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Covert Group with Mundane Front
- 934 statements
- 179 feature instances
- 154 referencing feature instances
Covert Group with Mundane Front | type |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front | comment |
One problem with being a member of the Government Agency of Fiction or of a Covert Group is that, at some point, you need to interact with the public or non-covert governmental agencies. This is where being a Covert Group with a Mundane Front comes in. A covert group has a highly mundane front and it will sometimes be commented that their funding is hidden from the public within the low funding the front group officially receives. Sometimes this will be played for laughs, as characters will either make fun of the official organ the spies are supposed to come from, or else see the front for the Paper-Thin Disguise that it is. As a general note, it is very common for a cultural attaché to be one of these ("travel to interesting places; kill interesting people"). Compare with the low rank/high power of the Almighty Janitor, as well as Totally Not a Criminal Front, which is when something similar is done by criminals very poorly. See also Milkman Conspiracy and Overt Operative. When surrounded by even more secrecy, it becomes a case of No Such Agency. While not required, the Mundane Front may have an Unusually Uninteresting Name, or one with Ominous Mundanity. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_10401be7 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_10401be7 | comment |
Season 2 of Batman: The Telltale Series features a sinister rogue government conspiracy who have their secret base hidden in a spa. Give them points for trying; Bruce enters to scope the place out and the dangerous operatives start telling him about the massages they have on offer. | |
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Batman: The Telltale Series (Video Game) | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_12a78667 | type |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_12a78667 | comment |
Sniper Assassin series: FFG Corporation, ostensibly a textile manufacturer, is actually a front for the manufacturing of narcotics. | |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_164f5129 | type |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_164f5129 | comment |
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. U.N.C.L.E. headquarters is located behind Del Floria's Tailor Shop, while another entrance is via The Masque Club. U.N.C.L.E.'s "Section VII: Public Relations and Propaganda" had a charity fundraising group as a front. | |
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The Man from U.N.C.L.E. | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_17024c6d | type |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_17024c6d | comment |
The Pretender: The Centre pretends to be a think-tank as a front for their research and dubious business deals. | |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_17842d5f | type |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_17842d5f | comment |
In Fallout 76, the entrance to one of the game's nuclear missile silos is disguised as a cargo elevator in a processing factory. Terminal entries found in the factory imply that the pre-war US government subsidized the factory's operations and maintained a bare minimum of activity to keep up appearances. The game also features another Chinese base (a military intelligence bunker) under the local Mama Dolce's factory, though unlike the commando base in Fallout 3, this one was wiped out by the Enclave after the war. | |
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Fallout 76 (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_17842d5f | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1ad9726b | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1ad9726b | comment |
Hunter: The Vigil has Task Force VALKYRIE, the high-priority special ops group that deals with supernatural incursions. Like the Secret Service, they're based out of the Treasury Department. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1ad9726b | featureApplicability |
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Hunter: The Vigil (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1ad9726b | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1af12467 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1af12467 | comment |
Ghosted: To the general public, the Bureau Underground's base of operations in LA is simply the Mid Valley Coat Hanger Company. | |
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Ghosted | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1af12467 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1b5eec6e | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1b5eec6e | comment |
Sheep in the Big City: In "Going off the Sheep End", General Specific and his soldiers disguise their so-called "Top Secret Military Base" as a bakery. They accomplish this by doing nothing more than covering up the "-se" on their sign with "-kery". | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1b5eec6e | featureApplicability |
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Sheep in the Big City | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1b5eec6e | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1bdeba5a | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1bdeba5a | comment |
X-Men: Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters was this for decades. However, it's been blown up so many times, it probably doesn't qualify any more. The Weapon X Program? You know, the Big Bad behind Wolverine's transformation from relatively innocuous soldier to blade–handed immortal killing machine? Who've made life a merry hell for various B–list X-Men for the last thirty years? On paper, they're the Department of Agriculture, Pest Control Division. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1bdeba5a | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1c24c068 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1c24c068 | comment |
A Young Girl's Guerrilla War: The Rising Sun Benevolent Organization advertises itself as a charitable association aimed at improving Japanese public health and fostering better relations between the Britannians and the local "Elevens". While the first is technically true (the RSBS provides education and medicine to Shinjuku residents), it also provides a front for the Kozuki Organization to gain funds and gather members for resisting Britannian occupation. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1c24c068 | featureApplicability |
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A Young Girl's Guerrilla War (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1c24c068 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1e91c61c | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1e91c61c | comment |
Wild C.A.T.S.: The American agency devoted to looking into super-human crimes in the Wild Storm universe was the National Park Service, which is actually a real organization. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1e91c61c | featureApplicability |
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Wild C.A.T.s (WildStorm) (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_1e91c61c | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_22119589 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_22119589 | comment |
A villainous example occurs in Alias with the terrorist group SD-6 masquerading behind the name of a bank, Credit Dauphine. | |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_222c2051 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_222c2051 | comment |
Chuck: Chuck and Casey's jobs at the Buy More are more or less genuine, but Casey has all sorts of weapons and gadgets hidden around the store, and the ice cream parlor where Sarah works is a front for a secret CIA base. It's not clear if the owners know this; presumably the place is run by the CIA, since Sarah is always away on missions and would probably be fired if it were a real job. Chuck's excuse is that he has to leave the store to answer tech support calls. As of Season 4, the Buy More has been entirely taken over by the CIA and is a full-fledged secret base. However, Morgan convinces General Beckman that people are getting suspicious about how effective the new Buy More staff is, getting her to hire the old, lazy employees back. The store more or less goes back to being a regular one after that, albeit with a secret underground base. | |
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Chuck | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_222c2051 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2250e67e | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2250e67e | comment |
Star Trek: Enterprise has an organization of temporal agents from the 31st century. Their front man on Enterprise, Daniels, serves as Captain Archer's personal steward because it puts him near the man he was assigned to watch while allowing him to fly under everyone else's radar. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2250e67e | featureApplicability |
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Star Trek: Enterprise | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2250e67e | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_230b3240 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_230b3240 | comment |
Jack Ryan usually has super-paramilitary spy John Clark covering himself as a specialist in a mundane job category. Clear and Present Danger implies that he's also knowledgeable enough to cover himself other ways as well. Debt of Honor actually has him and his partner pretending to be Russians to infiltrate Japan. When the paramilitary anti-terrorist organization Rainbow is established in Rainbow Six, they're listed as belonging to the Special Air Service in a case of Hiding in Plain Sight. "The Campus", the secret anti-terrorist investigation and assassination squad at the center of his novels starting with The Teeth of the Tiger, operates completely off the government books under the cover of being a financial trading firm. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_230b3240 | featureApplicability |
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Jack Ryan | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_230b3240 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_237c99fd | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_237c99fd | comment |
The climax of Some Like It Hot involves the "Friends of Italian Opera", which is a front for the Cosa Nostra. | |
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Some Like It Hot | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_237c99fd | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_24a6dfde | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_24a6dfde | comment |
The Order of Denderah in lonelygirl15 uses the Hymn of One, Verdus Phamaceuticals, the Wyman Foundation, the Lullaby Project, Bio-Therapy Report LLC and Sacred Spirit. | |
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lonelygirl15 (Web Video) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_24a6dfde | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_251cef2a | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_251cef2a | comment |
Intelligence: The protagonist has many front companies, including a shipyard and a lumber business, but his favorite is a strip club called the Chick-A-Dee. | |
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Intelligence (2006) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_251cef2a | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_25302c90 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_25302c90 | comment |
In Once Upon a Spy, the unnamed intelligence agency has its headquarters located under an amusement park. The entrance is through the Tunnel of Love. It does maintain other fronts, such as the computing company that Jack works for. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_25302c90 | featureApplicability |
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Once Upon a Spy | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_25302c90 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2593556 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2593556 | comment |
In Fear No Evil, a My Hero Academia fanfic, on the surface Humarise is a charity and support group for Quirkless people. In actuality, Humarise is a cult with politicians and police deep in their pockets and imprison and brainwash their members. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2593556 | featureApplicability |
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Fear No Evil (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2593556 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_261c8d3f | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_261c8d3f | comment |
The Simpsons: Parodied in "Bart the Murderer" with intelligence agency vans disguised as "Two Guys from Quantico Pizza" and "Flowers By Irene". In "Brother's Little Helper", it is revealed that Major League Baseball is actually a secret organization that spies on Americans using everything from satellites to miniature cameras hidden in baseball bats. |
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The Simpsons | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_261c8d3f | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_29a59965 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_29a59965 | comment |
In Geography Club, the characters start a Gay-Straight Alliance at their high school. They call it Geography Club, so that people not in the know will think it seems boring and not want to join. | |
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Geography Club | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_29a59965 | |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2a842e3a | comment |
In the Doctor Who Expanded Universe short story "Doom's Day: Hour One", the Lesser Order of Oberon is a Murder, Inc. organisation based in an anonymous grey office building, in a city filled with anonymous grey office buildings, on a fairly anonymous and grey planet. The entire city was secretly built to conceal the Order's offices. | |
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Doctor Who – Expanded Universe (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2a842e3a | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2bb4ae0f | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2bb4ae0f | comment |
The Company in Heroes uses Primatech, a paper company based in Odessa, Texas. Noah Bennett outwardly seems to be a run-of-the-mill manager there. | |
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Heroes | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2e3e7ac2 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2e3e7ac2 | comment |
Justice League: In "The Return", Lex Luthor has a secret bunker ironically located underneath a barbershop. Equally bald hero Steel does point out that it's the last place anyone would look for Luthor. His tone suggests that he's equal parts impressed by the idea, angry that he didn't think of it, and drumming up plans for his own HQ in a Metropolis Barbershop (the Steel Works, last seen in Superman: The Animated Series, is a rather conspicuous old steel mill). | |
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Justice League | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2e3e7ac2 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2e7ed09c | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_2e7ed09c | comment |
Special Unit 2: The eponymous Special Unit uses a dry cleaners for cover. The actual base is located in an abandoned subway station under the dry cleaners. In one episode, a guy tries to rob the place with a handgun. Cue all the undercover cops taking out their oversized guns in a scene reminiscent of RoboCop 3. |
