"A popular parlour game among historians is debating when the modern world began. Was it when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, in 1440? Or when Christopher Columbus discovered America, in 1492? Or when Martin Luther published his 95 theses, in 1517? All popular choices. But there is a strong case to be made for a less conventional answer: the modern world began on a freezing New Year's Eve, in 1600, when Elizabeth I granted a company of 218 merchants a monopoly of trade to the east of the Cape of Good Hope."
This is a Non-Governmental Organization Superpower — an organization which is on the same power tier as the most powerful nations and yet is not itself a nation.
In fiction, we often see terrorist groups and various anti-state groups capable of going toe to toe with a regular army of the state. They may be able to field aircraft, tanks, even warships... almost as if they had billions in tax revenue and massive installed infrastructure themselves. On occasion, these groups are shown fighting battles against modern Great Powers like the USA, Russia, the EU, China, or India.
NGO Superpowers usually hold a Privately Owned Society, and MegaCorp can be a subtrope with Corporate Warfare, as can The Syndicate. If and when the corp graduates to owning their own sovereign soil, they become One Nation Under Copyright. The Church can be this especially if Catholic and in a medieval society. An Ancient Conspiracy may be funding it. They can run the gamut from only striking nation-states when provoked to outright initiating large-scale conventional warfare and land grabs. May also be Private Military Contractors. United Nations Is a Superpower is a specific subtrope involving the UN.
The size of the membership roster doesn't matter; they can be very large, but some are Oddly Small Organizations.
Often overlaps with Nebulous Evil Organisation and may have an Omniscient Council of Vagueness. Compare to Fiction 500 and Absurdly Powerful Student Council. Contrast with Non-Governmental Organization. State Sec is a Sister Trope of also being an influential entity with a vast paramilitary corps that isn't part of a formal army, only that it's a governmental agency rather than non-governmental.
Example subpages:
Other examples:
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Comic Books
- Absolute Universe
- Absolute Batman: Alfred says Joker's edging on being a trillionaire and suspects that the man is so rich and powerful that he singlehandedly keeps Santa Prisca from reverting back to war and that he ended the conflict with a single phone call. And he also can casually order the immediate nuking of Santa Prisca like it's nothing.
- Absolute Superman: Thanks to Brainiac's advanced intellect and Ra's al Ghul's supernatural resources like his Lazarus Pits, the Lazarus Corporation holds massive amounts of power. The company makes more money than God, employs alien technology far surpassing anything else on Earth (courtesy of Brainiac), has its own private army that wields the aforementioned alien weaponry, and is buddy with (retired) government officials like Sam Lane and often collaborates with governments, to the point that Absolute Green Lantern implies that any event involving the supernatural or metahumans will be de facto delegated to them.
- Casanova has W.A.S.T.E, XSM and M.O.T.T, all of whom have vast logistical resources.
- The DCU:
- Villainous organizations like Kobra, H.I.V.E. et al, not to mention the Legion of Doom and, under certain leaders, LexCorp.
- The Justice League of America and a few other super teams certainly qualify.
- In G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel), Cobra starts out as one of these but eventually takes control of an island in the Caribbean, and so becomes a nation-state. They even have a consulate in New York City at one point.
- Marvel Universe:
- HYDRA et al. Although it started out as a governmental organization in Nazi Germany, and only became an N.G.O. after being (unsuccessfully) shut down... usually.
- Also A.I.M. ("Advanced Idea Mechanics", originally an offshoot of HYDRA known as THEM) and the Maggia.
- The Avengers, sometimes. While at times they answer to the US government, the United Nations or S.H.I.E.L.D., at other times "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" refuse to take orders from anyone but themselves.
- Monstress: Maika's father, the Lord Doctor, is served by a personal cult known as the Blood Court which is large enough to qualify as an army, and which has extensive resources thanks to the Doctor's centuries of life. On top of this, many Arcanic pirates and warlords from both the Dawn and Dusk courts end up defecting to his service, eventually making his forces the most powerful faction on the planet.
- The Grail in Preacher possesses a secret headquarters with a vast private army and many world leaders owe it their positions. At one point they are able to "persuade" a limited nuclear release against the Saint of Killers. This is also played with to an extent. As their actions become less covert, beginning with the nuclear strike in fact, the Grail's influence and hold on the world leaders begins to weaken. It gets to the point where even deep cover agents abandon the Grail in favour of their cushy lives "shadowing" politicians and the like.
