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A [[Surveillance as the Plot Demands|magic ball or screen on the wall showing the hero's every move]] is a required accessory.
 
Keep in mind that, plotwise, they should [[The Omniscient|know most]] of the details, including [[Spoiler|spoilersspoiler]]s that should be kept from the audience or details the writers themselves haven't decided on. This often is the setup for a [[Gambit Roulette]]. Anything that happens, even unlikely combinations of luck and choices that seem to destroy the Council's plans, are "[[Schrodinger's Gun|just as planned]]".
 
The result is a lot of [[Cryptic Conversation|vague and pretentious doubletalk]] about how they know everything that's happening but don't actually mention what any of those things are, not even to themselves. Expect comments like "[[All According to Plan|Everything is going according to]] [[Evil Plan|Plan]]." and "[[Vagueness Is Coming|Great Darkness is coming.]] We will see if the hero can handle it." Except for what little tidbits the writer feels obliged to reveal, as little detail as possible is given. Also, as [[The Hero]] (and by extension, the audience) finds out more of "The Plan", The Omniscient Council Of Vagueness will have no problem discussing those parts directly, even when it was apparently taboo previously. (Though, of course, people tend not to talk in detail about things they all already know. Makes wiretapping a frustrating business.)
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* Pretty much everybody in ''[[RahXephon]]'' other than the main character gets a shot at this, but Bähbem and anybody he's talking to at any given moment are the champs.
* ''[[Ancient Conspiracy|Les Soldats']]'' high council in ''[[Noir]]'' shows up in this fashion in the later half of the series, though they're pretty much more worried about [[Knight Templar|Altena]] than the [[Hitman with a Heart|main heroines]].
* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]]'' had one meeting of an [[The Omniscient Council of Vagueness|Omniscient Council Of Vagueness]] with the Surveyors deciding if the Gundam Trinity should be acknowledged. Instead of silhouettes, they used various pieces of art to represent different councillors.
* ''[[Macross Frontier]]'' has it in form of a bodyless voices engaging in a vague, but ominously sounding dialogues {{spoiler|inside Grace's head}}. [[Mind Screw|Or not]].
** {{spoiler|It's just an [[Hive Mind]] actually, the council linked themselves with each other}}
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** For once, it's perfectly reasonable that they're shown as monoliths only - {{spoiler|seeing as they're brains in jars}}
** Also, because it's a [[Shout-Out]] to [[Neon Genesis Evangelion]].
* The "Book Men" of ''[[Princess Tutu]]'' are shown towards the end of the series in this way--away—a group of members with their faces hidden by cloaks, gathering in a torch-lit room to gasp and worry over the "awakening" of a mysterious someone. {{spoiler|They're talking about Fakir remembering his [[Reality Warper]] powers. It turns out they're an Ancient Conspiracy that cut off Drosselmeyer's hands...and will do the same to any of his descendants who abuse their powers.}}
* ''[[Death Note]]'' Inverted this a bit in the Yotsuba arc, where there is a shadowy council of eight people at the top of an organization, secretly killing enemies of the corporation -- andcorporation—and our main characters spy on, [[Batman Gambit|manipulate]], suspect, and use them as pawns in in their own investigation while the council mostly has no idea they're being spied on.
* Initially done in ''[[Naruto]]'' with Akatsuki before they were shown at which point some of them were killed, one quit, and rest quickly fell in line with the secret leader.
* The closest thing ''[[One Piece]]'' has is the Gorosei. They're just a bunch of old men who allegedly run the World Government, but between the Council of Kings handling international affairs, and Sengoku controlling the Navy, there's really no telling what they do.
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== Literature ==
* The Arisians of [[E. E. "Doc" Smith]]'s ''[[Lensman]]'' saga may be the prototype; in several scenes, they discuss the progress of Kimball Kinnison and other major characters in terms of their "Visualization of the Cosmic All" -- making—making this [[Older Than Television]].
* The Volturi in ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]''.
