As with other Pentex subsidiaries, the overwhelming majority of employees at the various King companies have no idea that they're doing anything other than producing cheap booze. They come in for shifts, work hard to get product out the door, and go home clutching their slightly-below-industry-standard paychecks without the vaguest inkling that they're doing anything worse than foisting yet another mass-produced American pisswater beer on the unsuspecting public. That is, of course, precisely the way upper management likes it, and it's part of why King is so successful. By constantly fostering a crisis mentality among its employees with constant exhortations about vanishing market share (false), shrinking profit margins (true), and impending layoffs or reorganizations (always a possibility these days), management keeps its workers in constant terror of unemployment or worse. That keeps the production staff working at fever pitch to pump out more booze, frantic to get it on shelves, and everyone too afraid for their jobs to ask for raises, improved working conditions and the like.
—Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Subsidiaries: A Guide To Pentex
You know why these men will die for me? Because I've seen their future in the glory, and hence they are content.
—Father Comstock, Bioshock Infinite
The first century of dominion is commonly spent in the cultivation of terror. Children are taken from their parents cottages and returned as bloodless corpses or gibbering freaks; a rebellious headman goes to sleep, and at cockcrow wakes up next to the empty skin of his wife; an overly intrepid forester disappears, and the villagers discover... traces at various sites and intervals over the next year. However, a Fiend must be careful not to overdo things; constant massacres lead the inhabitants to leave, and not even a Tzimisce and all her retainers can stop an entire village's wholesale migration.
Once the mortals have been pacified and bullied, the next step is to mold the domain into whatever will best serve the voivode's interest. Koldun and other sorcerous types seek merely to establish a secure herd, while Fiends of more political inclination take a more active hand — or talon, as the case may be — in the governance of their fiefdom. In many cases, this involves indoctrinating the mortal populace into serving as weapons against the voivode's rivals...
—Vampire: The Masquerade — Libellus Sanguinis: Masters of the State
I led a mixed body of Szgany, Hungarians and local Wallachs, paid them well, housed and fed them, was accepted as a landowner and leader. The Szgany, of course, would have followed me to the ends of the earth — and they did, they did! — not out of love but some strange emotion which is in the wild breast of all the Szgany. Simply say that I was a Power, and that they associated with me.
—Faethor Ferenczy, Necroscope II: Wamphyri
If a queen bee wants something done right, she's got to drive terror into the hearts of her subordinates herself. Hold your position. I'm coming into the field. I'd say not to be nervous but... Be. Nervous.
—Kirsten Geary, The Secret World
This practice was one of Klaus's more radical innovations, and one of his most effective ones. It relied upon the simple truth that most of the soldiers in a rogue Spark's army were not there out of any great loyalty to said Spark but because they did not want to be turned into fish (or whatever). That said, there is camaraderie and comforting routine in military life that many young men enjoy, and the chance to be a part of the Winning Side has a strong allure. Thus the army of the Empire was one of the few in history that got larger with every battle it fought.
—Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle: A Girl Genius Novel, footnote #30, on the Wulfenbach Empire's policy of recruiting captured enemy POWs
"One wrong step in my bullion vaults
And you're gonna be met with a billion volts
But if you do pocket any ill-gotten profits
Then I'll dock it via rocket from the minion at fault
My management skills are uniquely stirring
When lacking in diligent, measly servants
Having one killed with the team observing
Works magic on building the weak's subservience"
And you're gonna be met with a billion volts
But if you do pocket any ill-gotten profits
Then I'll dock it via rocket from the minion at fault
My management skills are uniquely stirring
When lacking in diligent, measly servants
Having one killed with the team observing
Works magic on building the weak's subservience"
—The Stupendium, "FIEND LIKE ME | Evil Genius 2 Song"