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Special Unit 2 | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3501cc23 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3501cc23 | comment |
Locke Lamora of the Gentleman Bastard sequence claims to be one of these in the second book... as in, he tells another character that he used to work in the weights and measures department until he was recruited as a spy by the Archon, a position he's now supposedly on the run from. (The part about weights and measures is a complete fiction, and he's actually working for the Archon, under threat of blackmail, at the time he says this.) | |
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Gentleman Bastard | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3b34143f | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3b34143f | comment |
Wizarding buildings in Harry Potter tend to hide behind fronts such as a closed department store (St Mungo's Hospital), a non-working phone (the public entrance to the Ministry of Magic) and a dingy pub (Diagon Alley). | |
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Harry Potter | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3b34143f | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3d1d4598 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3d1d4598 | comment |
Kingsman: Exploited in Kingsman: The Secret Service. The Kingsmen's classic tailor front is justified by having started out as one, catering to the rich and powerful and becoming quite wealthy and influential themselves in the process. After its owners and clients lost most of their heirs to World War I, they decided to use the un-inherited wealth to forge a new knightly order to ensure peace around the world. It may be the first case where the Covert Group grew out of the Mundane Front practically as a sideline. Kingsman: The Golden Circle gives us Statesman, a (really good) brand of liquor that's the mundane front for the Kingsman's American counterparts. The front is revealed to be a multi-billion-dollar company, as one would expect of capitalism; Kingsman sells a few thousand $5000+ suits a year, Statesman sells millions of $100+ bottles of liquor in the same timeframe. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3d1d4598 | featureApplicability |
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Kingsman | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3d1d4598 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3d8baf13 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3d8baf13 | comment |
In one episode, a guy tries to rob the place with a handgun. Cue all the undercover cops taking out their oversized guns in a scene reminiscent of RoboCop 3. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3d8baf13 | featureApplicability |
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RoboCop 3 | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3d8baf13 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3f5f4ea2 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3f5f4ea2 | comment |
Played with in Austin Powers — the front organisation Virtucom makes more money legitimately than Dr Evil's criminal plans would bring in. This becomes a running gag, where each new movie would have Number Two suggest they focus on a front organization, which is by far more profitable (Starbucks in the second and a talent agency in the third), only to be dismissed. | |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3ff0f7dd | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_3ff0f7dd | comment |
In KateModern, the Order's covers are the Hymn of One and St. Grinstead Psychiatric Research Institution.note Absolutely no relation to Scientology, which has its UK headquarters in the town of East Grinstead. | |
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KateModern (Web Video) | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_42ffb88e | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_42ffb88e | comment |
The SCP Foundation has several front organizations. They usually have names with initials that spell out "SCP", like Soap from Corpses Products inc and Spicy Crust Pizza. | |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_43e8e7f9 | comment |
Trantor Falls. The library is actually the Second Foundation, hiding under the nose of the First Galactic Empire. Their knowledge of esoteric lore comes in handy when trying to convince people to leave them alone. | |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_44fe781e | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_44fe781e | comment |
Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Marduk Institute is a front for SEELE. It's also mentioned that Marduk itself has 108 fronts. Ryoji Kaji, who basically everybody knows is a spy, is officially cited as a "UN attaché" who had guardianship of Asuka. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_4500f5a | comment |
Muppets from Space: The top-secret C.O.V.N.E.T. facility is "cleverly disguised as a cement factory". (This leads to a funny bit later when Bobo suggests taking his company car, which turns out to be a cement truck.) | |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_455e3038 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_455e3038 | comment |
The idea is invoked by Dale as a bluff in an episode of King of the Hill: when he and his friends are captured by Mad Dog, an unhinged member of Arlen's gun club, it turns out that Dale has apparently called the CIA — who, earlier in the episode, he claimed to have worked with as a mercenary — to deal with Mad Dog and that they'll be arriving incognito soon, faking that he's wearing a wire and communicating with them to give the signal. It's actually just a flower delivery service, which was a key detail in his story, but he plays it up that they really are the CIA to get Mad Dog to run away without a fight. | |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_468bebb0 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_468bebb0 | comment |
The Discworld novel The Fifth Elephant has Inigo Skimmer, an assassin posing as a clerk, and a later book, Going Postal references a whole group of "dark clerks", nondescript gentlemen who appear to be ordinary clerks until you meet their eyes. Despite being mostly prize-scholarship graduates of the Guild of Assassins, the majority of their workload is apparently desk-based (Truth in Television for real intelligence agencies), but they're all fully trained for field operations should the need arise. | |
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Discworld | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_46d48eba | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_46d48eba | comment |
James Bond: The British Secret Service is based in a large office building with several cover companies, including a radio company to explain all the antennae on the roof. Field agents like 007 are supposed to work for "Universal Export". This was sometimes mentioned in the movies as well. In The Man with the Golden Gun, it is mentioned that the field agents' cover organisation has changed its name to the nebulous-sounding "Transworld Consortium". In Thunderball, SPECTRE uses the cover of a refugee aid agency — "Firco" in the novels; "International Brotherhood for the Assistance of Stateless Persons" in the film. |
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James Bond | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_46dece | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_46dece | comment |
In Bugsy Malone, Pop Becker's bookstore is the front for Fat Sam's Grand Slam Speakeasy. | |
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1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_46dece | featureConfidence |
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Bugsy Malone | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_485e29d8 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_485e29d8 | comment |
In Alice Isn't Dead, the narrator works as a long haul truck driver for Bay & Creek Shipping, to Exploit the job's mobility in her search for her missing wife Alice. That company, in particular, featured heavily in Alice's scattered documentation of The Conspiracy she'd been investigating shortly before her disappearance. According to the Narrator's alternately wry or bored audio diaries, it hauls thoroughly mundane cargo like travel-sized deodorant and paper products. | |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_487324b4 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_487324b4 | comment |
In Naruto: The Game of Life, the ANBU had their former headquarters in a building disguised as an apartment building, Naruto seemed more surprised that it was supposed to be a secret considering how bad he thought the cover story was as it simultaneously had sign for 'apartments for rent' but guards that would not let any perspective renters on the the property. It seems the only ones who thought it was a secret at all was Hiruzen Sarutobi and the ANBU commander as Naruto put it: "Most people in Konoha can tell where ANBU HQ is by the large amount of suspiciously polite, but firm guards saying, 'private residence only' to anybody who goes close to the building despite the 'apartments for rent' sign outside the door." | |
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Naruto: The Game of Life (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_487324b4 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_487bc396 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_487bc396 | comment |
The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa: the guns used to assassinate Trujillo are bought from a CIA agent who's cover is the owner of a supermarket specialized in selling American goods. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_487bc396 | featureApplicability |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_487bc396 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_49ff762 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_49ff762 | comment |
Torchwood Three's main entrance is in the back of a Cardiff Tourist Bureau. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_49ff762 | featureApplicability |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_49ff762 | featureConfidence |
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Torchwood | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_49ff762 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_4ad23d8d | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_4ad23d8d | comment |
Conversations with a Cryptid: A group of people working for a supervillain dedicated to finding out the dirty secrets that pro-heroes and the government don't want found out. A spy ring? No. A gossip magazine! In the magazine the Heroes Mirror's defense they don't realize they're working for a supervillain. Zach Smith is the head of the Heroes Mirror's Australian branch. His true job is working for All for One running the dark web criminal forum the Conspiracy. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_4d468d6f | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_4d468d6f | comment |
Delphi in American Horror Story: Coven is an esteemed asset management firm that acts as a front for an ancient line of witchhunters. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_4d468d6f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
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American Horror Story: Coven | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_4d6ad22f | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_4d6ad22f | comment |
In Virtue's Last Reward, both Alice and Clover are secret agents of the Department of Defense. Their outlandish outfits... tell a different story, because "the less they look what they are, the better". | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_4d6ad22f | featureApplicability |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_4d6ad22f | featureConfidence |
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Virtue's Last Reward (Visual Novel) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_4d6ad22f | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_502cbd09 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_502cbd09 | comment |
Luke Cage (2016): Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes has a number of fronts to his name, including real estate holdings, and his nightclub Harlem's Paradise. Harlem's Paradise is enough of a money-spinner that Cottonmouth could still remain afloat even after losing his other criminal assets. | |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_502cbd09 | featureConfidence |
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Luke Cage (2016) | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_503d5009 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_503d5009 | comment |
Ayakashi Triangle: The Korogi Clan run their tool shop for exorcist ninja out of a toy shop, with all the supernaturally-related wares rendered Invisible to Normals. The Ninokuru Clan's front is a soba noodle restaurant, where they use their inhuman speed to make deliveries. The Exorcist Ninja Association's headquarters pretend to be some kind of mundane corporation in Tokyo. It's not specified what business they present to the public, but they dress in typical office fair when not in combat and address each different than in private (Matoi insist a subordinate call her "president", not "leader"). |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_503d5009 | featureApplicability |
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Ayakashi Triangle (Manga) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_503d5009 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_51b3091a | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_51b3091a | comment |
Knight Hunters has the four assassins working a cover job as florists, first alongside a little old lady and her cat, and later in a pink mobile trailer. In the sequel series, they're investigating suspicious suicides at prep schools, and go under cover as teachers and students. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_51b3091a | featureApplicability |
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Knight Hunters | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_53a0bd8b | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_53a0bd8b | comment |
The Twilight Zone (1985): In "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich", the mob boss Nino Lancaster uses Nino's Toys & Imports at the docks as a cover for his smuggling operation. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_53a0bd8b | featureApplicability |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_53a0bd8b | featureConfidence |
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The Twilight Zone (1985) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_53a0bd8b | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_53f46238 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_53f46238 | comment |
Search by the Foundation. The Second Foundation is disguised as a bunch of rustic farmers. Preem Palver is Prime Speaker, their leader. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_53f46238 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_53f46238 | featureConfidence |
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Search By The Foundation | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_53f46238 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_544c992 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_544c992 | comment |
Najica Blitz Tactics: The CRI Corporation, the spy agency that employs Najica, is to the public a perfume company, and apparently a very successful one. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_544c992 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_544c992 | featureConfidence |
