while Iceland's GDP is 14 billion USD. Nation is a very meaningless word in this scenario.

[Feloidea]

Nope. The Catholic Church is the only one. Islam has no central leadership, no absolute authority figure, neither does protestantism, you have bishops and archbishops but that's all. Same with most other religions except for Buddhism but somehow I find the pope as a better candidate than the Dalai Lama.

Also regarding "the strength of a nation" thingy. It depends on the nation, take McDonalds for example, it has almost five times as many employees as the entire nation of Iceland. Also its revenue is 24 billion USD while Iceland's GDP is 14 billion USD. Nation is a very meaningless word in this scenario.

But could McDonalds do **** when someone decided to roll out the hard stuff and shoot up their diners?

Money and influence is meaningless if you can't retain autonomy when things go southways. The Brotherhood had both the industrial base to support their cause and the autonomy to defend their assets against nation-grade powers. I don't see any NGO of today doing that.
There may be some would-be-contenders, but should a single nation decide to shut them up for real, all of them would fall into insignificance if they weren't crushed outright. And the former result would only happen if they were a hardcore dedicated group to retain some sort of connection in that event ... and it still wouldn't be enough.

[=LEVIATHEN=]

But could McDonalds do **** when someone decided to roll out the hard stuff and shoot up their diners?

Money and influence is meaningless if you can't retain autonomy when things go southways. The Brotherhood had both the industrial base to support their cause and the autonomy to defend their assets against nation-grade powers. I don't see any NGO of today doing that.
There may be some would-be-contenders, but should a single nation decide to shut them up for real, all of them would fall into insignificance if they weren't crushed outright. And the former result would only happen if they were a hardcore dedicated group to retain some sort of connection in that event ... and it still wouldn't be enough.

True, but that's presuming that you're trying to take over the world in it's current state.

If you waited or somehow cause government collapse (extraordinarily hard to do, I admit), there would likely be sects of the military turned rogue or freelancer mercenary companies that could be hired to protect you. McDonalds could also become a freelancer organization as well as a basic food provider. In an economic collapse, presuming that they survived, people would rely on them for inexpensive "nutrition". From there, you could come to rule the people you serve entirely, and they'd have to do your bidding. Human morality might get in the way and even stop you at some point, but something tells me that if you play your cards right, that wouldn't be a problem.

To cause the worlds governments to collapse, you'd have to do something to work behind the scenes, maybe hire assassins to take out major companies. You could try shutting down the electricity industry. Presuming that you have stocks, you may want to sell them all before this. That might get you some attention, though.

Or you could just start by buying out or taking over a corrupt and unstable third-world country and build up from there. Might be easier, but would likely be a lot slower.

[Sybreed]

What if they were to be more discreet and hide in rogue states? Using typical terror tactics, and only use light vehicles to attack their targets. Vehicles like Humvee, jeep, trucks and that sort of stuff.

[=LEVIATHEN=]

^ If you had some sort of high-tech way to communicate with everybody, and if this were a sudden thing that happened literally everywhere on Earth, then that could work.