History Main / NGOSuperPower

* ''Franchise/StarWarsTheHighRepublic'': The Nihil are a group of marauders that have lucked into a technological advantage by having access to a unique model of hyperdrive they call "Path engine" (which allow for some unorthodox tactics such as short-range jumps for [[TeleFrag Tele-Fragging]] other ships) and pose a threat to the Outer Rim and the Republic on the grounds that the latter does not have a standing military at this point. While they are outclassed by superpowers with actual armies in later eras, the Nihil are surprisingly well-equipped and organized for anarchistic SpacePirates, have pulled off well-calculated attacks on worlds (which have resulted even in the deaths of Jedi), and even have secret backing from politicians and wealthy, influential hyperspace pioneers. In fact, most of their ranks are pulled not just from people with grievances against the Republic, but from worlds outside its jurisdiction and/or that have been hit hard by the Great Disaster. [[spoiler:After the destruction of Starlight Beacon, Marchion Ro and the Nihil cut the Republic off from the Outer Rim with a wall of their newly-developed "[[SpaceMines stormseeds]]", effectively becoming its rulers at the end of Phase I. The Nihil also have the Nameless --- creatures that not only [[MageHuntingMonster prey on Force-users]], but can break them down with just their presence alone -- at their disposal, putting even the Jedi at a disadvantage.]]

* Several Frontier [[MegaCorp corporations]] in Andrey Livadniy's ''Literature/TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'' series have their own fleets, which they use to protect their worlds from pirates and rival corporations. One notable conflict involves a CorruptCorporateExecutive ambush a [[TheFederation Confederacy of Suns]] fleet in order to capture two prototype ships, after he finds out that he is under investigation. His plan is to use the ships to threaten the entire Confederacy. While his fleet is no match for the full might of the Confederacy, this full might is usually unavailable given the need to protect many other worlds from pirates and the like. This fact is even mentioned in another novel, where the Confederacy leadership is worried that their fleets are spread too thin to reliable protect themselves.

** The exact nature of this affect is still contested, whether Facebook has abused their power to help elect allies to power, or their basic ads software proved to be simply too effective for its good. Since then, they have made some efforts towards patching their reputation accordingly, but it remains a worthwhile lesson regardless on the effectiveness of basic advertisements, and the ability of superpowers to use even basic information to track you.

* [[MegaCorp Event Horizon]] in the Greg Mandel trilogy by Creator/PeterFHamilton. Not only do they have hardliner security forces with PoweredArmor and hypersonic aircraft to deploy them anywhere in the world, by the third novel their CEO Julia Evans has hacked the top secret design of [[WeaponOfMassDestruction electron-compression warheads]]. Fortunately she just wants to use them for asteroid mining, but people are [[ColonyDrop understandably nervous]] when she blasts an asteroid into Earth orbit to mine it.

* As Florida governor Ron [=DeSantis=] found out the hard way: Disney, within the State of Florida. They have a special tax zone agreement, and apparently if you suddenly revoke that agreement you deprive the State government of thousands of dollars in revenue. Don't mess with the Mouse, as they say.

* ''Franchise/{{Tekken}}'': The Mishima Zaibatsu originally started as a mere weapons firm, but under Heihachi and later leaders, it's grown to include its own personal army, a KillSat, highly advanced battle robots, [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers and a private school]]. By the time of ''VideoGame/Tekken6'', the Zaibatsu has begun invading other countries and seizing their resources (which include oil fields and space colonies, according to Jin's story in said game), which they proceeded to use to declare WorldWar3 and secede from national control entirely, finally abandoning this trope.

