Bilderburg Alliance
The Bilderburg Alliance is considered to be Europe's most highly-kept secret organization, older than even the dreaded Illuminati.
According to Europe's premiere investigator Shodden Freud, the Alliance was created sometime in the 15th Century by Baron Victor Bilderburg as an alliance of bankers, merchants, and select members of the nobility to secure a better future for their respective positions of power. The group's name came from Bilderburg's palacial mannor house where the clandestine meetings would be held. It is believed that their first successful activity was to convince the Spanish royalty to sponsor Christopher Columbus' expedition to the "New World" on the promise that it would yield a faster route to India.
Since then, the Alliance was supposedly responsible for covertly influencing many of the significant changes in human history, including the American Revolution, all of the major economic depressions and recessions including the Great Depression, and both World Wars and the Cold War. All of these activities supposedly done for the purpose of benefitting their various members. Wars are declared or averted on the basis of whether or not doing so benefits members of the Alliance.
The greatest weapon the Alliance has is its secrecy. Members of the Alliance rarely meet outside of their annual gatherings, which is billed as an "annual economic conference". They have an army of agents connected to government agencies, including Interpol, to keep reporters, attorneys, and even skilled investigators away. Reputations have been sullied and lives ruined to keep the full scope of the Alliance a secret.
Connection to Paragon City
The corporate faciliator Simon Barrister was supposedly linked to both Shadowborn and the Alliance.
As was revealed in Issue #28 of the "Guardians of the Dawn Spotlight" series, Wentworth's Fine Consignment CEO Andrew Wentworth has been a member of the Alliance for at least five years. In "Guardians of the Dawn AFTERMATH", he confesses to his nephew Alex that he was the one that hired Barrister. Afterward, the Alliance assimilates all functions of Shadowborn, essentially making it a part of the Alliance.
