The file on Seraphim, Cross Applied Technologies corporation's spooks, was a proposal I made to the Loose Alliances sourcebook that got turned down. As I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to make, I finished writing it anyway. Under the guise of a chapter on Seraphim, I was actually introducing a lot of ideas on Ares Macrotechnology and Esprit Industries intelligence services, or the Nanosecond Buyout.

I used the Seraphim organization as given in Shadows of North America, which only lacked the last sections. Later, Jon Szeto made a different on in SOTA:2064. For once, I did not bow to rewrite my work following new books, because I simply did not like what he did. About the organization, I found his to be less coherent and too much simplistic. For the rest, "his" Seraphim (the canon Seraphim, actually) lose a lot of their mystery in a half a page. But maybe it's just because he got picked up to write this chapter instead of me (reading how I wrote in English, you may understand) and made a mess of the rules I proposed to handle spying satellites.

There are also sourcebooks that came to enrich my work when I learned about them. The German sourcebook Walzer, Punks & schwarzes Ice and the campaign Shockwellen describe the secrets behind the Proteus corporation, controled and backed by executives from several other corporations, without their management knowing. One of these person, diverting Cross assets, is a Seraphim. And Proteus masters and Seraphim both use biblical code names. It opens the way to image one influenced the other. I left this question unanswered, and I just echoed the consequences from Shockwellen in a the part I added on Geneva.

The time Lucien Cross spent in Paris between 2019 and 2026 was to catch up a mistake Peter Taylor originally made in Loose Alliances about the Grand Tour, a serie of high society event in Europe. He mentionned Cross presence as remarkable at a time he has not yet founded Cross Applied Technologies. Finally, he corrected that mistake, but I kept the idea. There are other small references like this one, like the Uzi 3 or Ares Intelligence Headquarters.

I reused a lot of ideas from this file under another format, with a "novel" I started writing on the Nanosecond Buyout, describing the financial operations performed by Damien Knight and Lucien Cross, and how it ties with the Nightwraith bombing. It features the same idea of bluring the line how were the "Seraphim" name comes from. I have yet to choose the real one, but an interesting option if da Vinci pictre actuall showed the future, the "seraphim" word coming again and again is some sort of Fate sign (ycompare this to "Bad Wolf" in Doctor Who).

A big part of my inspiration for Seraphim came from the Alias TV show, or at least the first season, where a dose of mystery remains. You really find the same themes, with a special service shrouded in secrecy and mysteries related to a Renaissance genius. I am a little less ashamed since all of these were already present in Dunkelzahn Secrets : Portfolio of a dragon, four years before the show started. In a TV show as in a RPG campaign, it is hard to unveil bits of mystery, but never too much, while pushing the story forward.

The part on Seattle take on the chapter "Who watch the watchers ?" in Dunkelzahns secrets. The story is much more complex than it seems and describe the operative network the great dragon Dunkelzahn maitained. A less-known mention in Blood in the Boardroom continued the story, with Seraphim taking over part of the network in Seattle. With Dunkelzahn main agent in Seattle also being a former Seraphim, it can be a very complicated story.

With all these idea I had on the Seraphim, I was clearly disapointed to learn about Cross Applied Technologies fall between System Failure and the Fourth Edition. It does leave a lot of opportunity to develop even more the plots I had in mind. My disappointment rather comes from how Ares bought part of Cross assets. It shows once again a common misconception on how corporations work. Cross shareholding structure was locked by Lucien Cross, his son and close relatives. The only shareholder out of that group was Leonard Aurelius. Even with the death of Lucien Cross and the Matrix crash, even if they have to sell, they would to anyone but not to Ares. Damien Knight, Ares boss, tried several times to kill Lucien Cross. One of those attempts costs Jezebel Surateau -a shareholder- the use of her legs. He also had Raymond Briggs' son killed, both Ares executive who followed Aurelius. I just don't believe they would ever accept an offer from Ares. They would sell to someone else.

For your information, and because it annoyed me a lot when I was working on this, the RTF file format has trouble with the Scandinavian accents, causing format styles jumps. And for a last reference, the "reliability rating E-4" comes from West End Games Star Wars RPG Empire Sourcebook, which had two pages describing Imperial Intelligence message format.