* Al Qaeda, and powerful terrorist groups in general, are essentially these. They generally receive their funding and equipment via organized crime or foreign governments, and wield significant political power in certain areas of the world (in some cases, more than the actual local government). A growing school of thought amongst some political scientists and sociologists is that, due to globalization and the imbalance of power and technology between the first and third worlds, these kind of powerful, non-state entities can be expected to become increasingly more prevalent as the 21st century goes on.
* The Lebanese political party and terrorist group Hezbollah holds the top spot today, after the below-mentioned Islamic State's brief run was ended. To quote the Wikipedia page: "Hezbollah has the armed strength of a medium-sized army. Hezbollah is generally considered the most powerful non-state actor in the world, and to be stronger than the Lebanese Army." They have an internal economy worth over a billion dollars, a global network that has enabled them to launch terrorist attacks everywhere from Israel to Argentina, and an estimated 60,000 fighters who are considered superbly trained and armed by Middle Eastern standards. They have de facto control over large portions of Lebanon and a frightening amount of military power that, partly due to competence compared to the competitions, exceeds that of several actual Arab states. They get considerable funding from Iran, but also make money off of the drug trade, extortion rackets, and donations from sympathetic Lebanese businesses and persons.
** To wit, Hezbollah was able to effectively defeat ''Israel'' in the South Lebanon War, and again in the 2006 Lebanon War. Most recently Hezbollah has become a major player in the Syrian Civil War, where they've occupied swathes of Syrian territory and acted as shock troops for Assad's government and their Iranian allies.
* The Islamic State was at one time the most powerful NGO on Earth, being less non-governmental and more an unrecognized State (hence the name). Controlling territory around the world, but primarily centered on the "main" branch in eastern Syria and western Iraq, the organization was an unrecognized proto-state which at its peak had over a hundred thousand soldiers (complete with hundreds of tanks), 8 million citizens, and an area of land the size of Romania under their control. They had their own currency, police forces, internal multi-billion dollar economy (primarily sustained through its tax base and its captured oil fields, plus of course the drug trade), civil services, all the hallmarks of a primitive nation-state, and the military power to not only ''openly'' contest the governments of Iraq and Syria during their respective civil wars, but inflict embarrassing defeats repeatedly on both the Iraqi Security Forces and Syrian Arab Army even when the latter two were supported heavily by foreign actors. It took large foreign intervention (primarily by the United States, but dozens of other countries got involved, most notably Iran, Russia, Turkey, France, and Britain) to stamp them out and keep them from conquering even more territory and possibly causing the collapse of at least Syria's government. By the end of 2017 their status as an NGO capable of going toe-to-toe with its neighbors is largely a thing of the past, although it continues to exist as a global Islamist insurgency organization and as of late 2020, IS-affiliated groups [[HereWeGoAgain have become a major problem for the governments of Central Africa]], including the takeover of the major port town of Mocimboa da Praia in Mozambique.
** Note that the Islamic State's propaganda campaigns and identity as a ''franchise'' also gave it global influence. The large and notorious Nigerian insurgent group Boko Haram declared themselves an ally of ISIL, and ISIL affiliates controlling territory popped up in Libya, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Yemen. Attacks by Islamic State operatives, either radicalized 'lone wolves' or trained agents straight from the Levant, also occurred all across Europe (most notably in Turkish Thrace and France), killing several hundred people, and tens of thousands of Sunni Muslims from around the world (but predominantly the Middle East/North Africa region) made the trek to Iraq/Syria to join them, including former high-ranking military officers such as Tajik Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov. It got to the point that Iraq's Prime Minister declared the "War on ISIL" to be [[https://www.reuters.com/video/2015/02/01/fight-against-islamic-state-is-world-war?videoId=363066236 equivalent to a third world war]] due [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_activity_of_ISIL#cite_ref-ISIL_has_200,000_fighters_16-0 to]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_military_intervention_against_ISIL#/media/File:Military_Intervention_against_ISIL.svg its]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_activity_of_ISIL#List_of_nationalities_of_foreign_fighters_in_ISIL reach]], though just about everyone else called him out for exaggerating there.

* The Company™ in the crossover fanfic ''FanFic/EventHorizonStormOfMagic'' is determined to use their futuristic science, technology, and business to dominate all of the worlds of the Epsilon Eridani System. Only time will tell if they succeed...