* ''The Second [[Foundation]]'' (Asimov's [[Chessmaster]] extraordinares) take this to an extreme. One chapter ends with two Second Foundationers summarizing everything that just happened: "Intersection point?" "Yes! May we live to see the dawn!"
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*** YMMV on how much {{spoiler|Snape}} actually knew, and how much he simply pretended to know. Hints in the narrative suggest he was either stringing Narcissa along to learn the plan, or was already regretting what he knew he had to do.
** Dumbledore is chairman, secretary and treasurer of the Omniscient Council all rolled into one.
* The Camberian Council in the [[Deryni]] series gradually devolves into this trope. Originally founded to preserve Deryni magic and lore in the face of persecution and to take an active (if behind-the-scenes) role in the affairs of the Eleven Kingdoms, over the centuries it has become tradition-bound and priggish, just as prone to [[Fantastic Racism]] as the Deryni's human persecutors, and given to endless debates over the actions of the series heroes without taking much at all in the way of action themselves. [[The Omniscient Council of Vagueness|Council of Vagueness]], indeed.
* The White Council from [[The Lord of the Rings]] is essentially this for the good guys. The Valar (demi-gods) from [[The Silmarillion]] fit this trope even better.
** Notably, the White Council's vagueness seems to have ultimately hampered their effectiveness. Several decades before the story begins properly, the Council informally disbanded as an ultimate failure.
* ''[[Replica]]'': [[The Omniscient Council of Vagueness]] was always plotting insignificant things, such as stealing the heroin a piece of fingernail to make sure she's actually the clone. Because, yes, kidnapping some people and releasing them after cutting fingernails is the best plan not to be spotted. In the end, after being defeated for the zillionth time, they ended every action, because some government organization watched them. Duh.
* In the sister series ''[[Hero Dot Com|Hero.com]]'' and ''[[Villain Dot Net|Villain.net]]'', there exists the Council of Evil. We more of it in ''Villain.net'', obviously, and it's revealed in the first book that it exists to make sure the various supervillains' plots don't overlap. After all, what's the point in robbing a gold vault in Switzerland if at the same moment, some other guy's going to roast the city with a death ray? The COE issues permits to supervillains, provided that their plans are officially approved.
* Happens at the end of ''[[The Maze Runner]]'' and its sequel ''The Scorch Trials''. By the sequel, however, the council decided to tell them that they were being watched and that they had to do this challenge, but not why.
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== Live Action TV ==
* Up until "The Deadly Assassin", the Time Lords in ''[[Doctor Who]]'' were sometimes presented as [[The Omniscient Council of Vagueness]], most blatantly in "Colony In Space". In "Assassin" they were [[Retcon|Retconned]]ned as The [[Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering|Blinkered Council of College Infighting]], and they never really recovered. [[Russell T. Davies]] decided the revived show would be better off without them...{{spoiler|.. until they were brought back in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/NS/S4/E17 E18 The End of Time|The End of Time, Part One]]", in which they served simultaneously as an [[Omniscient Council of Vagueness]] and an [[Unseen Audience]]}}.}}
* In the early season of ''[[Babylon 5]]'', the Grey Council fit this to a tee, though they weren't villainous.
** Given that it's ''Babylon 5'', not ''exactly'' villainous.
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* Pretty much everyone other than the three playable characters in ''[[Fahrenheit (2005 video game)]]'' (known to some of you as ''Indigo Prophecy'') are part of an Omniscient Council of Vagueness. {{spoiler|Yes, including Agatha, the wheelchair bound old woman. And, she's actually a holographic robot computer virus.}} But don't worry, because it's [[Blatant Lies|Better Than It Sounds]]
** The {{spoiler|Orange Clan}} in particular is practically the video game equivalent of [[Neon Genesis Evangelion|SEELE]].
* Likewise, the Playstation game ''[[Xenogears]]'' is riddled with lengthy purposeless conversations between members of the Gazel Ministry, a group of barely visible and largely indistinguishable talking heads on video screens whose relevance to what's actually going on for the player won't be revealed until much, ''much'' later -- 40later—40 hours or more -- inmore—in the game.
