RE: New Blackeagle/Blackeagle Theatre Office?

["Eric Benson" <ebenson@xxxxxxxx>]

> If we take a look at the potential growth "curve" that
> is projected, Year 2000 could have easily supported
> FOUR new offices.

Depends on how mundane they want to get.  If they are willing to retrieve
Fifi the poodle and chase down dead beat husbands for child support, they
could probably have offices in every city.  On the other hand, if they are
going to remain an organization that handles the tough cases, there are only
a limited number of clients that need BE/BE's special services AND can pay
for it.  BE/BE's services don't come cheap.

Going along with that, I would say any new offices should be located based
on client availability, not geographic location.  Places like Southeast Asia
could easily support an office and be profitable.  Let's face it though, an
office in Ghana probably won't have many clients that could afford BE/BE's
services, no matter how much they might want to.  Ultimately, BE/BE is a for
profit company and it's the bottom line that matters.  Pro bono (free) cases
may warm the heart, but don't pay the rent.

A comment is that not all of the offices need to be full fledged offices.
In some areas, the office might be more of an administrative and marketing
office.  When they need operatives, the operatives are flown in from one of
the larger offices... sort of a variant on a spur/hub system.  The small
offices are the spur, the regional office serves as the hub.

For example, in Southeast Asia, there could be one or two person marketing
offices in Bangkok, Singapore, Jakarta, Beijing and Hong Kong.  The main
office would be located in wherever the government offered the least
interference.

I agree with the comments that someone else made - the just because they
could grow doesn't mean they should, or that the offices need to be
explicitly specified.  Give the GM's room to work with.  Supportive, not
restrictive.

> All of this is under the assumption that BE/BE would
> have the same continued success and growth in the
> past.

It would only take one or two bad cases to bring BE/BE down to their knees.
For example, a high profile operation that goes bad and takes down an
innocent could leave BE/BE with a major lawsuit and a lot of bad press.
Given the way the US press reacts to gun violence, an incident involving
BE/BE operatives would probably not be pretty.  The US press vilifies
legitimate home defense, I can only imagine that a case involving flash
bangs, the best of Heckler and Koch and case lots of 9 mm would only fuel
the flame.

A time line under which BE/BE has met difficulty would put a different sort
of pressure on the office and characters.  Every case becomes that much more
crucial.  An office in which one cell is going to get pink slipped
(released) is very different from an office in which the cells cooperate.
Support calls go unanswered, loaned equipment never gets returned or worse,
their is outright competition between cells.

-Eric