** The [[TheSyndicate 54 Immortals]] in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsIII'' are a criminal organization that, in the wake of a disaster that renders about half of Singapore almost uninhabitable, proceeded to take over the entire quarantined area and rule over it with an iron fist. Backed up by the Common Defense Pact (aka, Russia), they're able to expand into what the game itself describes as a "heavily-militarized criminal combine" that can field hundreds of well-armed soldiers equipped with state-of-the-art weapons and vehicles, which can easily overwhelm the legitimate armed forces of Singapore and pose a significant challenge to Winslow Accord black ops soldiers.

** The original ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' timeline has Anaheim Electronics. Not only is it a powerful MegaCorp that all but holds a monopoly on mobile suit development after the One Year War. But it also has fingers in a lot of assets in the Earth Sphere, effectively runs the Lunar settlements in all but name, and can play both sides in a conflict while keeping a strong influence in TheFederation's government [[spoiler:not to mention having close connections to the [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Vist Foundation and Laplace's Box]]. Not even being overshadowed by SNRI in ''F91'' stops them from pulling the strings in ''Anime/MobileSuitVictoryGundam'' as the League Militaire's true backers]].
** The Titans in ''Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam'' are nominally just an elite StateSec for the Earth Federation, but in practice they're basically a private army for Jamitov Hymen [[spoiler:and later [[TheStarscream Paptimus Scirocco]]]], acting as their own autonomous faction and paying little regard to the Federation government, whom they outright plot to usurp.

** Even more so [[NebulousEvilOrganisation Amalgam]], that can [[spoiler:wipe out Mithril in single day]]

* ''Series/KamenRiderBuild'' has Nanba Heavy Industries, a weapons manufacturer that wants to start a Japanesse civil war so that it can sell to all sides of the war. Justified because Japan has been split into three regions by a disaster and they are all struggling as a result, and it's later revealed that one of the regions is a puppet state with Nanba running everything in secret [[spoiler:especially after the president kills the Prime Minister and impersonates him to run the country himself]].

** Atlas Corporation from ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyAdvancedWarfare'' are the largest PrivateMilitaryContractors on Earth, so powerful and influential that ''it has a seat on the United Nations Security Council.'' In an mission briefing, it was explicitly stated that Atlas had the full control of the ''entire world's critical infrastructure'', all except the USA. And Atlas was powerful enough that they could declare war on the ENTIRE FREE WORLD, during an UN Security Council meeting.
** The [[TheSyndicate 54 Immortals]] in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsIII'' are a criminal organization that, in the wake of a disaster that renders about half of Singapore almost uninhabitable, proceeded to take over the entire quarantined area and rule over it with an iron fist. Backed up by the Common Defence Pact (aka, Russia), they're able to expand into what the game itself describes as a "heavily-militarized criminal combine" that can field hundreds of well-armed soldiers equipped with state-of-the-art weapons and vehicles, which can easily overwhelm the legitimate armed forces of Singapore and pose a significant challenge to Winslow Accord black ops soldiers.

* In ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'', two feuding {{Mega Corp}}s, RED and BLU, each secretly control half of the world's governments. To add to the intrigue, the woman overseeing the feud is the CEO of ''both'' companies, as well as the CEO of a [[WarForFunAndProfit Weapons Supply Company...]]

** The SpacePirates field battleships, carriers, frigates, and fighter wings, despite having no government, no taxes, and no (known) ship production facilities. However, they do "own" several minimally populated lawless systems, and the [[OneNationUnderCopyright Teladi Corporation]] [[LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub most certainly doesn't supply them with starships]].

** ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' has Cerberus, a human supremacist terrorist organization which, due to generous covert funding from major human organizations, owns multiple deep-space habitats (some, like Cronos Station, being around 10 km long and should easily mass over a hundred million tons), funds multibillion-credit resurrection projects, builds bleeding-edge spacecraft, and decks its people out in spiffy uniforms. Notably, they managed to rebuild the Normandy, which Admiral Mikhailovich said costed as much as a heavy cruiser (read: multi-million ton capital ship that spits out kilotons per second in its main gun alone) or 12,000 fighter craft. The multi-billion credit initiative to revive Shepard was pocket change by comparison, and even that was enough to build and outfit an army, per Shepard himself.