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Najica Blitz Tactics | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_544c992 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_549bc5da | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_549bc5da | comment |
In Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, "Squeaky Cleaners" are a bunch of hitmen serving as the Big Bad's private army. This has a further practical aspect in that the cleaning equipment helps remove bodies, blood and otherwise clean up the aftermath of killings. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_549bc5da | featureApplicability |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_549bc5da | featureConfidence |
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Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_549bc5da | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_562e8a6e | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_562e8a6e | comment |
Max Payne: In the first Max Payne, the title character infiltrates the Cold Steel Foundry at the start of the third act, a facility which Max notes is "a perfect front for all kinds of illegal activities." It turns out to hide a top-secret military bunker called the Deep Six, which is the home of Project Valhalla and Valkyr. In Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, "Squeaky Cleaners" are a bunch of hitmen serving as the Big Bad's private army. This has a further practical aspect in that the cleaning equipment helps remove bodies, blood and otherwise clean up the aftermath of killings. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_562e8a6e | featureApplicability |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_562e8a6e | featureConfidence |
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Max Payne (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_562e8a6e | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_58f28be1 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_58f28be1 | comment |
In The Godfather films, Vito Corleone poses as an "olive oil importer", and occasional references are made to "the olive oil business" when characters do not want to refer to what actually goes on. (Subverted in that he actually does have a legitimate business that imports olive oil; it just isn't where most of his money comes from.) In the original novel, he starts out as a completely legitimate olive oil importer. Then he cuts corners by intimidating his rivals into selling their business to him. Then Prohibition comes along and he realizes there are some bottled goods he can import that would be more profitable than olive oil.... | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_58f28be1 | featureApplicability |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_58f28be1 | featureConfidence |
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The Godfather | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_58f28be1 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_59215319 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_59215319 | comment |
In Persona 2, Club Zodiac is run by the Masked Circle, a cult with Zodiac-themed names for its members. In the sequel, the club falls under the ownership of the Taiwanese mob. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_59215319 | featureApplicability |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_59215319 | featureConfidence |
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Persona 2 (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_59215319 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5921531a | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5921531a | comment |
In Persona 3, SEES — practically The Men in Black investigating and hunting monsters formed out of the human subconscious stationed in a high school — are officially listed as an unnamed extracurricular group that arranges activities for its alumni, which are also double-excuses to train them with weapons. | |
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Persona 3 (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5921531a | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_59735062 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_59735062 | comment |
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: The base for Jensen's task force is hidden underneath a nondescript store run by a kindly old lady. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_59735062 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_59735062 | featureConfidence |
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Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_59735062 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5995d4d5 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5995d4d5 | comment |
The Ace Tomato company from Spies Like Us. In addition, Mission Control for the military's SDI weapon is hidden under a deserted Drive-In Theater. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5995d4d5 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5995d4d5 | featureConfidence |
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Spies Like Us | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5995d4d5 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_599d9bdc | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_599d9bdc | comment |
In There Was No Secret Evil Fighting Organization, the esper organization Amaterasu is hidden behind quirky urban bar Ama-no-Iwato. More than once police searching for the former have had coffee at the latter. It also gives the younger espers a place to hang out after school. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_599d9bdc | featureApplicability |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_599d9bdc | featureConfidence |
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There Was No Secret Evil Fighting Organization | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_599d9bdc | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5ada53ed | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5ada53ed | comment |
James Bond occasionally claims to be working for Universal Exports in a few movies. It rarely lasts long. In Thunderball, SPECTRE is introduced using the cover of a refugee aid agency — "International Brotherhood for the Assistance of Stateless Persons". Which, when you think of it, would be very useful for a criminal organisation that works internationally and that would need to arrange false papers for its members, who could be hidden among the many legitimate refugees. Licence to Kill: The televangelist Professor Joe Butcher actually makes a profit from his preaching, even though it's only meant to be a cover for Franz Sanchez's drug operation. And a henchman working at a marine supply business gives himself away when he doesn't know what the Latin name for a Great White shark is. Finally lampshaded in Quantum of Solace: James Bond mocks Felix Leiter for the CIA's evident inability to do this competently. In Spectre, 007, M & Moneypenny enter a safe house with the frontage of "Hildebrand Rarities", a shout-out to a novella by Ian Fleming. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5ada53ed | featureApplicability |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5ada53ed | featureConfidence |
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James Bond | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5ada53ed | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5ba4a8b3 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5ba4a8b3 | comment |
In Max Steel, the spy agency N-Tek's building manufactures and sells sports equipment. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5ba4a8b3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5ba4a8b3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Max Steel | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5ba4a8b3 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5c638d89 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5c638d89 | comment |
In The Americans, the Jennings run a travel agency. This provides them with sufficient excuse to travel and to meet different types of people. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5c638d89 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5c638d89 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Americans | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5c638d89 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5d6a3182 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5d6a3182 | comment |
The British Secret Service is based in a large office building with several cover companies, including a radio company to explain all the antennae on the roof. Field agents like 007 are supposed to work for "Universal Export". This was sometimes mentioned in the movies as well. In The Man with the Golden Gun, it is mentioned that the field agents' cover organisation has changed its name to the nebulous-sounding "Transworld Consortium". | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5d6a3182 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5d6a3182 | featureConfidence |
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The Man with the Golden Gun | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_5d6a3182 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_60f02ddb | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_60f02ddb | comment |
In American Dad!, when a CIA agent answers the phone: | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_60f02ddb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_60f02ddb | featureConfidence |
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American Dad! | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_60f02ddb | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_60fad6e | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_60fad6e | comment |
Way of the Samurai 4 has the Shogunate-aligned "Black Mask" covert ops/assassination group. Their front? The Toasty Truth Bar, which is also ironically the favorite haunt of the anti-government rebels Disciples of Prajna. In fact, one of the finer plot points is to discover that you've been fed false information if you play the Prajna route. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_60fad6e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_60fad6e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Way of the Samurai 4 (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_60fad6e | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6196490 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6196490 | comment |
In Ghost in the Shell, Section 9 employee Togusa mentions his cover is that of working for a security firm. Maj. Kusanagi on the other hand, maintains that she works for the Military. Ishikawa actually owns a gambling hall for cover. Section 9 usually work in official capacity or undercover, so they rarely need consistent covers. In each of these cases they're not so much 'fronts' as side-projects: Togusa tells his family he's in securities so they won't worry (as much), the Major, mentally, never left the service, and Ishikawa's pachinko parlour is one part of his personal data network, using the elderly players' head-computers to crunch his data (They are WELL compensated through their winnings). |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6196490 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6196490 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Ghost in the Shell (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6196490 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6234f5b3 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6234f5b3 | comment |
Father Brown: In "The Man in the Shadows", the archives room of the manor is being used by MI5 as an intel site. Ostensibly, the people going in and out are supposedly restoring the historic room. Luckily for them, the lord of the manor has zero interest in what they're doing. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6234f5b3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6234f5b3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Father Brown | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6234f5b3 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_630755ab | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_630755ab | comment |
The Cursors of Codex Alera are notionally simply the First Lord's personal messengers, modeled loosely after the Imperial Roman agentes in rebus. Actually, they're his personal spies, assassins, and covert operatives, although this second function is sufficiently well-known that people are sometimes surprised to be reminded that they're also messengers. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_630755ab | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_630755ab | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Codex Alera | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_630755ab | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_637554db | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_637554db | comment |
In The Middleman, the title character and Wendy do this, such as claiming to be from Sanitation in the first episode and climatologists in the second. Rule of Funny is the operating factor, as in another episode, the heavily WASPy Middleman claims he, and Latina Wendy, are Mossad agents. (Then again, Mossad undoubtedly has agents who don't look recognizably Israeli/Jewish...) Also, Wendy's family and friends think she works for the Jolly Fats Weehauken Temp Agency. In fact, even the Middlemen claim not to know who they work for. They just came up with the acronym OTS 2 K (Organization Too Secret To Know) to use when referring to the organization employing them. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_637554db | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_637554db | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Middleman | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_637554db | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_65d07453 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_65d07453 | comment |
Both Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain America (1990) have the facility where Cap is given his powers hidden beneath an innocent looking store. An antique shop in the former and a diner in the latter, and both guarded by an innocent-looking lady with a Tommy Gun beneath the counter. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_65d07453 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_65d07453 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Captain America: The First Avenger | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_65d07453 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_69d15cc0 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_69d15cc0 | comment |
Marvel Cinematic Universe: In Agent Carter, as far as civilian acquaintances are concerned, Peggy Carter heads to work every day in the Bell Phone Company, which is a cover for the Strategic Scientific Reserve. In Season 2, she moves to LA, and the SSR office there is disguised as a talent agency. Daredevil (2015): In Season 1, Wilson Fisk owns a number of legitimate companies and shell companies to hide the source of his income, investing in real estate and construction. However as Fisk sees himself as a Well-Intentioned Extremist seeking to revitalize Hell's Kitchen (at least in Season One), it's meant as more than just a means of money laundering. The Hand in Season 2 are hiding behind the face of Asano, Japanese branch of the Roxxon Corporation. Luke Cage (2016): Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes has a number of fronts to his name, including real estate holdings, and his nightclub Harlem's Paradise. Harlem's Paradise is enough of a money-spinner that Cottonmouth could still remain afloat even after losing his other criminal assets. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_69d15cc0 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_69d15cc0 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Marvel Cinematic Universe (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_69d15cc0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6a705f21 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6a705f21 | comment |
