Lotus
- Image Source: I made it myself using Canva
- Canon Link: NA
- Primary Source: N/A
- Corporation Name: Red Lotus
- Headquarters: Xam'Chi, Atrisia
- Locations: In addition to its headquarters in Xam'Chi, Red Lotus has satellite offices in Cloud City, Canto Bight, and Nar Shaddaa
- Operations: As its publicly stated purpose, Red Lotus is essentially a highly specialized and exclusive staffing agency, providing models for fashion shows, fashion shoots, and other promotional purposes. Its clandestine function is to send operatives and agents around the galaxy under innocuous circumstances with plausible and well-documented cover stories.
- Parent Corporation: Lotus Universal
- Subsidiaries: N/A
Red Lotus is really two companies, one operating as a cover for the other. Its public face provides models and support staff (think hair and makeup, photographers, and technicians) for fashion and promotional events. It does provide these services and those funds finance the operation of the clandestine side of the business, which is essentially a specialized mercenary band of clandestine operatives. It's a big galaxy, so there is usually some kind of appropriate event in proximity to an operation that needs doing, and if not, Isobel Nakano harnesses the operations of her other companies, most notably Blue Lotus fashion house, to ensure that there is one.
Red Lotus has operatives that are suited to different kinds of tasks, including but not limited to: heists, surveillance, intelligence gathering, bugging, and assassination. Although this is a mercenary group, it is not without morals. Isobel Nakano selects the missions with a care for the moral wellbeing of her operatives. Red Lotus' operatives typically go after individuals, companies, and organizations that have engaged in some kind of wrongdoing -- though this is obviously a subjective analysis.
The hallmark of the Red Lotus operative is leaving no trace, no evidence, and no witnesses. Where possible, assassinations are framed to look like accidents or assassinations by other parties. The use of disguises, social stealth, and other clandestine methods are preferred versus brute force.
A reputation for secrecy has given rise to rumors that there is more afoot, with 'high class prostitution ring' being the predominant contender. Isobel has been careful to cultivate these rumors in a clandestine way, leaving the door open for plausible deniability, while letting those who might be inclined to think there is a nefarious underside to the business imagine a very different one to reality.
RATIONALE
In the aftermath of Isobel Nakano's departure from the First Order, she began Red Lotus as a means to maintain financial independence and keep her feet in the field. Leveraging her contacts in the world of the fashion and promotional industries, she recruited former friends and colleagues from both Blue Lotus' modelling contacts and those former members of the First Order Security Bureau disillusioned with the direction the Bureau was going under the leadership of Delilah Graham. Thus, she built a stable of models and a reputation for professionalism and stealth.