Government Conspiracy: Difference between revisions
m
clean up
m (update links) |
m (clean up) |
||
Line 60:
* ''[[Dark Skies]]''
* ''[[The Lone Gunmen]]''
** The series' pilot made a very good point regarding so-called "government conspiracies": while [[Conspiracy Theorist
* ''[[Millennium (TV series)|Millennium]]''
* ''[[The Prisoner]]''
Line 68:
** The show includes two straighter examples, in the NID and later "The Trust", that are ''even more'' secret than above-mentioned programs. The first goes to far and gets taken down by the heroes, while the second one gets infiltrated by Goa'uld.
* ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Star Trek Deep Space Nine]]'', and later [[Star Trek: Enterprise]], both feature an organization called Section 31, that's ambiguously part of the government. They're a group of Star Fleet officers who either work for the organization secretly, or just look the other way for them. They basically believe that "[[Knight Templar|The end justifies the means]]", almost literally [[Utopia Justifies the Means]], when it comes to defending [[The Federation]] (or just Earth, in the [[Star Trek: Enterprise]] era). The crew of ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space 9]]'' end up exposing them, after they fail to recruit Doctor Bashir into their organization, and try to commit Genocide on their enemies.
** Section 31 were actually vital to achieving a happy ending for the Dominion War. Because it's explicitly stated (in "Statistical Probabilities", and by a Changeling admitting to their [[Salt the Earth]] strategy) that the Alpha Quadrant would have become a [[Crapsack World]], had Odo not been able to use the cure to broker peace. This, means that Section 31 did a [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain|Nice Job Fixing it Villain]], and can be seen as [[Designated Villain
* ''[[Surface]]''
* ''[[Threshold]]'', another one where the protagonists are part of the conspiracy. Actually, that's not quite accurate - the protagonists ''are'' the conspiracy.
Line 83:
* ''[[Smallville]]'''s ninth season featured Checkmate, a federal agency that sought to control all metahumans. Season 10 adds the psychopaths behind the Vigilante Registration Act, as well as the [[Suicide Squad]], a group of former Checkmate agents out to oppose the government and anybody else who gets in their way.
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' had the Initiative in season four.
* In ''[[Nikita (TV series)|Nikita]]'', there's Oversight, the group that [[Big Bad|Percy]] nominally [[Bigger Bad|reports to]], but whom he's more or less separated from in order to run Division his way. When we first learn of their existence, they seem to just be a group of corrupt officials in the CIA, but then Percy meets with several of them in a restaurant and refers to them as "Admiral", "Senator", and "Joint Chief"<ref>
* ''[[The Shadow Line]]'' has Counterpoint, {{spoiler|1=a conspiracy run by high-up police officers and MI5 to use drug money to top up the police pension pot}}.
Line 129:
* [[Real Life]] examples are, of course, objects of much debate, but the handful of confirmed conspiracies traceable to the United States government is large enough to be depressing. Notable examples include:
** COINTELPRO, an FBI task force created in the mid-50s to sabotage and harass "subversive" organizations, including Civil Rights groups, workers' unions, anti-war protests, the Black Panthers, and the KKK. Discontinued in the early 70s, but you'll find plenty of people who say otherwise.
** The Iran-Contra Affair, an elaborate three-way deal between the CIA, Iran, and a band of Nicaraguan rebels. To be brief, the CIA sold weapons to Iran in exchange for cash and hostages, then funneled much of the proceeds into the pockets of the
** And of course the stories of the U.S. government (Specifically the CIA) involvement in the complicit smuggling, and selling of cocaine through third parties, which supplied the drug dealers on the street and which caused the crack epidemic that hit the inner cities hard. Supposedly it helped fund illegal operations elsewhere, like the above Contras.
** [[Kick the Dog|Probably one of the sickest conspiracies ever]] was the Tuskegee Experiment, wherein US Health Officials willingly and readily prevented African-American men from getting aid for syphilis, which even at the time the experiment was performed was treatable, just to see what effect the disease would have as time went on (nevermind the fact that humanity had known about syphilis and its effects for centuries, if not longer).
| |||