The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius: The agency that tracks down Barry Ween is the Foliage Census. Their security clearance goes to eleven. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6a705f21 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6a705f21 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6a705f21 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6ae1d164 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6ae1d164 | comment |
Galaxy of Fear has the Imperial Biological Welfare Division in the Mah Dala Infirmary. Their stated purpose was, well, medicinal and they did serve that purpose to some extent, but really this was a cover for the Imperial Biological Warfare Division, tailoring Synthetic Plagues to test on the population stranded around the infirmary. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6ae1d164 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6ae1d164 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Galaxy of Fear | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6ae1d164 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6b3b8320 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6b3b8320 | comment |
Wiseguy: "Lifeguard" (Vinnie Terranova's Mission Control) answers the telephone as "Sailor Hardware", run by Vinnie's "Uncle Mike". | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6b3b8320 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6b3b8320 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Wiseguy | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6b3b8320 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6c1d09b3 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6c1d09b3 | comment |
In Fallout 3, the player can search the ruins of two corporations, L.O.B. Enterprises and Mama Dolce's, in the post-nuclear war Washington, D.C. and find that they were fronts for Chinese espionage and commando operations before the war. The former was being used to manufacture a pistol that shot incendiary rounds and the latter still has Chinese commandos, now ghoulified, using it as a base. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6c1d09b3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6c1d09b3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Fallout 3 (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6c1d09b3 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6c1d09b4 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6c1d09b4 | comment |
In Fallout 4, there's an old secret DIA command center called the Switchboard located in the basement of a Slocum Joe's doughnut shop. The Slocum Joe's corporation itself is a legitimate company, and several other Slocum Joe's franchises can be found elsewhere in the Commonwealth which do not contain any secret government bases. At least, none that the player can find. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6c1d09b4 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6c1d09b4 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Fallout 4 (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6c1d09b4 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6fa2c383 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6fa2c383 | comment |
In the first Max Payne, the title character infiltrates the Cold Steel Foundry at the start of the third act, a facility which Max notes is "a perfect front for all kinds of illegal activities." It turns out to hide a top-secret military bunker called the Deep Six, which is the home of Project Valhalla and Valkyr. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6fa2c383 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6fa2c383 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Max Payne (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_6fa2c383 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7055c123 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7055c123 | comment |
In Volunteers, John Reynolds, the Peace Corps supervisor, is actually a member of the CIA working towards getting the bridge built so that American troops can have access to the communists. This is notably artistic license with history, as noted below, the Peace Corps would NEVER be used as a front by any country. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7055c123 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7055c123 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Volunteers | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7055c123 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_70814599 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_70814599 | comment |
Stargate SG-1: The Stargate program has the official cover of "deep-space radar telemetry". When Carter claims she's doing astronomy in an underground bunker, she gets some funny looks. O'Neill or Teal'c claiming likewise elicits outright disbelief. It also serves as a Mythology Gag. In the original movie, they mention using radar to track the end of the wormhole; you can still see the mapping device in the show a few times. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_70814599 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_70814599 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Stargate SG-1 | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_70814599 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_72262aee | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_72262aee | comment |
In Avatar: The Last Airbender, the secret police force of the Earth Kingdom capital, the Dai Li, is officially known as the Ministry of Cultural Heritage Preservation. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_72262aee | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_72262aee | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Avatar: The Last Airbender | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_72262aee | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_73d7930f | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_73d7930f | comment |
In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Federation's covert black ops group is known by the benign name 'Section 31' and its agents masquerade as working for any of Starfleet's security divisions. Slightly subverted in that this cover only fools other Federation citizens. The Romulan Tal Shiar is well aware of the agency's real name and purpose... which is exactly what Section 31 wants. It's a long story. Ironically, Section 31 operates as something more akin to a rogue agency than any kind of legitimate intelligence agency, and routinely uses the Federation's legitimate intelligence service (Starfleet Intelligence) as a mundane cover. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_73d7930f | featureApplicability |
-0.3 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_73d7930f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_73d7930f | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7460586f | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7460586f | comment |
Archer: The ISIS building literally has a Laundromat as a front for their office building, with the elevator to the office hidden in behind some industrial washing machines. It gets converted into a bar when the agency hits hard times. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7460586f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7460586f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Archer | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7460586f | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_74f1eb4c | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_74f1eb4c | comment |
In Sneakers, Cosmo runs the entire financial operations of the mafia (and his Dragon with an Agenda plan to crash the entire world economy) out of a server farm and supercomputer complex that has a completely mundane-seeming front of a toy company called PlayTronics on the outskirts of San Francisco. Robert Redford's character notes that a trained observer can tell the toy company is a front because the building clearly has security far beyond what any toy company would have. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_74f1eb4c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_74f1eb4c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Sneakers | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_74f1eb4c | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_76b8cb10 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_76b8cb10 | comment |
Fallout: In Fallout 3, the player can search the ruins of two corporations, L.O.B. Enterprises and Mama Dolce's, in the post-nuclear war Washington, D.C. and find that they were fronts for Chinese espionage and commando operations before the war. The former was being used to manufacture a pistol that shot incendiary rounds and the latter still has Chinese commandos, now ghoulified, using it as a base. In Fallout 4, there's an old secret DIA command center called the Switchboard located in the basement of a Slocum Joe's doughnut shop. The Slocum Joe's corporation itself is a legitimate company, and several other Slocum Joe's franchises can be found elsewhere in the Commonwealth which do not contain any secret government bases. At least, none that the player can find. In Fallout 76, the entrance to one of the game's nuclear missile silos is disguised as a cargo elevator in a processing factory. Terminal entries found in the factory imply that the pre-war US government subsidized the factory's operations and maintained a bare minimum of activity to keep up appearances. The game also features another Chinese base (a military intelligence bunker) under the local Mama Dolce's factory, though unlike the commando base in Fallout 3, this one was wiped out by the Enclave after the war. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_76b8cb10 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_76b8cb10 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Fallout (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_76b8cb10 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_771fc130 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_771fc130 | comment |
Delta Green has the Canadian black-ops anti-occult organization known as M-EPIC. The "EPIC" in M-EPIC stands for Environment Policy Impact Comission and it's officially and publicly part of the Department of Environment attached to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The group uses this cover so they can easily secure any rubber stamps from the Parliament and investigate anywhere without many questions. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_771fc130 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_771fc130 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Delta Green (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_771fc130 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7981ca33 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7981ca33 | comment |
At the start of WarGames, two Air Force people walk into a small cabin, in the midst of a snowstorm. They walk up to a normal-looking mirror and show their badges. They are then buzzed into the missile silo entrance and go down to the silo in an elevator. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7981ca33 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7981ca33 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
WarGames | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7981ca33 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_79f5dbd5 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_79f5dbd5 | comment |
In Inscryption, the ARG reveals GameFuna is a government front created for the purpose of decoding and analyzing the OLD_DATA acquired from Hitler's corpse. The developers assigned to the Inscryption game development were kept in the dark on the true purpose of the project. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_79f5dbd5 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_79f5dbd5 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Inscryption (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_79f5dbd5 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7cf5a07 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7cf5a07 | comment |
In The Flash (2014) Barry and Professor Stein approach Jefferson Jackson about being a candidate for Stein to merge with to become Firestorm. They aren't public officials in any sense but in an attempt to keeps things simple at first Barry claims that they are with the "Department of Safety" (which doesn't exist, there is a Department of Public Safety) and Stein has to clumsily add that the department is very new, and they don't have a website up yet. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7cf5a07 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7cf5a07 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Flash (2014) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7cf5a07 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7ea3d0e1 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7ea3d0e1 | comment |
The bad guys in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory blow up a Chinese "fertiliser plant". | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7ea3d0e1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7ea3d0e1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7ea3d0e1 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7f6ae568 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7f6ae568 | comment |
The spy Mrs. Singh from The Secret Life of Kitty Granger works for the fashion magazine La Mode. Her cover lets her rub shoulders with the rich and powerful. It helps that La Mode is a real magazine staffed mostly by people who have no idea it's a front organization — the only people who know the truth are Mrs. Singh and her "secretaries", Kitty and Verity. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7f6ae568 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7f6ae568 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Secret Life of Kitty Granger | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_7f6ae568 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_812165e3 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_812165e3 | comment |
In Tropico, in order to make the Secret Police building, you just have to designate an already built structure (bar, restaurant, theater, etc.), then it will be converted into the agents' base of operations. Their job description includes lots of wiretapping, preventing assassinations and swearing all the time that the place is not the Secret Police HQ. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_812165e3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_812165e3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Tropico (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_812165e3 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_81692f99 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_81692f99 | comment |
Star Trek: In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Federation's covert black ops group is known by the benign name 'Section 31' and its agents masquerade as working for any of Starfleet's security divisions. Slightly subverted in that this cover only fools other Federation citizens. The Romulan Tal Shiar is well aware of the agency's real name and purpose... which is exactly what Section 31 wants. It's a long story. Ironically, Section 31 operates as something more akin to a rogue agency than any kind of legitimate intelligence agency, and routinely uses the Federation's legitimate intelligence service (Starfleet Intelligence) as a mundane cover. Star Trek: Enterprise has an organization of temporal agents from the 31st century. Their front man on Enterprise, Daniels, serves as Captain Archer's personal steward because it puts him near the man he was assigned to watch while allowing him to fly under everyone else's radar. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_81692f99 | featureApplicability |
