One thing that's been nagging at the base of my brain... How did Bison rise to power and why does he want to conquer everything?!
Pretty much what Kawalorn said. His origin hasn't really been touched upon and there's some stuff that we're not sure if it's still canon. In old materials (unknown if it's still canon) he was said to have been born under an evil star, trained with an unknown master and two other students trying to suppress his foretold evil nature. Upon realizing that fighting against his evil nature was useless, he focused on the negative aspects of his soul, killed his master with a psycho crusher, and disappeared for a bit. He took soul power and crafted Psycho power. Some time later, he was being chased by authorities of an unknown country and disappeared behind state lines as a war broke out. He reemerged much later with Shadaloo and has been terrorizing the SF world for several decades. Things have been messed with and altered since then, but at some point later he comes into Rose's life. THAT'S where things get even more complicated. There's conflicting materials on the exact nature of Rose and Bison's connection. In some pieces he's been her master, in others she possesses the good half of his soul. In some, she first saw him and felt his presence in Italy, in others she knew him from a young age.
Shadaloo's been active for around 20+ years (with the recent implementation of the sliding timescale, things are not as direct with ages and birthdates, but the old material still should hold up) ; Blanka was born in 1966, his plane was felled due to Shadaloo involvement when he was around 10 (that's a super old piece of lore that recently was touched upon in the 30th anniversary edition) and the last bit of timeline we got with SF was that 3rd strike's events occurred in 1999.
Bison's been basically collecting people and resources for ages and in a faustian way, knows what people need and gives it to them. Balrog was broke and working as a bouncer in Vegas after his career his the skids, so he swept in and gave him purpose, he gave Vega direction and an opportunity to kill with abandon to satisfy his blood lust, Sagat was given the opportunity to get revenge on Ryu with all of Bison's tracking.
Interesting note, the Shadaloo troopers are treated
surprisingly well, it's just that the dolls have no such luxuries. It's written in some of the lore sources that they'd sleep in boxes/crates, yet the troopers have movies nights, arcades and health coverage. Bison doesn't give a crap about loyalty, if you're strong and / or useful then you're good. Hence why he let FANG rise to the rank of Heavenly King of Shadaloo despite trying to kill him in their first encounter.
Sorta off topic, on the topic of lore discussion, I've done an analysis of G and Q. Despite G's story costume's similarities to Q, I feel they are separate people. Grab a snack and check it out if you've got some time to kill!
