#midcon

Holiday Inn, Leicester

The Office of Vertical Intracity Development is a subdivision of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development that manages curtailing urbanization and population density. On the surface, they exist to enforce suburban development, maintain a reliance on car-dependent infrastructure, and reverse urban proletarianization in the name of civil security and municipal efficiency. Underneath their slavish devotion to capital is a deeper, more pressing influence-- an all-consuming fear of "The Labyrinth", an apocalyptic vision bestowed onto them of runaway urbanism creating dense pockets of psychic energy eating away at the fabric of reality. A city that, when left to grow organically, develops pockets of cysts and tumors where any sense of direction gives way to non-Euclidian architecture that defy the laws of space time. Train stations funneling unfortunate commuters into impossible miles of empty liminal terminals, never to show up for work. Apartment high rises that begin to grow down  and sideways twisting into the earth like a spider's den, undermining entire city blocks. Studio apartments whose internal volume falls well outside the bounds of its external volume, threatening to significantly destabilize the property market. And at the heart of all the insanity, an entity that stalks anyone who slips through the thin membrane that separates America's cities from the vest maze that runs parallel to the mundane urban sprawl. 

The smallest uniformed service in the United States, the NOAA Corps was created in 1970 as a direct successor to the Environmental Science Services Administration Corps and the Geodetic Survey Corps. The NOAA Corps legacy and relation to MIDCON-RED remains contentious, due to the lasting consequences of the Nixon administration and an interagency battle that still rages today. Originally the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration seemed a natural sister-organization under the Department of the Interior, with MIDCON eager to utilize it as an intermediary when working with the Department of Defense. White House staff and the Office of Management and Budget, ignorant of MIDCON's hidden objectives, were heavily in favor of merging it with the Department of the Interior to ensure NOAA's nominal mission of resource conservation remained intact without increasing the scope of the at-the-time-nascent Environmental Protection Agency. All the stars seemed aligned to provide MIDCON the front-facing uniformed agency it needed were it not for an unlikely stumbling block-- the war in Vietnam. 

The legend persists in the halls of government to this day. Facing increasing protests and domestic opposition to the war, Washington began stationing troops (up to 1500 at a time) in government offices across the country. Officially, they were there to protect federal offices from an increasingly militant anti-war movement. But anyone that knew Nixon chaffed at the concept of the increasingly paranoid commander-in-chief stationing armed forces within the halls of what seemed, to him, rival agencies flushed with political enemies. No one, especially MIDCON, wanted their offices garrisoned and heavily scrutinized-- much less ground zero for the next Kent State if protestors ever attempted to confront them. With pressure from MIDCON, secretary of Interior Walter Hickel sent a letter to President Nixon demanding that he "listen to the youth" and deescalate the situation. The letter leaked to the public, circulating in publications around Washington. Nixon, ever spiteful, torpedoed the Department of the Interior's bid for control of NOAA and assigned it to the Department of Commerce-- a move Washington insiders called "putting the fox in the hen house.” Not only was MIDCON robbed of its prize, but NOAA was placed under a department that would operate it in the name of commercial interests.

For everyone but Nixon, it seemed like an unmitigated disaster. Even the head of the Department of Commerce was taken aback, saying in his memoirs "I asked why we were so intent in winning this battle- and wouldn’t we be more focused on our essential mission if NOAA were placed elsewhere? The answer I received from those far more experienced than I in the governmental agency game was: 'Expand or die.'" In a latter passage he would write "Hiding my reservations concerning the headaches we would be inheriting, I congratulated the Secretary on his great victory. I grabbed a copy of the Stratton Commission Report and read the highlights on my way. I had never considered the possibility of our winning seriously enough to have really looked at the document. Fortunately the White House people with whom I was meeting had not read it either."

NOAA struggled severely under the Department of Commerce, who lacked the budget or interest to properly manage it. Largely left to languish in administrative hell, it was only a matter of time before the Office of Management and Budget audited the organization. With some political wrangling, MIDCON was able to sow anti-Commerce sentiment and convince a handful of key administrators of the necessity of an inter-agency taskforce to get NOAA back on track. Unofficially, it allowed the Department of the Interior to get their foot in the door and create an in for the Office of Mitigation and Defeat. It was an imperfect solution for an imperfect time. Even after the crisis had ended, MIDCON wouldn't soon forget how Nixon slighted them and the man's propensity for wiretapping anything and everything made having a frank, candid conversation with him on the nature of MIDCON impossible. One way or the other, he would need to be dealt with. So in 1972, a MIDCON agent under the cryptonym Deep Throat delivered confidential information on the Watergate Hotel break in to The Washington Post, taking precautions to make sure any investigation would lead back to an unaffiliated member of the FBI. 

Long time no see. Apologies for the radio silence the last few weeks, agents. Had to make an unexpected dead drop in Las Vegas. Had a lot of fun *finally* playing my way through the full ARG experience at OmegaMart and visiting Zak Bagan's Haunted Museum. I have some hot takes on both, but walked away with some new ideas on fleshing out MIDCON more and the sort of Black Science threats they'd face.

Anyway, updates below where I discuss the poll's winner (OD URANIDES) and what agents should expect from this faction.

Field Agents (Investigations and Espionage)

ITAP "Dangerous Game" Unit (wetwork strike teams)

FIREWATCH / Red Skies Limit (air support, rescue, smokejumpers & containment)

Case Officers (Research, Administration, & political intrigue)

I'm currently about halfway through writing FIREWATCH which I hope to turn into a one-off PDF as a sort of proof-of-concept demo for what a larger MIDCON resource will probably look like.