- Obscurantis Order in Enki Bilal's Le Sommeil du monstre (The Dormant Beast) is an extremely powerful sect created by the Big Bad to make the world less stable.
Films — Live-Action
- The organization in 12:00
has UFOs, a secret base inside a mountain and enough resources to turn a part of Ghana into cyborgs.
- The RDA from Avatar appears an example but is actually more of a subversion. Although they can construct interstellar space vehicles and manage a mining operation in another solar system, they are not a straight example as they are still reasonably limited in their power and actions, with what can only really be gained from there through corruption and secrecy — they'd still be no match for a real government in terms of military.
- G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: McCullen is able to afford his own personal army and outfit them with technology surpassing every other army on Earth. Given that he basically supplies every other army on Earth, that part at least is sensible.
- In Inception, Fischer's company is vying to become this (via de facto monopolizing the global energy market), which is what kicks off the plot.
- James Bond faces off with a number of NGOs:
- SPECTRE had enough resources to manipulate the superpowers into going to war, conduct nuclear blackmail, have their own private army, and even create a space program located in a secret volcano base. At that, a space program rather more advanced than the US and Soviet ones, with reusable launch vehicles in the mid-1960s.
- Moonraker: Hugo Drax also had his own personal space program, with a highly advanced space station. Though somewhat implausible at the time, commercial space operations are not uncommon nowadays. Drax's operations were at least partially funded by selling equipment to governmental space agencies.
- Licence to Kill: Franz Sanchez’s drug cartel is described as “an invisible empire from Chile to Alaska” and is influential enough that it effectively controls the actual government of Isthmus, the Fictional Country where it is based, whose president is a reluctant puppet for Sanchez that he makes clear can be replaced at any time.
- Tomorrow Never Dies: The Carver Media Group Network already had great influence due to its media prowess. But its megalomaniacal leader wanted more, so he influenced a war between China and Britain for his gambit. To help, Carver funds a small army and builds a stealth boat.
- Quantum of Solace: Quantum is a shadowy group with connections to several powerful businessmen and politicians. They can manipulate nations, and they have people everywhere. Spectre reveals that Quantum was only a subsidiary of an even bigger Illuminati-esque organization — SPECTRE.
- John Wick: The High Table are an alliance of powerful crime organizations that governs the criminal underworld. They're also apparently influential enough to keep all the fighting between assassins covered up from the public.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Stark Enterprises seems to be one.
Tony Stark: I have successfully privatized world peace.
- This is backed up after the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Maria Hill is hired by Stark after S.H.I.E.L.D. is dissolved due to corruption, and she explains her decision in an episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. by saying A) Stark is in the best position to protect people (even referring to his above boast) and B) the US government wants to force answers out of her but even its officials think twice before messing with Stark's legal team.
- The Avengers morph into one as the films progress. In the first movie, they're essentially a S.H.I.E.L.D. task force overseen by Nick Fury, with the organization providing the team with a base of operations (the Helicarrier), uniforms, and vehicles. After S.H.I.E.L.D. disbands in The Winter Soldier, the Avengers are left without any sort of government ties, so in Avengers: Age of Ultron, they've become a fully autonomous organization funded by Tony Stark. This is then hit with a bit of Surprisingly Realistic Outcome in Captain America: Civil War, where it's revealed that the governments of the world are not happy that the Avengers operate without any sort of oversight and accountability, resulting in the Sokovia Accords being drafted to keep the heroes in line. In Avengers: Endgame, the Avengers are the closest thing we see to a government at all. Natasha coordinates their various allies to react to emergencies both on- and off-world, and no mention is made of any legal issues such as with the Accords. Possibly justified given that any government body that could have any authority over the Avengers might have been significantly reduced in number and power from Thanos' Snap, so the Avengers, with Natasha reluctantly in charge, are literally the only thing keeping the post-Snap world together. That and other issues would probably render the Accords moot.
- Stark Enterprises seems to be one.
- The titular organization from the Men in Black series, as Men in Black: International revealsnote . They're a top-secret, international law-enforcement agency which does not serve nor answer to any national government; and yet, they're somehow responsible for policing a fairly large population of disguised extraterrestrial immigrants on Earth, and defending the planet from any potential alien invaders. Though they often pretend to be agents of the (US) federal government, as part of their efforts to conceal the truth about aliens.
- Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation: Played with in regard to The Syndicate. They're a shadowy terrorist organization able to operate internationally, but they lack the Offscreen Villain Dark Matter they need to properly function as one. Their plan in the movie is thus secure the resources they need to become, as Luther puts it, a "terrorist superpower."
- Star Wars offers several different flavors:
- The Sith are all over this, even when one of them is not Supreme Chancellor or Galactic Emperor.
- Averted with the Rebel Alliance, who present themselves as a legitimate government — in fact, the only legitimate government. For instance, Leia Organa was officially the Alliance Minister of State.
- Jabba's crime empire and, in the Expanded Universe, Black Sun whose underworld influence is vast. The Zann Consortium in Empire at War is so powerful it could take on both the Empire and the Rebels in battle.
- Darth Maul's Shadow Collective introduced in The Clone Wars is a deconstruction of this trope. Darth Maul formed this organization in Season 5 as a means of building a power base and rising to the top of the criminal underworld, starting by forming an alliance with the Mandalorian terrorist group, Death Watch. However, the crime syndicates he recruits (themselves already being N.G.O. Superpowers on their own) don't take him seriously and have to be strong-armed into joining (only the Pyke Syndicate came directly to Maul and joined without a fight, but likely because they heard what happened to Black Sun). It's during the events of Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir that Maul's Collective starts to show its flaws. With Maul briefly imprisoned by Darth Sidious following his takeover of Mandalore, the Hutt Clans abandoned the Collective as soon as possible, and every engagement his Collective has with both the Republic and Separatists (the actual superpowers in the Clone Wars) shows that his organization is ultimately outclassed militarily (and his one victory against the Separatists nearly ends with his forces getting executed). Once the Separatists start attacking the Collective on three different fronts, the Collective temporarily fragments after Black Sun and the Pykes decide to bail, and the only allies Maul has left are the Mandalorian supercommandos. He seems to have reformed it by Season 7, but he's actively pitting the syndicates against one another, including the newcomer Crimson Dawn. Come the Siege of Mandalore, Maul's Mandalorian forces are ultimately outmatched by the Republic's newly formed 332nd clone battalion (who also had help from Mandalorian resistance fighters). In Solo, Maul is shown to still be running Crimson Dawn from the shadows (and indirectly influencing the Empire in turn), but given Maul's become an insane hermit by Rebels and there's no mention of Crimson Dawn then, it's not quite clear how long his influence in it lasted.
- The Commerce Guilds probably used to be like this before they acquired enough power to actually be governments. The Trade Federation even has its own Senate representative.
- The Jedi Order. Capable of fielding one of the most powerful militaries at extremely short notice, automatically given officer status in the Republic's forces, granted full law enforcement rights and immune from prosecution themselves, they none the less do not feel they answer to the Government and are keen to stress their independence in their internal affairs. Fortunately, they are normally savvy enough to keep their shit in order, though Palpatine's ultimate plan hinged on the Jedi order's naïveté in taking this status for granted. The Jedi feel that they do serve the Republic — but not necessarily the Republic's current government. This is indeed exactly what happens in Revenge of the Sith — the Jedi Council are growing more and more concerned that Chancellor Palpatine is not only amassing too much power to himself and turning the Republic into a de facto dictatorship, but that he may be under the influence of the mysterious Sith Lord, Darth Sidious (they fail to realize he is the Sith Lord in question until it's too late), and debate whether it would be justified to remove him in a coup and rule by decree until democracy can be restored. Anakin is against the idea and calls it treasonous, and even the other Council members have serious misgivings.
Obi-Wan: We are loyal to the Senate, not to its leader, who has managed to stay in office long after his term has expired.
Anakin: The Senate demanded that he stay longer.
Obi-Wan: Yes, but use your feelings, Anakin. Something is out of place. - The Hutt Cartel waver between this and being an actual government (pretty much an argentocracy), but when it all comes down to it, they're a group of gangsters and merchants with no clear leader yet capable of fielding significant numbers of troops and warships, and controlling an area of space sometimes large enough to rival the republic.
