The Contingency Plan

Motto

Intellego, praeveni, et contra. (Understand, prevent, and counteract.)

The Contingency Plan or simply referred to as The Contingency was enacted during the cold war. Research had shown that certain aspects of ancient mythology were actually within the realm of possibility. Now operating throughout the various parts of Homeland Security and the military complex the group's primary goal it to seek out and understand what they call supernormal artifacts and entities. This includes supernatural creatures, paranormal activities, magical artifacts, and everything else possible. They research, locate, secure, and contain all evidence of such things existing while at the same time research and discover how to use everything they find with the end goal of defending the world from the horrors of what is really out there. While once the Contingency was an American effort, it has since been expanded throughout the early 2000's using secret agreements with governments, corporations, and private citizens throughout the world.

Operation

The group has evolved since its origins rooted in the covert action of the 1950’s. They currently operate with agents in every major government and corporate entity of the world, as of 2020. They believe that knowledge magic, psionics, and the supernatural world are too dangerous for the public to be told of. They they fight to contain and erase all evidence that such things exist, willing to go through any lengths to achieve this goal. While originally working against the supernatural community, they now employ supernatural entities who share their vision. They fund projects to exploit the abilities of supernaturals, magic / psionic users while eradicating all evidence such programs exist. The mandate has become one of staying in power for the “good” of all mankind.

History

The group began as a simple research arm during the cold war, attempting to discover if folklore and mythology about supernormal abilities could be at least somewhat accurate. In 1949 the group was given broad orders to determine if there was more possible to the human condition, particularly the mind, than was previously thought possible. To this end the group would study common accounts from various mythologies across different cultures and attempt to come up with a "framework of the possible".

Project Superman

This framework would serve as a bible for the future of the organization then only called Project Superman. Working out of the United States Army Office of Special Projects. When the project coordinators submitted their findings of what could be possible to the Office of Special Projects for evaluation, their research implied that supernormal abilities could be possible based on shared myths and legends across multiple races. At the time the project was centered around the simple idea of what could humans really do? Project Superman was terminated on August 9th 1951 and all funding was cut. Project members were ordered to surrender any and all materials relating to the project and informed that they were prohibited from talking about the project to anyone. The Army was concerned that if the public found out that a Army project was found to be researching myths and legends it would undermine the faith in the military at a time when the Cold War was well underway.

The Framework

On August 10th 1951 the project supervisors received an anonymous invite to attend a meeting at a little known warehouse just outside of DC. This small warehouse was used by the CIA Office of Policy Coordination as a covert meeting place. The supervisors of Project Superman indeed did show up to this meeting. At the time the CIA was preparing to escalate their efforts in Korea, behind the scenes many of the CIA's middle management had serious concerns about these efforts and were desperate to latch onto any possibility of advantage they could find. By the end of August, the project supervisors, most of the lead researchers, and other staff who worked for Project Superman as a research project now worked for the Central Intelligence Agency's Office of Policy Coordination.

The new project was simply called The Framework and the research project focused on myths and legends was now tasked with figuring out how to turn legends into reality. Through the rest of 1951 the Framework was largely disorganized and unsettled leading to the replacement of most of the leadership with CIA operatives. The Office of Policy Coordination called upon Framework supervisors to submit reports as to how to _activate_ latent supernormal abilities in operatives being sent into Korea to then be sent into communist China in 1952. The Framework had no details on how to do this but under new management from the CIA it didn't matter, the Framework put together a list of chemical drug cocktails related to altered states of being and mind. These drugs could be condensed and given to operatives in pill form, many being sent into China were simply told that they need only take this pill and they would become all but invincible. They were wrong.

The failures of the effort in Korea to gather information about China helped to hide what the Framework had done. The key effort in the Framework at this point was being lead by Ret. Army Major William "Billy" Jenson. Unlike many of his fellow CIA officers who had very little, if any, experience at leadership and even less scruples Jenson in fact had both. Once a true believer that the CIA was an unstoppable juggernaut, the deaths in Korea hit him hard and he felt personally responsible. Jenson had a realization that the CIA was going to be doomed to failure and thus the United States would also be doomed to failure if they could not accept and learn from their mistakes.

In December of 1953 Jenson brought a plan to the attention of Frank Wisner to reshape CIA operational protocol. This plan was rejected and Wisner threatened Jenson if he continued to "rock the boat". With this in mind, Jenson worked hard to put safeguards in place to ensure he could run the Framework as he saw fit, without outside interference. Jenson put into place a protocol of research, review, fact checking, reporting, and testing which was all organized under the premise that every failure was acceptable so long as one learned from it. This idea was key to the future of the Framework.