-0.3 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_81692f99 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Star Trek (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_81692f99 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_819b8c9e | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_819b8c9e | comment |
Warehouse 13: The eponymous artifact-collecting Warehouse was officially operated by the Secret Service, and they get somebody giving them trouble over it about Once an Episode. Reality Is Unrealistic in this case: protecting the President is the most well-known duty of the Secret Service, but they were originally the enforcement arm of the US Treasury, among other things. (In 2003, the Secret Service was moved from Treasury to Homeland Security, though they still investigate financial crimes and provide security for Treasury.) Warehouse 13 itself is out in a remote part of South Dakota and is officially an IRS warehouse. Good cover, except that everyone in the small town hates the protagonists. The Regents, the secret society that really runs the Warehouse, make use of underground facilities hidden beneath places as mundane as grocery stores, and host meetings in diners run by several of their members. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_819b8c9e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_819b8c9e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Warehouse 13 | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_819b8c9e | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_860fb7f5 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_860fb7f5 | comment |
In Gentlemen Explorers, the mysterious agency that recruits Riley and the Magician gives them cover identities as agents of the US Postal Service. It is later shown that this is the standard cover for its agents. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_860fb7f5 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_860fb7f5 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Gentlemen Explorers | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_860fb7f5 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_87c2b177 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_87c2b177 | comment |
The protagonists of The Invisible Man belong to "The Agency", a covert organization that due to defense budget cuts ended up being absorbed by the Department of Fish & Game. In the second season, The Agency ends up being absorbed by several similar unrelated departments, such as the Department of Indian Affairs, the Department of Health and Human Services and the United States Postal Service until finally settling in... the Bureau of Weights and Measures. This becomes awkward in one episode where they go to a physics lab, and the scientists are actually expecting people from BWM to re-calibrate their equipment. On at least one occasion, they are forced to handle cases of their current parent organization, such as when they are sent to a Native American reservation to investigate a murder supposedly committed by Bigfoot while working for the Department of Indian Affairs. As it turns out, not only is Bigfoot real, but it's invisible too and is suffering from Quicksilver madness. When going to the Chinese embassy to rescue their agents, the Official introduces himself as from the Department of Fish & Game. The Chinese assume the second part of the name has to do with the Olympics, causing the Official to describe a different meaning of the word "game", including showing horns with his fingers. In one episode they actually managed to leverage being under Fish & Game on paper to be officially involved in the investigation of a foreign dignitary being assassinated. It happened at a nature reserve, and the sniper's bullet by sheer coincidence also struck an endangered species of falcon. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_87c2b177 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_87c2b177 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Invisible Man | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_87c2b177 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_883bd0f0 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_883bd0f0 | comment |
Licence to Kill: The televangelist Professor Joe Butcher actually makes a profit from his preaching, even though it's only meant to be a cover for Franz Sanchez's drug operation. And a henchman working at a marine supply business gives himself away when he doesn't know what the Latin name for a Great White shark is. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_883bd0f0 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_883bd0f0 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Licence to Kill | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_883bd0f0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_89cb808 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_89cb808 | comment |
A Geek's Guide: Corporation of Occult Research and Extermination: CORE hides its activities behind a variety of normal businesses, which doubles at their primary budget source. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_89cb808 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_89cb808 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
A Geek's Guide: Corporation of Occult Research and Extermination (Roleplay) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_89cb808 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_8b4c8618 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_8b4c8618 | comment |
Joker Game has the spies of the D-Agency study and live in an office building labelled the "Greater East Asia Cultural Society." | |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_8d8157e0 | comment |
Lexx plays this for laughs in Season 4 with the ATF. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms exists in Real Life; it is an organization within American Law Enforcement with a focused scope of authority. In the show, the bureau operates vastly beyond this scope. Among other things it negotiates First Contact with the crew of the Lexx, it forcibly maintains the Masquerade, and even President Evil is merely the puppet of its director. | |
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Lexx | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_8d817ccb | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_8d817ccb | comment |
Lost: The Others recruit Juliet through Mittelos Bioscience. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_8d817ccb | featureApplicability |
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Lost | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_8d817ccb | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_8df5521b | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_8df5521b | comment |
Superman: The Red Horse Garage, Suicide Slum in some stories was a front for Project Cadmus. | |
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Superman (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_8eda89ef | comment |
The spy/assassin November 11 in Darker than Black is officially supposed to be a minister of some sort. In the second season, two Contractor assassins, Mina and Genma and Kirihara are officially clerks for Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, which is a front for a Black Ops group supposedly fighting against The Syndicate. Given that the actual Ministry is involved in things like managing civil service and telecommunications, this is a perfect example of a "boring" department providing cover for nefarious schemes. |
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Darker Than Black | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_8ee238c9 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_8ee238c9 | comment |
Persona: In Persona 2, Club Zodiac is run by the Masked Circle, a cult with Zodiac-themed names for its members. In the sequel, the club falls under the ownership of the Taiwanese mob. In Persona 3, SEES — practically The Men in Black investigating and hunting monsters formed out of the human subconscious stationed in a high school — are officially listed as an unnamed extracurricular group that arranges activities for its alumni, which are also double-excuses to train them with weapons. |
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Persona (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_8ee238c9 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_93939352 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_93939352 | comment |
In Spectre, 007, M & Moneypenny enter a safe house with the frontage of "Hildebrand Rarities", a shout-out to a novella by Ian Fleming. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_93939352 | featureApplicability |
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Spectre | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_963d9065 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_963d9065 | comment |
S.H.I.E.L.D.: It is mentioned in Moon Knight that a toy store is owned and operated by S.H.I.E.L.D. as a cover. The classic Nick Fury stories had a barber's shop. | |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_97e27637 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_97e27637 | comment |
Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro: Later in the manga, the Hayasaka brothers ran a firearm smuggling operation using a spice shop as a front. | |
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Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro (Manga) | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_986e857e | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_986e857e | comment |
Ben 10: Ben's grandad belongs to the Plumbers, an MIB-like organization. In the latter series, it's revealed that they're basically the Galactic Police, with every government on Earth respecting their authority in situations involving aliens. We eventually see the Earth headquarters; it's an Elaborate Underground Base hidden beneath the unassuming Max's Plumbing shop, accessible by a hidden elevator. | |
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Ben 10 | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_998cbda3 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_998cbda3 | comment |
Daredevil (2015): In Season 1, Wilson Fisk owns a number of legitimate companies and shell companies to hide the source of his income, investing in real estate and construction. However as Fisk sees himself as a Well-Intentioned Extremist seeking to revitalize Hell's Kitchen (at least in Season One), it's meant as more than just a means of money laundering. The Hand in Season 2 are hiding behind the face of Asano, Japanese branch of the Roxxon Corporation. |
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Daredevil (2015) | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9bab2711 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9bab2711 | comment |
In Small Time Crooks, the protagonists start a cookie shop as a front for a bank robbery attempt. The bank robbery fails, but the cookie shop becomes wildly successful. | |
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Small Time Crooks | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9e0b4b87 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9e0b4b87 | comment |
The Wildfire biological research laboratory in The Andromeda Strain is an underground Defense Department secret facility buried underneath a Department of Agriculture research station. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9e0b4b87 | featureApplicability |
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The Andromeda Strain | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9e2f90f4 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9e2f90f4 | comment |
One Piece: According to Eiichiro Oda,note SBS Chapter 884 the real-life job of the character Capone "Gang" Bege, a walking homage to mafia movies, would be shoe store manager. Donquixote Doflamingo ran one for the World Nobles for a time. It was a huge slave ring centered around selling slaves to the Nobles, so they would ignore almost everything else he did. Such as sell weapons to pirates on the side. |
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One Piece (Manga) | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9f6c32a9 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9f6c32a9 | comment |
The Fraternity in Wanted operates out of a working textile plant. Wesley initially thinks this is merely a front, but it turns out that one of their machines is the Loom of Fate, which gives encoded instructions directing their assassinations. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9f6c32a9 | featureApplicability |
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Wanted | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9f89a5f0 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9f89a5f0 | comment |
Pokémon: In the original games, the criminal organization Team Rocket runs the Rocket Game Corner and Viridian City Gym. This is played completely straight in the game, despite Team Rocket having constructed a secret base beneath the casino, through which they must enter. Considering that Team Rocket members wear all-black matching uniforms wherever they go, this may be enough to raise suspicions of corruption or willful blindness on the part of the police. Team Galactic in the fourth-generation games uses the cover of being a research center into alternate forms of energy production. This is a bit more plausible, as despite their nefarious goals, they don't do a whole lot of obvious crime, so mostly they just get funny looks from other people for their uniforms. Team Flare passes themselves off as a fashion cult who are harmless aside from the truly abhorrent amount of money you need to pay to join. Their leader Lysandre never even openly associates with Team Flare and doesn't even run his secret base near the HQ of Lysandre Labs, his legit company, instead having a hidden underground base located elsewhere. Even when they are revealed to be a Pokémon-abusing terrorist corporation to the world, they just let that label stick for a while so that they can focus on their true (and much worse) goals. |
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Pokémon (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9f89a5f0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9f997b2b | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9f997b2b | comment |
Finally lampshaded in Quantum of Solace: James Bond mocks Felix Leiter for the CIA's evident inability to do this competently. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9f997b2b | featureApplicability |
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Quantum of Solace | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9f997b2b | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9feb7ff3 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9feb7ff3 | comment |
Power Rangers Jungle Fury: The heroes operate out of a pizza place whose one normal employee doesn't know what's going on for quite some time. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9feb7ff3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
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Power Rangers Jungle Fury | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_9feb7ff3 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_a33c20a6 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_a33c20a6 | comment |