- Traffic (2000): In preparation for his new job as America's "Drug Czar", Judge Wakefield speaks with various politicians and drug enforcement officials. One official tells him that The Cartels have an "unlimited budget". Wakefield asks for clarification; does he mean that these cartels can actually compete with a nation like the U.S., with all its power and resources? The official responds, "No. They're way beyond us." (The filmmakers went to great lengths to ensure authenticity in these scenes, so this is very much Truth in Television.)
Live-Action TV
- Andromeda: After the fall of the Commonwealth, the MegaCorps came together to form the Free Trade Alliance to ensure safe interstellar commerce and self-regulate commercial practices (squash the competition). Their hired armies are big enough that superpower entities try to avoid direct conflicts with them.
- Veridian Dynamics of Better Off Ted.
"And we never part with money unless a more powerful nation forces us to, and there are only three of those left."
- The Peacekeepers of Farscape are basically Private Military Contractors crossed with Law Enforcement, Inc. with a 12,000-cycle history of intimidating governments both planetary and interstellar.
- The Blue Sun Corporation in Firefly (not to be confused with the Blue Suns of Mass Effect) is implied to be one of these, though they may have simply been an arm of the totalitarian government. The series didn't last long enough to make it clear.
- Foundation (2021) has the Church of Luminism, one of the major religions of the Empire. Its reach is great enough that a power struggle over its next Proxima and future doctrine warrants a visit from Brother Day in person.
- Massive Dynamic lurks as one of these in Fringe. In the second episode, Nina Sharp tells Olivia that the corporation is technically one of the ten biggest economic entities in the world. And given its research divisions, it could easily create an army if it so wished.
- In Get Smart, KAOS is mentioned to have a gross income of $980 million. After taxes, they're left with a net income of $980 million.
- Heroes (2006): Primatech has literally (thanks to Bob's Midas Touch power) unlimited money, the ability to rig elections, and an army of superpowered soldiers and Badass Normal agents who can keep up with them.
- Defied in House of Cards (US). The billionaire industrialist Xander Feng tries to browbeat Frank Underwood with the vastness of his fortune, but Frank replies that Feng's net worth amounts to the GDP of Slovakia. With Frank in control of America's economy and military might, he's on a completely different level.
- Altrucell of How I Met Your Mother.
Marshall: So, I've been looking over these contracts, and I gotta say, I think this might be a little out of my league. For one thing, it seems like if these contracts are not executed precisely, we will be at war with Portugal.
Barney Stinson: Please, that's a Tuesday for me. - Kamen Rider Build has Nanba Heavy Industries, a weapons manufacturer that sells to all sides of the Japanese civil war. Justified because Japan has been split into three regions by a disaster and they are all struggling as a result, while Nanba is able to exploit the vacuum to become a fourth player in the power struggle. When their CEO finally decides to openly back one of the regions, he's able to give it a massive edge over the other two factions and use that influence to leverage himself into becoming the country's de facto ruler.
- Interestingly subverted with THRUSH from The Man from U.N.C.L.E., in that THRUSH's intended conquest of a small African country in the first episode is a huge deal, potentially changing the whole nature of the organization.
- Metal Heroes:
- Space Sheriff Gavan: The Space Crime Organization Makuu are a Galactic Superpower equivalent. They're an alien crime syndicate that goes from planet to planet conquering them and turning them into Gangster Lands riddled with crime.
- Kidou Keiji Jiban: Criminal Syndicate Bioron are powerful enough to maintain what is essentially a private military force, complete with intercontinental warheads, and an army of genetically engineered Bioweapon Beasts. When they decide to go all-out on the finale they're able to effectively wage war on the Japanese government.
- Odd Squad: Though it is very unclear where the squad gets its money from, they still have an incredible amount of power and are not only responsible for maintaining order in general, but between odd nations and groups as well, ones that human governments don't seem to be involved in.
- In Person of Interest, Decima Technologies starts out as a private intelligence agency on par with the intelligence agencies of superpower nations. After Samaritan comes online, they set out to Take Over the World.
- Stargate-verse: The Lucian Alliance is a galaxy-spanning criminal organization with enough resources stolen from the Goa'uld after their collapse to make them a dangerous force to even the Tau'ri, the most powerful race in at least two galaxies (though this is largely attributable to the severely limited scope of the Tau'ri space navy, which has only a half-dozen ships). By Stargate Universe, they are bold enough to attack Earth directly, albeit using suicide bomber cargo ships.
