Spies
Loose lips sink ships - and you're the guy with the torpedo and the sonar readout. Through contacts and information, you can keep tabs on people and institutions. Once you have what you need, it's easy to assemble data, make plans, and strike.
Spies come in many forms: the disgruntled secretary, the old army buddy, the cop who knows his hands are tied and the junkie who wants "the really good stuff" all qualify. Some Technocrats even have genegineered animals or micro-cams they deploy in search of information. Unlike Allies, these Spies not loyal. They'll help you so long as you repoay the favor. If someone else gets hold of them, they might turn on you....
In system terms, Spies allow you to ferret information in or out (Intelligence + Spies), circulate misinformation and diversion (Manipulation + Spies), impress people in secure locations (Charisma + Spies) and note ominous developments before they reach Ground Zero (Perception + Spies). That's not to say your Spies never provide wrong information - they don't always know what's correct themselves. the data and its security is only as good as the informant. And if they're speaking to you, who knows what other ears might be listening to what they have to say?
● One or two spies in a helpful area (the police, Wall Street, the Mafia)
●● Four to six informants in various helpful places
●●● A handful of spies in several hard-to-reach places (the Pentagon, the UN); or one or two in a really secure area (the local Symposium, a Tradition Chantry).
●●●● Infiltrators in a whole sphere of influence (the underworld, international affairs); or a handful in a Chantry or Construct.
●●●●● Eyes, ears and mouths scattered among the Masses, or several contacts in the Enlightened world
●●●●● ● You've got the equivalent of a small news agency on your payroll, and it has an ear to the ground in magical affairs.
●●●●● ●● In addition to hundreds of contacts among the Masses, you've got many "friends" in various supernatural societies.
●●●●● ●●● You have an entire intelligence agency working for you on both sides of the Masses.
●●●●● ●●●● Big Brother
●●●●● ●●●●● Mr. World