Covert Affairs: As far as anyone outside the CIA knows, Annie works for the Smithsonian, and she often uses this as a cover while traveling abroad. In one episode, her niece's class is supposed to take a field trip to the Smithsonian while Annie is on an overseas mission, and Auggie has to smooth things over by giving them a tour. | |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_a56240bf | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_a56240bf | comment |
True Lies (2023): Harry appears to work for Telynox Solutions, a run-of-the-mill computer company that's a front for Omega Sector. Banter between Harry and a desk assistant indicates that the front office staff honestly believe they're working for a computer company and have no idea this is a government spy agency. "Working Vacation" confirms most of the office staff is unaware the annual company retreat in Mexico is a cover for Omega Sector brass meeting. Thus, when the resort is attacked, Maria has to keep employees safe and unaware of what's happening. |
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True Lies (2023) | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_a90d239a | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_a90d239a | comment |
The Milkman Conspiracy from Psychonauts uses a cookie-selling girl scout organization for cover. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_a90d239a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_a90d239a | featureConfidence |
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Psychonauts (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_a90d239a | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_a993be1f | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_a993be1f | comment |
In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, the Bumani Exchange Corporation in the space station above Telos is a poorly-concealed front for the Exchange. It's poorly concealed in part because of, and for, being an Open Secret among the station's leadership for when they need a friend in extralegal business; and the Exchange has worked with enough discretion to avoid an investigation by the authorities. | |
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Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_a993be1f | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ab42c63a | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ab42c63a | comment |
Get Smart: Maxwell Smart pretends to be in the greeting card business. He also mentions that, to keep his landlord from getting suspicious about all the attempts on his life, he told him he works for the IRS. Max praises the Israeli spy agency "YENTA" for its cover as a delicatessen. It turns out YENTA is a delicatessen that only does spy work in its slack season. |
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Get Smart | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ab42c63a | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_aee68dc5 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_aee68dc5 | comment |
A CIA officer's cover (whether working abroad or at headquarters) might be (theoretically) assigned not only to the usual suspects (Department of State, Defense, Homeland Security) but also some weirder ones (e.g. Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, and yes, perhaps even the Bureau of Weights and Measures), as well as private US corporations (not naming names) that have agreed to let the CIA use them for cover. Similarly, an SIS officer might easily be assigned to a quango with business abroad (the British Council in any country is notorious for being riddled with spies—probably even more so than even the British Embassy) or at home (if working at Vauxhall Cross). During the Vietnam War, the CIA ran a charter airline, Air America, to support covert CIA operations all over Southeast Asia. One of the few exceptions: You will never, ever find a CIA officer under Peace Corps cover. EVER. That would detract from the legitimacy of the Peace Corps (goes the argument), and so if you want to serve in both the Peace Corps and the CIA, you have to do your two years at the Peace Corps, wait five whole years, and then you can apply. Applications to join the CIA take at least six months to process. If you have any current or former employment in the CIA, you are permanently ineligible for service in the Peace Corps. The only reason many countries allow the Peace Corps in is because they're emphatically not a CIA front. Ever. If the CIA tried to use the Peace Corps as a front and got caught, it would mean the Peace Corps would be pulled from those countries, the US would take a terrible diplomatic blow, and a bunch of innocent, skilled, and altruistic people would get hurt, arrested, and/or killed. It's just not worth it, especially when there are much more discreet alternatives. |
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Charlie Wilson's War | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_aee68dc5 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b186bec2 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b186bec2 | comment |
The covert agency that employs the titular characters of Scarecrow and Mrs. King is secreted within a film production company, reached through a closet that's actually the agency's front door. | |
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Scarecrow and Mrs. King | hasFeature |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b2ad762f | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b2ad762f | comment |
Agent G starts out with the protagonist working for the International Refugee Society, which is a nod to Spectre in Thunderball. The organization is actually a covert front for a Murder, Inc. group that provides the ultra-wealthy with high-tech Hollywood Cyborg-performed assassinations. | |
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Agent G | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b2ad762f | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b40c60f6 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b40c60f6 | comment |
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel): The chaplains' assistants stationed at Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island in the mid-1980s were always rather wary of those ruffians from the motor pool, blissfully unaware of the Joes' Elaborate Underground Base until Cobra came by to invade it. Issue 3 even dealt with Hawk and Scarlett trying to maintain their cover with the chaplains' assistants, while several Joes in the Pit were trying to stop a captured Cobra robot from escaping to the surface to broadcast their location. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b40c60f6 | featureApplicability |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b40c60f6 | featureConfidence |
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G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel) (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b40c60f6 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b4cd70c2 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b4cd70c2 | comment |
In Mission: Impossible III, Tom Cruise's character claims to work for the Virginia Department of Transportation. (Later, when he escapes from IMF headquarters, it's implied that their base actually is hidden behind VDOT.) Alternatively, that's what every agent says, so they keep a stash of VDOT stuff to give out. | |
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Mission: Impossible III | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b4cd70c2 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b6b17592 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b6b17592 | comment |
Kingsman: The Golden Circle gives us Statesman, a (really good) brand of liquor that's the mundane front for the Kingsman's American counterparts. The front is revealed to be a multi-billion-dollar company, as one would expect of capitalism; Kingsman sells a few thousand $5000+ suits a year, Statesman sells millions of $100+ bottles of liquor in the same timeframe. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b6b17592 | featureApplicability |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b6b17592 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Kingsman: The Golden Circle | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b6b17592 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b7db5642 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b7db5642 | comment |
Stranger Things: Officially, the Hawkins National Laboratory is a research center run by the Department of Energy, which leads most people to assume it is fairly uninteresting (Dustin initially thinks they "design lightbulbs or something"). However, it becomes clear the research they do, such as using Eleven's telekinesis and mind reading to access alternate dimensions and monitor Soviet officials, involves multiple higher-ranking government agencies than the DOE. It has military police (US Army) providing security, and the badge that Connie Frazier shows to the Wheelers suggests she works for the NSA, which could also explain the phone bugging (not exactly within the Dept. of Energy's remit). The entire venture also likely has CIA backing (what with the whole thing being an offshoot of the classic MKULTRA experiments). The government field agents use vans marked "Hawkins Power And Light" to drive around town and carry out surveillance without getting too much attention. |
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Stranger Things | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b7db5642 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b8eb4fe5 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b8eb4fe5 | comment |
In Sakura Wars and its associated media, including anime and movies, the Takarazuka Revue hosts an elite unit of demon-fighting badasses under the cover of a theatre troupe. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b8eb4fe5 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b8eb4fe5 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Sakura Wars (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b8eb4fe5 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b9fa3a7 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b9fa3a7 | comment |
Undercover Brother: The headquarters of the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. are located beneath a barber shop. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b9fa3a7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
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1.0 | |
Undercover Brother | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_b9fa3a7 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_bdb947ab | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_bdb947ab | comment |
In Agent Carter, as far as civilian acquaintances are concerned, Peggy Carter heads to work every day in the Bell Phone Company, which is a cover for the Strategic Scientific Reserve. In Season 2, she moves to LA, and the SSR office there is disguised as a talent agency. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_bdb947ab | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_bdb947ab | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Agent Carter | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_bdb947ab | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_bdc49dbe | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_bdc49dbe | comment |
In The Laundry Files, the supernatural math-magician enforcement/spy agency is fronted as, and always referred to as, "The Laundry", as it was at one time situated above (or behind) a Chinese laundry. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_bdc49dbe | featureApplicability |
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1.0 | |
The Laundry Files | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_bdc49dbe | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_bfe2dc5a | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_bfe2dc5a | comment |
Scooby Apocalypse: The Athena facility, the Complex's data backup facility, which is hidden within a paper mill. Lampshaded by Shaggy commenting on the oddity of it, with Velma pointing out that they couldn't exactly advertise it as a secret facility. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_bfe2dc5a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_bfe2dc5a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Scooby Apocalypse (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_bfe2dc5a | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c0d295c4 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c0d295c4 | comment |
RED and BLU in Team Fortress 2 have several of these, and might be considered to be front companies themselves since even though they claim to be demolition and construction companies respectively, they've basically turned into PMCs. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c0d295c4 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c0d295c4 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Team Fortress 2 (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c0d295c4 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c1c642f7 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c1c642f7 | comment |
The headquarters of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense in Hellboy (2004) is located below a Sanitation Department building. Which also happens to neatly explain the garbage truck they drive around in where Hellboy can easily hide in. The location is even introduced via Gilligan Cut. Director Manning is on television telling the audience that there's no such thing as the B.P.R.D., immediately before the next scene shows the sanitation station with the helpful Title In explaining that it's the organization's headquarters. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c1c642f7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c1c642f7 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Hellboy (2004) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c1c642f7 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c1c6431b | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c1c6431b | comment |
In Hellboy (2019), the BPRD team up with MI11, which apparently has a secret base in a London chip shop. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c1c6431b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c1c6431b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Hellboy (2019) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c1c6431b | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c24a2f2b | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c24a2f2b | comment |
In SMPLive, Schlatt & Co.'s ordinary looking coffee shop is a front for an illegal drug operation. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c24a2f2b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c24a2f2b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
SMPLive (Web Video) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c24a2f2b | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c3a1c8f8 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c3a1c8f8 | comment |
UFO (1970): SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization) operates under the cover of a film studio. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c3a1c8f8 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c3a1c8f8 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
UFO (1970) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c3a1c8f8 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c4076b9e | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c4076b9e | comment |