** This example is shamelessly spoofed by the flash movie, ''Shadow Government Puppet Show'', right down to the dialogue. It turns out that these talking heads are just really, ''really'' bored.
** It's worth noting that the Gazel Ministry isn't teleconferencing. They actually ''are'' talking heads on computer screens attached to a giant rotating sphere. They pretty much can't do anything but rotate and make evil plans, {{spoiler|and get killed by basically hitting the "off" button.}}
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* The [[Legion of Doom]] presented in the PS2 game ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' early on met this way as shadowy figures standard to the trope. However, their distinctive body shapes and iconic voices make easy for anyone familiar with Disney to identify them.
** Forget "distinctive body shapes"; turning up the brightness all the way makes it even more apparent who they are.
** In ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'', the [[Beta Baddie|Beta Baddies]]s of Organization XIII form a similar omniscient council (though are only seen meeting together in the [[Limited Special Collectors' Ultimate Edition]].) Enhancing the effect was the fact that the members each wore a hooded [[Black Cloak]], which concealed their face until they became part of the story directly.
* Throughout ''[[Disgaea: Hour of Darkness]]'', scenes show Seraph Lamington and an obscured individual discussing their plan in this manner. However, {{spoiler|not only is the plan not particularly evil in any way, but the other man involved is the comic relief character Mid-Boss}}.
* The X Hunters appear this way in the beginning of ''[[Mega Man X]] 2'', including a [[Surveillance as the Plot Demands|"digital screen ball" thing]] scene.
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** They're also a [[Cosmopolitan Council]] of evil overlord stereotypes, [[Running Gag|overplayed]] to the point of being [[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything|completely ineffectual]] ... until a sudden onset of [[Cerebus Syndrome]] (if that is even possible for the show!) made the Tribunal and its members a more active part of the plot. It turns out that the leader [[Unwitting Pawn|secretly]] {{spoiler|[[I Need You Stronger|wants Dethklok to succeed]]}}.
* The 2000s ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' series has two mysterious warriors led by three even-more-mysterious Omniscient Council types who look nothing alike but all speak with the same voice. They turn out to be the good guys, more or less.
* ''[[Clone High]]'' was created by the (self-proclaimed) Secret Board of Shadowy Figures in an attempt to create [[Super Soldier|Super Soldiers]]s because [[Lamarck Was Right]].
* The Season 3 premiere of ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'' features the [[Weird Trade Union|Guild of Calamitous Intent]]'s Council of Thirteen as they interrogate the Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend, in the process parodying this trope about as far as it can go. Over the course of the episode, they [[Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic|trip over each other's sentences]], argue about what to call themselves, make gestures that can't be seen by their subjects, and complain about their lack of [[Surveillance as the Plot Demands]].
** And their voices and silhouettes gave out some (most are old cartoon villains)
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== Real Life ==
* [[Secret Organization Craving Intelligent Enigmatic Tropers Yonder|S]]ome pe[[Secret Organization Craving Intelligent Enigmatic Tropers Yonder|o]]ple have theorized that such an Omnipotent [[Secret Organization Craving Intelligent Enigmatic Tropers Yonder|C]]ouncil ex[[Secret Organization Craving Intelligent Enigmatic Tropers Yonder|i]]sts on [[This Very Wiki]]. I don't know wh[[Secret Organization Craving Intelligent Enigmatic Tropers Yonder|e]]re [[Secret Organization Craving Intelligent Enigmatic Tropers Yonder|t]]he[[Secret Organization Craving Intelligent Enigmatic Tropers Yonder|y]] got this idea. Everyone knows that's a lie. [[Troper|Tropers]]s are much too busy editing pages to form a [[Secret Organization Craving Intelligent Enigmatic Tropers Yonder|cabal]]. Yes, the idea is appealing, but it's just not true.
** The admins can sure seem this way when you don't particular know or care to know about admin politics. That is; unseen, incomprehensible, usually irrelevant.
*** More plausibly, all that's happening is a combination of [[Ghost in the Shell|stand alone complex due]] to [[This Wiki]] being a group of fairly like-minded people and social interactions that no one person can be aware of.
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