Starting A Conspiracy

I have lofty ambitions. It sounds strange saying it, but I do. The problem is that I'm not exactly sure how to enact my lofty ambitions, which could be problematic because I'm hoping to get started with them tonight. See, today - when you are reading this - is the Wednesday night that my Shadowrun game falls on. The game has been going well. We have a nice mix of Pink Mohawk and Black Trenchcoat going on. I mean, sure, the game started with the intention being to go fully Pink Mohawk, but my and my regular players natural tendencies seem to be straying away from that, and so we're hitting a happy mid point (still well on Pink Mohawk's side, of course.) However, today I want to start a conspiracy. Or rather, I want to start a mission that will get the PCs embroiled in a conspiracy.

Conspiracies Are Like Mysteries
When it comes right down to it conspiracies are like mysteries. You need to know what is going on before you get too far in or everything is going to fall apart. You can't be guessing at who dun it when the players are half way through the content or things just won't add up. The problem is, conspiracies need to be done carefully - more carefully than most mysteries - because the entire point behind a conspiracy is that no one suspects it even exists.

The Conspiracy Map
Now I've never made a conspiracy before. I'm not even sure where to begin. Luckily though, I have spent some time studying conspiracies as a student at university and doing some looking. To start with I'd need two things: an idea for what the conspiracy is doing (and why,) and a map of the conspiracy.

The map would look something like a brainstorm or a social network diagram. It basically shows who is connected to whom, through what they are connected, and if you really want to get crazy in what direction influences goes down through the pipeline.

The Motive
So what would the motive be? Well, in Shadowrun there are really only two motives and they are remarkably similar: power and money. Money is theobvious and easy one. Power kind of comes with it. Course, now we need all the players, the game changers, and how my crew of newbie runners is getting involved in something that could span a whole lot of gaming.

Basically, I have a lot of planning to do
Topic pretty much sums it up. Lots of planning and weaving to mix in. Double crosses, triple crosses, the whole works. It should be pretty fun. Fortunately, the best part about this is that things can start small. I can plan a simple job, or jobs, that may or may not be related and then bring them together later.