Gunslinger Girl's Social Welfare Agency is an Italian government-sponsored institution that helps orphans and aids the rehabilitation of the physically injured with state-of-the-art cybernetic prosthetics. Unknown to the public however they also have a surveillance and intelligence-gathering division to help deal with the Five Republics terrorists, and some of the orphaned and injured girls they "help" have been transformed by the aforementioned cybernetic prosthetics into brainwashed cyborg assassins to murder said terrorists. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c4076b9e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c4076b9e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Gunslinger Girl (Manga) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c4076b9e | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c43df4d8 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c43df4d8 | comment |
Doctor Who. In "Spearhead from Space", it's mentioned that UNIT HQ is pretending to be a branch of the Pensions Dept. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c43df4d8 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c43df4d8 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Doctor Who | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c43df4d8 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c487221e | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c487221e | comment |
Men in Black: MIB headquarters is hidden in the ventilator building of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Field agents also claimed to be Division 6 of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. This became a Running Gag in the cartoon where they'd claim they were from Division 6 of whatever organization vaguely applied to the jurisdiction. Which would often result in competent civil servants knowing such a division did not exist.note Important to note, the INS itself no longer exists; it was dissolved post-9/11 and its former duties are now handled by the Dept. of Homeland Security, primarily its Immigration and Customs Enforcement division. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c487221e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c487221e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Men in Black | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c487221e | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c861aa06 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c861aa06 | comment |
Every single conspiracy in Psionics: The Next Stage in Human Evolution maintains mundane fronts for their psionic super soldiers, who are waging a shadow war right under the noses of the public. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c861aa06 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c861aa06 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Psionics: The Next Stage in Human Evolution (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_c861aa06 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ca07828e | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ca07828e | comment |
The team from The Unit use the cover of being in logistics. To be fair, though, they do in fact do logistical work — in fact, one episode begins with Brown being tested in such. However, the cover is entirely believable; no one ever questions why the obviously badass soldiers are working in logistics, they simply believe, or are told by someone and then believe, that the operators have earned safe, cushy desk jobs after serving multiple tours in the Middle East as part of the regular Army. This cover does falter at times. One episode has the newest recruit SFC Bob Brown's young daughter Serena blabbing that "my father shoots bad guys". This alarms some senior officials, since the Unit's cover is a non-combatant clerical unit, forcing Bob and his wife to teach Serena to lie about what he does. Another episode has Unit operator Hector Williams' new girlfriend's retired Senior NCO dad showing disdain to him due to him officially being a logistics clerk. The guy then suddenly starts being buddy-buddy with Hector, upon being subtly informed of his actual job. This sudden change makes the girlfriend a little suspicious. When he admits his cover, she dumps him, because she wanted someone who'd leave the Army and settle into a stable civilian job. A logistics clerk has transferable skills, while a "gunfighter" doesn't. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ca07828e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ca07828e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Unit | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ca07828e | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ca08598f | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ca08598f | comment |
The Wire: The Barksdale Organization initially operates out of Orlando's, a strip club, and have a problem with the Front's owner, Orlando, wanting to get into drug dealing for more income, when they need someone to run the club with a clean criminal record. After Avon is arrested, Stringer runs the operation out of a funeral home. The Greek's associate Spiros almost always meets his drug dealer associates at a dingy Greek diner that never seems to have any clientele except for an old man who just sits at the counter reading a newspaper. It turns out that "customer" is the Greek himself. Proposition Joe runs his drug empire out of his appliance repair shop. He actually does repair appliances for people in his community, though he notes that modern society is too wasteful to actually make appliance repair profitable. He does the work because he actually enjoys it. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ca08598f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ca08598f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Wire | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ca08598f | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ca92edf1 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ca92edf1 | comment |
An acronym no doubt familiar to anyone who has played Call of Duty: Black Ops, the main wet work program in the Vietnam War was titled MACV-SOG... Military Assistance Command Vietnam, Studies and Observations Group. (This one might have renamed more than anything for greater palatability on the home front; the original official gloss for "SOG" was "Special Operations Group", and it's doubtful anyone involved was expecting the change of name to fool the North Vietnamese.) | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ca92edf1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ca92edf1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Call of Duty: Black Ops (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ca92edf1 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_cac20f89 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_cac20f89 | comment |
JAG: In "Impact", The Bradenhurst Corporation officially handles toxic waste near Twenty Nine Palms, CA, but in reality builds UFO-like UAVs for Uncle Sam. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_cac20f89 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_cac20f89 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
JAG | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_cac20f89 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ce4be0b6 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ce4be0b6 | comment |
In Thunderball, SPECTRE uses the cover of a refugee aid agency — "Firco" in the novels; "International Brotherhood for the Assistance of Stateless Persons" in the film. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ce4be0b6 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ce4be0b6 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Thunderball | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ce4be0b6 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d1548747 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d1548747 | comment |
In the Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series, the Brotherhood of Nod had operated through various proxies and organizations like the Black Hand for much of its existence. This is most evident during Tiberian Dawn, with Nod using terrorist activities, making black market deals through shell companies, and playing up being an anti-imperialist movement. It largely drops the act afterwards, though it still tries to mask its less savory actions through propaganda campaigns and espionage by Tiberium Wars. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d1548747 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d1548747 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d1548747 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d252afd1 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d252afd1 | comment |
Secret Magic Control Agency: The SMCA's Elaborate Underground Base is accessed through a hair salon. To get to the actual base, agents sit in front of a mirror and ask for a style that will "open their inner world", which is the cue for the stylist to activate a spell allowing a security guard to see through the mirror. If he recognises the agent, he allows them to enter via an elevator. Ilvira's potion warehouse is disguised as a pastry shop. The entrance to the warehouse itself is through the shop's large fireplace, which uses cold fire so it can be walked through harmlessly. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d252afd1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d252afd1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Secret Magic Control Agency | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d252afd1 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d281c41c | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d281c41c | comment |
In The Sinking City, the town of Oakmont has a charity called EOD which stands for "Everyone's Obvious Duty (is to help each other)" (they had to shorten the last part). Most of the members come from the neigbouring town of Innsmouth, home of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d281c41c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d281c41c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Sinking City (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d281c41c | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d2c74459 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d2c74459 | comment |
In Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam, the Crossbone Vanguard uses the cover of being a civilian freight company, Blackrow Shipping, when not flying under the banner of pirates, allowing them to move around the Earth Sphere without suspicion. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d2c74459 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d2c74459 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam (Manga) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d2c74459 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d31ffd8d | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d31ffd8d | comment |
In Get Smart, CONTROL has its headquarters in the Smithsonian.... in a display about CONTROL. The display pretends CONTROL was disbanded at the end of the Cold War. In fact, many of CONTROL's political rivals claim that it should have been disbanded after its chief rival went defunct. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d31ffd8d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d31ffd8d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Get Smart | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_d31ffd8d | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ddad77ae | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ddad77ae | comment |
Astro City: While Honor Guard isn't a covert group, their call center is, to protect them from being targeted by supervillains. The employees are hired through shell companies that serve as their cover, with names like HumanoGlobal, Hampton Genetics, Halston-Godney, Hanawa Giken... | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ddad77ae | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ddad77ae | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Astro City (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ddad77ae | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e0fcfdea | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e0fcfdea | comment |
The Avengers (1960s): Emma and Steed frequently infiltrate innocent sounding organisations that are a front for (admittedly goofy) dark covert operations. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e0fcfdea | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e0fcfdea | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Avengers (1960s) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e0fcfdea | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e1ec0e62 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e1ec0e62 | comment |
Grand Theft Auto IV has the United Liberty Paper which is a cover for an unrevealed government agency, headed by a mysterious man wearing horn-rimmed glasses. They apparently are a black-ops organisation judging by the type of assassinations they blackmail Niko into making. Grand Theft Auto V reveals that this organization was a front company for the IAA, a Government Agency of Fiction with an Inter-Service Rivalry with the FIB. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e1ec0e62 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e1ec0e62 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Grand Theft Auto IV (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e1ec0e62 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e278316b | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e278316b | comment |
The Prisoner (1967): The Village, where Number 6 and the others are imprisoned, passes for an eccentric holiday resort. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e278316b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e278316b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Prisoner (1967) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e278316b | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e293455a | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e293455a | comment |
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The covert government demon research/fighting organisation known as The Initiative operates beneath a UC Sunnydale fraternity house, with the soldiers posing as lecturers and senior students. In "The Killer in Me", a couple of years after this base is shut down, Buffy tries to get in contact with them by phone, only to get a flower shop on the other end. She then runs into Initiative soldiers in the ruins of their Elaborate Underground Base, who make it clear they got her message. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e293455a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e293455a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Buffy the Vampire Slayer | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e293455a | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e2b86487 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e2b86487 | comment |
The Riftwar Cycle: Mara's spy network is an exaggeration. Her spies usually run small businesses as their cover, and enough of them turn a profit for the network to be largely self-financing. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e2b86487 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e2b86487 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Riftwar Cycle | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e2b86487 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e4c53c04 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e4c53c04 | comment |
Jumpin' Jack Flash: At a funeral for a dead spy, it's mentioned that he was in the greeting card business, presumably a Shout-Out to Get Smart. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e4c53c04 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e4c53c04 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Jumpin' Jack Flash | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e4c53c04 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e542bff1 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e542bff1 | comment |
