Why would a corporation secretly trigger kaiju attacks against humanity? [closed]

Question

Some context

In a parallel version of our Earth, some decades ago a big attack was launched from an unspecified point, where insect-like kaijus (some as "small" as cars and houses, others as big as large buildings) swarmed a bunch of unsuspecting countries which were devastated in the process. As a result, a significant part of the continent (I still need to decide which one) was lost to these creatures before the attack could be contained by an alliance of the remaining countries.

Since then, technology has advanced significantly to the point where it allows for mechas to be created. The war with the insect-like creatures has never ceased, but it fluctuates between periods of relative calm when the number of creatures recede and show a less violent attitude, and short periods of desperate war when humanity does its best to contain the new swarms of monsters that cross the front. The remaining countries do their best to rebuild, recover some territory and advance their technology during the years of calm, and some can even maintain some level of prosperity and welfare state. At this point, the society has got relatively accustomed to the cycles of war and rebuild, and there is no sign that the war will be won in the near future regardless of what the state propaganda says.

The megacorporation

One megacorporation has profited significantly from the situation. They manufacture a wide range of commodities used by the public and is usually perceived very favourably by the masses. That is the same corporation that is now developing most of the mechas that collaborate with the military during the periods of war. For the record, I am not sticking to 100% realism here since these mechas are somehow inspired by the Evangelion ones, with a combination of mechanical and technological wonders but also "something else" that allows for some physics constraints to be surpassed and for some synchronization with the pilot that allows them to feel the mecha as an "extension" of his body. The corporation is using this "power that they do not really understand" for this and other practical applications, but also trying to study it in depth to fully comprehend what they are dealing with. I have yet to decide the specific nature of this power, which to give some examples could be something as vague as "the essence of God" or "the source of life and evolution" or as specific as a "weird material that composes most of the inner core of the Earth and subtly alters theta waves", and anything in between. This supernatural component is probably linked somehow with the insect creatures that keep attacking humanity.

The plot twist is that the megacorporation is indirectly responsible from the original appearance of the kaijus in the first place, and also DIRECTLY responsible from the periodic attacks that occur from time to time. I mean "directly" as in "they take some actions despite knowing that they will lead to new attacks". Of course, both the public, states and even most of the corporation employees are oblivious to this fact, and only a select group of directives and high level employees in the megacorporation know the truth. I do not want them to be cliched villains, but to have a real motive for these decisions. They do not want to end humanity, but to achieve some goals that might even be altruistic (or at least not completely selfish) and for the "greater good", even if that means that millions of people will suffer and die due to this horrific war as a consequence. The attacks might be the desired outcome from their actions or a side effect from them.

What could be the motives that lead these elites propagate the vicious attacks?

Edit: Due to some confusion (I might have worded it out poorly) I must stress out that these guys are not EVIL (with capital letters). They might be real assholes and like some degree of hedonism, but their goals is not just to profit for themselves. They do have some kind of "higher purpose", and they are willing to sacrifice a lot (as these attacks prove) to achieve it. Their rationale might be flawed or just plain wrong, but they sincerely believe it is the best course for humanity. These motives should be something that you could emphasize with even if you disagree with them or they horrify you, like you can probably understand why something that belongs to a sect and truly believes that the world is going to end UNLESS is capable of some truly horrific acts in the name of some higher purpose (just an example, these elites are not necessarily brainwashed).

Answer 1

Thinking the other way around : insect attacks are an unexpected, but useful byproduct

The key points are here :

The corporation is using this "power that they do not really understand" for this and other practical applications, but also trying to study it in depth to fully comprehend what they are dealing with.

This supernatural component is probably linked somehow with the insect creatures that keep attacking humanity.

The corporation wants to learn more on how to use this power. They know how to use it in meaningful ways already, but also know that it has potential for greater things. Things that could change humanity forever.

The issue? Experimentation on this power creates those insect attacks. Maybe the first insect attacks were natural, and research on them is what lead to the discovery of this "power". Or this power simply awoke those insects. In any case, those attacks are deadly and can destroy entire countries. Not great.

But wait, is it really an issue? As a matter of fact, those attacks have many useful side effects for the corporation :

• The insects are so strong and difficult to repel that the only realistic way to deal with them is with the special technology the corporation derives from the "power". This makes the corporation the "good guys", the side characters that help the heroes (aka, the mech drivers) deal with the baddies.
• The corporation has a monopoly over this unique power, meaning they can make a lot of money out of selling it to the allied countries. This money can be used to further experiment and make more out of the "power". Which causes more attacks, and the loop goes on...
• Getting better understanding of this power and how the insects react to it, they might even be able to slightly control where the attacks occur. Meaning that they can better control how difficult an attack will be to repel, as well as deal with potential competitor companies that would start researching this power, or even groups looking to expose them.

While the first few attacks probably weren't intended (who would want to destroy an entire country? That's getting rid of a potential client after all), the following could have been controled to make them just dangerous enough to create panic. This could have evolved into creating artificial attacks, calculated to have just the right amount of deadliness and resources expanded to keep up the loop.

In the long term, this plan allows the corporation to both get a solid position in their markets, push science even further thanks to this "power", while keeping a monopoly and all the money and political influence that brings.

They are the saviors of humankind, hidden in plain sight. After all, the people cheer for the pilots, not their robots. Without them, humanity would either stagnate or perish by those insects, so a "few" deaths are worth the reward. Right?