Revelation

Over the next decade the Framework was able to operate under two directions. The first was their core purpose; finding out how to bring out latent supernormal abilities in human assets. This was slow going work and Jenson knew that the CIA would not allow this work to continue if results could not be had. The second direction was in the use of drug cocktails to alter the bodies natural responses to stress and pain. This portion was quickly successful, branded by the Framework as a way to get closer and closer to the hidden potential of the human body the Office of Policy Coordination was able to use these drug cocktails on agents to make them run faster, take more injuries, and last longer than others in the field. Due to the nature of how the CIA reported failures and consequences (or lack thereof) the Framework was lauded as a success.

Meanwhile the real research began, Jenson fully believed that there was more to the human mind and by extension the body. The drugs were habit forming, harmful to the body, and often left deep physical and emotional scars. Jenson felt that the Framework could unlock hidden potentials without the side effects. He envisioned an army of supernormal agents which could operate with impunity because no one would believe what they saw.

Operating largely outside the CIA Jenson applied rigorous research techniques to how to alter the state of the human mind to unlock and access new abilities. On April 3rd, 1963 the Framework had its first true success. Through a carefully managed treatment program of mind altering substances and training exercises the group produced a true success, dubbed Agent Zero. Agent Zero spent 9 weeks undergoing experimental treatment which left him with the ability to enter the dreams of anyone with whom he had contact. At first it was only physical contact but later Agent Zero was able to enter the dreams of others from up to 100 feet away so long as he had line of sight, without the need for additional drugs of any kind.

The Plan

Building off of this success Jenson instituted a project to turn as many people into what her termed as Dream Walkers after what the Native Americans called such activity. All in all the team produced 57 such walkers, with a success rate of just 32%. The Framework began to investigate why the treatment did not produce results in 2/3 of "applicants". What they found would change the group forever.

The research team found that a specific series of brain formations formed an additional, but latent, pathway in the brains of those people who were effectively turned into Dream Walkers. This pathway was simply missing from about 2/3 of the population. This pathway was found to be essential in being able to Dream Walk but it also was found to have other uses. The Framework had unlocked the first tangible proof of psychic abilities. Not just Dream Walking but all forms of psychic abilities were locked inside this pathway. Since 1/3 of the population had this pathway they were called latents and posed a significant threat, as a latent who was awakened had an unstoppable advantage over most humans.

Jenson was nearing retirement age and grappling with his own mortality. He formulated a plan, the idea was that God never intended for humans to achieve such a thing. These latents were abominations. Jenson formed a kind of contingency plan that were two simple steps -- find anyone who could be a latent and make sure they never found out what they could do. To this end Jenson began to organize his contacts within the military industrial complex -- no one must ever find out that psychic abilities were real. Further no one must ever experiment with unlocking such abilities again.

The Contingency

After Jenson retired in 1981 the Framework required new leadership. Over the next decades the Framework found several branches of myth and legend which had practical applications; psionics and magic were the two primary ones. The Framework also began to see evidence of other myths which could also be true. The Framework had several directors, all from the CIA, who were mostly happy with what had already been done and directed the Framework to continue this same work. In 1992 the Framework got a new leader, it's third in the last 11 years. This new leader had a different idea on how to execute the plan of everyday Americans being protected from the supernormal.

Since Agent Zero some 1274 people had been brought into the Framework as Dream Walkers, Psychics, Empaths, and Mages. Working for the very organization which saw them as a threat, most fully believed that working in this capacity would protect them from the wrath of the Framework should there ever be one. These agents were also very useful to the CIA, NSC, NSA, and all branches of the military. They were valuable assets now in place protecting America.

In 1994 the Framework obtained its very first live sample of the Vx Virus. It was now confirmed, for all intents and purposes Vampires existed. Moreover their network of agents throughout the country's military had started to get noticed by the very creatures which they were about to discover. It seemed that in the 1990's the vampires, shape shifters, were creatures, and even demons would come out of the woodwork. They were absolutely everywhere.

The plan was changed, it was clear that latents were the least of their worries. So a Contingency Plan was devised. The Framework transitioned to serve a new purpose, the United States Government needed to know what was out there, what it could do, how to combat it, and if possible to just destroy it. By 1997 the Contingency was fully operational. They would seek out all supernormal entities and artifacts of any kind and through research and experimentation devise ways to combat supernormal entities and artifacts. To protect humanity, the Contingency would also begin a systematic concealment of any / all information relating to such entities and artifacts.