Podcasts
- Wolf 359 features Goddard Futuristics, the corporation funding the Hephaestus mission. Over time, it's slowly revealed that not only is Goddard well-funded enough to compete against NASA in terms of deep space exploration, they also have their own military force with an airborne division, a black ops/wetwork team, and artificial intelligences that are decades more advanced than anything else on Earth. All of this goes quite a long way toward making Director of Communcations Marcus Cutter's long-term plan of wiping out all life on Earth a lot more feasible.
Webcomics
- Ecosystems Unlimited is the major player in Freefall, with a force of 450 million robots Terraforming the planet Jean and running its colony, executive power and security clearance on par with the highest military and civil authorities, and a CFO with huge discretionary power to make sure that the colony can't go independent until its loans are paid off.
- Hereti-Corp from Sluggy Freelance. Even if you take away all their Mad Scientist gadgets, they were still able to send hundreds of heavily armed soldiers to capture Oasis.
- The Wolhaiksong from Tower of God can rival Jahad's government in strength and influence, especially since two of the strongest active residents, Urek Mazino and Baek Ryun are its founders and leaders, but they are on good terms with both the government as well as the terrorist group F.U.G.
Web Originals
- The Watchtower Conglomerate from Outliers. They don't have armies and gunships, but being the only legal way to become a superhero due to some shady law finagling more than makes up for it.
- The SCP Foundation, an international secret society that hides paranormal/supernatural phenomena from the whole world, is an absurdly powerful organization that operates beyond any national government. They have nearly limitless resources, including a fully-equipped paramilitary force, several trillion dollars' worth of assets including heavily-secured facilities, access to magical (and otherwise) artifacts allowing them control over time and space, the ability to essentially bend the world's governments to their ends, and even their own ship prefix. Considering they're responsible for securing and studying thousands upon thousands of anomalous artifacts and eldritch entities, many of which can easily destroy the world, trying to stop them would be a bad idea; save for some rival Groups of Interestnote , no one opposes the Foundation.
- "The Syndicate" in the Whateley Universe. It has an army of mooks, an elite cadre of trained killers, robot soldiers, cyborg warriors, dropships, you name it.
Western Animation
- Gargoyles:
- In one episode, Xanatos is called on for referring to an attack on his home an "invasion", since he's a private citizen, not a country. He replies that he's head of a major multinational corporation, and has more money and resources than many countries.
- Xanatos is a bottom-tier member of the Illuminati, whose power and influence extends to organized crime and the American government.
- In G.I. Joe: Renegades, Cobra Industries is a major military contractor and has numerous research and development facilities that the Joes need to break into. One of their subsidiaries is a Wal-Mart expy.
- In Justice League Unlimited, Amanda Waller outright states that the Justice League is easily the most powerful force on the planet. In an alternate universe, they took over the world after the death of their Flash. And in that alternate universe they only had six members. In the main DC Animated Universe, they'd expanded to include pretty much every superhero on Earth, and had an orbital Kill Sat in their possession.
Batman: Whatever you think you're doing, if you present a threat to the world, the Justice League will take you down.
Waller: If we present a threat? You've got a spaceship floating over our heads with a laser weapon pointing down. In another dimension, seven of you overthrew the government and assassinated the President! We're the good guys, protecting our country from a very real threat: you. - In The Legend of Korra, the Equalists are a pretty textbook example of one of these. By season's end, they've built a large enough military force to not only completely take over Republic City within a day, but also to single-handedly fight off the United Forces' subsequent counterattack with minimal effort. They're able to field airships, motorcycles, armoured cars, Mini-Mecha, and even an entire air force, and have huge hidden factories and airfields to manufacture, store, and maintain them all. This is pretty much due to Future Industries being an N.G.O. Superpower in and of itself... and the C.E.O., Hiroshi Sato, being an Equalist himself.
- In Metalocalypse, Dethklok has a fleet of helicopters the size of jumbo jets, a bus that easily dwarfs small apartment buildings, an army of fanatically loyal roadies called the Kloketeers who have the authority to use lethal force anywhere in the world, Mordhaus (Which means "murder house" in German) which is shown being held aloft in the third season by a massive bank of rocket boosters that are active 24/7/365, and in the season two finale perform a concert in a capsule launched by a multistage rocket very similar to the ones used in the Apollo Program. The absurdity of this doesn't go unnoticed, as the band is described as the world's seventh-largest economy.