Answer 2

Practice

Megacorp discovered an alien armada headed to Earth. Space is big, and the aliens will be here in 100 years. We are defenseless. Megacorp tried to warn the planet about the alien invasion. But no one believed them. Or no one cared.

"We told them about the aliens. It didn't work. So now it's time to SHOW them the aliens."

Megacorp opens a trans-dimensional portal and teleports a single alien worker into the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Who'da thunk it, the alien is three miles tall. It wades past Hawaii and eats half of Japan before the combined American, Chinese, Russian, British, Japanese, Australian, and Icelandic militaries bomb it to bits.

The single alien unites Earth's superpowers. For a few years. They stop shooting at each other and start producing anti-Kaiju tanks and jets and bombs and guns. Everyone is friends for a few years. Then the novelty wears off and they they start rowing again. Time to send over more aliens.

Megacorp's objective is to prepare Earth for the alien invasion in 97 years. We need better weapons and more practice. We have a long way to go.

Answer 3

Someone always profits from war

Your megacorps profit enormously from government subsidies to build mechas for national defense plans. Each new Kaiju attack only reaffirms the necessity that the x-trillion dollar budget be renewed each year.

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Edit: I read the question too quickly and glossed over the altruistic aspect of the megacorps.

There are a couple good reasons why someone would put these events into motion. First and most obvious, wars have a way of reducing the petty differences between people. A global war against all of humanity would undoubtedly create an era of fewer inter-human wars and lend to global cooperation and unity.

Here's my take: the Kaijus weren't just created by the megacorp, but actually exist out in the greater cosmos. And they're coming. And they're a lot more powerful than what's been unleashed on Earth.
Megacorp did what they did because humanity, despite its own perceived technological advancement, was lacking and becoming rather stagnant. Technological acceleration was slowing and the world needed to be thrust into a state of preparedness for the much larger threat of the impending True Arrival of the Kaiju.
One objective might be facilitating the mass industrialization of space. Forcing humanity to grow from the womb to become a much larger and consequently more powerful entity to be reckoned with. There's no great economic incentive to create self-sustaining industry off-Earth. There's quite a number of challenges surrounding human habitation and vocation in space, all of which are expensive to tackle, requiring real-world practice (for example, all the challenges surrounding sustainable O'Neill cylinder habitats utilizing off-world resources).
War which threatens to destroy humanity entirely will grearly encourage building and transitioning economies in space. Command over vastly greater resources and energy makes humanity far stronger than being limited to the thin shell of air and lithosphere surrounding Earth.

When the Kaiju come in full-force, humanity as-is has a snowball's chance in hell at emerging on top. They need a swift kick in the pants and a change in gears to get where they need to be at the time of True Arrival.

Answer 4

To steal the plot from Neon Genesis Evangelion, the megacorporation's project to build mechas powered by a "supernatural component" could be what they believe will lead to the salvation of humanity.

However, even though some of the giant mechas they build show promise, they are still miles away from their critical breakthrough. They need to build many more and much highly developed mechas. But they need money, resources and special permissions for that. Who could provide them with those? The governments. But why would the governments give them anything when they and their voters don't believe in that salvation theory? Because those mechas defend against the kaijus. As long as the kaijus are a thread to humanity and the mechas appear as the only effective weapon against them, the government will give the corporation anything they want.

However, that's only going to work as long as the kaiju thread persists. No more kaijus means no more money, which means no more mechas, which means no salvation. So the corporation needs to make sure that the kaiju attacks not just continue, but become more and more threatening to justify more and more money, resources and special privileges going to their project.

Answer 5

They harvest dead kaijus

The bodies of the dead kaijus provide a substance which is really useful. Unfortunately nobody was yet able to breed kaijus in captivity or synthesize the substance. So waiting for a kaiju attack, killing them, and processing their corpses is the only way to obtain it.

What exactly does the substance do? Perhaps it has miraculous medical properties and cures deadly diseases or heals otherwise lethal injuries. Perhaps it's a source of clean energy that solves global warming. Perhaps it's super nutritious and thus solves world hunger. Whatever it does, what you get from a kaiju attack helps to save far more lives than are usually lost through one. So it's essentially a trolley problem: Let the kaiju kill a couple thousand people to save millions. An ethical stance that might be justifiable for some.

Answer 6

Desperately trying to "handle it" to cover up past failures

I think it is a well-known aspect of human psychology to "double down" rather than to admit failure. Maybe one of their R&D experiments triggered the first attack. The right thing to do would be to admit it and accept the consequences. However, a lot of us (including corporate executives) would be sorely tempted to try to "handle it" ourselves so that we didn't have to be blamed. So they invented a weapon (the first mecha) to fight back against the monsters. Then that experiment caused bigger attacks, so they came up with another "fix" that just made it worse.

Every time they double down, of course, the consequences they'll face if they're caught get more severe, hence there's even more motivation to "handle it", and the cycle perpetuates. They're increasingly frantic, increasingly willing to take stupid risks, always coming up with one more desperate idea that might just solve the problem. This also makes them more paranoid about whistleblowers, more willing to bribe or threaten anyone who stands in the way, etc.

By this point in the story, they're fully committed, and feel that there's no way to get out of the mess they've created than to plow forward in hopes that something will finally work.