The Secret Return of Alex Mack: The Superpower Research Initiative starts out officially as the Hazardous Waste Abatement and Amelioration Agency. Which isn't entirely false, either, because on several occasions they do deal with toxic waste... but only after they deal with whatever bugaboo said waste created. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e542bff1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e542bff1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Secret Return of Alex Mack (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e542bff1 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e758728c | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e758728c | comment |
Hellboy: The headquarters of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense in Hellboy (2004) is located below a Sanitation Department building. Which also happens to neatly explain the garbage truck they drive around in where Hellboy can easily hide in. The location is even introduced via Gilligan Cut. Director Manning is on television telling the audience that there's no such thing as the B.P.R.D., immediately before the next scene shows the sanitation station with the helpful Title In explaining that it's the organization's headquarters. In Hellboy (2019), the BPRD team up with MI11, which apparently has a secret base in a London chip shop. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e758728c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e758728c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Hellboy (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_e758728c | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_eaa941cf | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_eaa941cf | comment |
Barry's aviation company "Independant Airline Consultants" from American Made. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_eaa941cf | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_eaa941cf | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
American Made | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_eaa941cf | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_eb3f769d | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_eb3f769d | comment |
In the Aubrey-Maturin series, Stephen Maturin is one of Britain's most effective spies, but uses his status as a respected natural philosopher and physician to travel in wartime. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_eb3f769d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_eb3f769d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Aubrey-Maturin | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_eb3f769d | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ec44d991 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ec44d991 | comment |
Bill the Galactic Hero: A frozen-food kosher ham store is literally a 'front' — just a cardboard wall attached to the front of a tank used to ambush the revolutionaries, as Bill finds out when he tries to open the door. The unconvincing cover of a Jewish ham store makes no difference, as it turns out all the 'revolutionaries' are government spies anyway. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ec44d991 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ec44d991 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Bill the Galactic Hero | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_ec44d991 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_eef69f10 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_eef69f10 | comment |
Sherlock Holmes Fanon has turned "The Diogenes Club", founded by Sherlock's brother Mycroft Holmes, into one of these while turning Mycroft Holmes from being a fat and lazy (but undeniably brilliant) civil servant into a 19th century M. The ur-example comes from The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes: | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_eef69f10 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_eef69f10 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Sherlock Holmes | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_eef69f10 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f01bf1a2 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f01bf1a2 | comment |
In Kim, Colonel Creighton, the head of the Ethnological Survey of British India, also directs the secret service. There is an overlap between the two organisations; for instance, both Creighton and one of his top agents, Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, write and publish legitimate ethnological papers and share the ambition of being admitted to the Royal Society. Apparently, this was Truth in Television. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f01bf1a2 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f01bf1a2 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Kim | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f01bf1a2 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f0c816fb | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f0c816fb | comment |
Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul: Gustavo Fring is a fast-food tycoon / drug lord who uses his chain of fried chicken restaurants (Los Pollos Hermanos) as a legitimate front for his underground meth-trafficking cartel. Gus Fring's drug ring also hides their meth-producing lab underneath a mundane laundromat building called the LavanderÃa Brillante; it's a perfect front for shipping in industrial quantities of chemicals and having tons of trucks coming and going without anyone batting an eye. Most of the employees (with the exception of the manager) are legitimate, primarily because the laundromat only employs poor Latino immigrants that can be threatened with deportation if they peek too closely on what's really going on. Surprisingly, there's no jokes about "money laundering". When Walter White earns his massive bucketloads of cash from meth-cooking, Saul Goodman recommends that Walt and Skyler should purchase a legitimate front in order to launder all this money. Saul tries to convince them to buy a laser tag arena (because it's managed by someone in on the take), but Skyler decides the old car wash where Walter used to work is more in-character, including working as the wash's manager to launder the money by reporting additional nonexistent customers. Unfortunately, Walt ends up earning so much money, there's no way for Skyler to convincingly launder it all, leaving them with a small mountain of greenbacks they can't even use without arousing suspicion. Saul also tries convincing Jesse Pinkman to purchase a nail salon to launder his own money; but Jesse hates the idea of running a business, paying taxes despite being a criminal, as well as having to give Saul a 17% cut, and so he rejects doing this. Saul has an associate named Ed Galbraith who will give anyone a new, untraceable identity somewhere else in the country within a day for a flat fee of $125,000 per person (and he can raise the fee for more difficult clients). The location he runs this business from is a regular vacuum cleaner repair shop, and the secret code for requesting a disappearance from Ed is to ask for "a new dust filter for a Hoover Max Extract® Pressure Proâ„¢ Model 60". Before he ended up in a wheelchair, Hector Salamanca laundered his drug money through a number of Mexican restaurants in the Albuquerque area (one an ice cream parlour called El Griego Guiñador, another named El Michoacáno). It's noted that the money they bring in is far less than Gus' enterprises, and their fate is left unclear after Hector is paralyzed and unable to manage them (and the people left to care for them in his stead end up being killed shortly afterwards). Dr. Caldera is a Back-Alley Doctor who works as a vet, providing medical services and contact information for the Albuquerque's criminal underworld. However, he takes his job as a vet quite seriously and only sees his criminal activities as a side business, eventually wiping his hands of illegal activities to focus on being a legitimate vet full-time, passing on his criminal contact info to Saul before leaving town for good. |
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Breaking Bad | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f0c816fb | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f0d11823 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f0d11823 | comment |
Tales from the Loop: In theory, "Riksenergi" is a state-run power company. It is, however, the world's worst kept secret that it is in fact a cutting-edge STEM research think-tank, and that it's main mission is operating the titular Loop, a massive particle accelerator hidden underneath a Stockholm exurb. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f0d11823 | featureApplicability |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f0d11823 | featureConfidence |
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Tales from the Loop (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f0d11823 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f2ca5c43 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f2ca5c43 | comment |
The Windup Girl. The calorie Megacorp that Anderson works for funds Yates unprofitable kink-spring factory just so they can have a window into Thailand, a country where any "Calorie Man" is liable to be lynched. Unfortunately Yates thinks of himself as an inventor rather than a spy, and misses the fact that new fruit and vegetables are mysteriously appearing in Bangkok markets. Anderson fires Yates for this and takes over the factory himself, and it's implied he killed Yates when the latter took violent objection to losing control of his life's work. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f2ca5c43 | featureApplicability |
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The Windup Girl | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f2ca5c43 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f4ca0e0 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f4ca0e0 | comment |
The Weapon X Program? You know, the Big Bad behind Wolverine's transformation from relatively innocuous soldier to blade–handed immortal killing machine? Who've made life a merry hell for various B–list X-Men for the last thirty years? On paper, they're the Department of Agriculture, Pest Control Division. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f4ca0e0 | featureApplicability |
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Weapon X (2002) (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f4ca0e0 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f4e799ee | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f4e799ee | comment |
Burn Notice: Carla uses one of these as a cover. Michael uses these occasionally, but he prefers private organizations. According to the narration, being in geological fieldwork is a good cover, getting used by multiple people in various episodes. When Michael gets on a semi-friendly relationship with the CIA again, the base of operations is a subsection shared with a more mundane government agency. It's more than just a front or a handy cover ID, as the real reason is simply practical business sense by sharing location costs and having a similar level of security. |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f4e799ee | featureConfidence |
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Burn Notice | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f4e799ee | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f7558a18 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f7558a18 | comment |
In Men in Black: The Series, the agents are officially working for the Department of Weights And Measures. The cover they give always takes the form: "<Situationally-Appropriate Government Agency>, Division Six", so they've been hotel inspectors, immigration, coast guard, and a host of others. | |
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Men in Black: The Series | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f7558a18 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f7f52529 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f7f52529 | comment |
In Thunderball, SPECTRE is introduced using the cover of a refugee aid agency — "International Brotherhood for the Assistance of Stateless Persons". Which, when you think of it, would be very useful for a criminal organisation that works internationally and that would need to arrange false papers for its members, who could be hidden among the many legitimate refugees. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f7f52529 | featureApplicability |
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Thunderball | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f7f52529 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f8acc9ea | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f8acc9ea | comment |
In Control, the Federal Bureau of Control, the US Artifact Collection Agency, claims to the people Locked Out of the Loop that it exists purely as a liaison office for various other federal agencies. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f8acc9ea | featureApplicability |
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Control (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f8acc9ea | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f954bf10 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f954bf10 | comment |
In Nebulous, K.E.N.T.'s cover is that they're a laundry. Much to Professor Nebulous's annoyance, their sponsors in the Government seem more inclined to buy equipment for the laundry than for eco-troubleshooting operations. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f954bf10 | featureApplicability |
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Nebulous (Radio) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_f954bf10 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_faf84cd | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_faf84cd | comment |
In Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, the Ventrue prince of Los Angelos rules from a skyscraper named Venture Tower (notice that the name is a misspelling that is still easily recognizable to any newly arrived Kindred who needs to know where the local prince is based), which hosts a number of high-class banking and corporate offices, all of which serve as a cover for him. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_faf84cd | featureApplicability |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_faf84cd | featureConfidence |
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Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_faf84cd | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_fe8ef766 | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_fe8ef766 | comment |
Captain America: every retelling of his origin story consistently portrays FBI housing Project Rebirth in the back of an antiquity store tended by an old lady who is actually an undercover FBI agent. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_fe8ef766 | featureApplicability |
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Captain America (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_fe8ef766 | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_fe94578f | type |
Covert Group with Mundane Front | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_fe94578f | comment |
MI6 fronts as a bank office in the Alex Rider series. | |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_fe94578f | featureApplicability |
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Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_fe94578f | featureConfidence |
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Alex Rider | hasFeature |
Covert Group with Mundane Front / int_fe94578f |
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