People often wonder why things happen the way they do. All it takes is one look at the world to raise far too many uncomfortable questions. In one country, food is destroyed to keep prices high while in another people starve. Unemployment suddenly drops, but so do the prices in the stock market. An Air Force toilet costs thousands of dollars. It is a world where the actions of governments and corporations often make absolutely no sense. Some people start thinking of “They,” as in “It would be easy to fix the welfare problem, but They don’t want it to be fixed.” A few start speculating about ancient conspiracies, the Bavarian Illuminati, and secret board meetings where the fate of millions is decided in a short conversation. Those speculations may not be completely off the mark.
The new generation of agents refer to “They” as the Combine, after the name of the establishment in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Due to their powers and interests, the organization has discovered hints and clues pointing to an international conspiracy that is the cause behind much of the seeming lack of sense in world affairs. The agents as well as the Organization have found indications that this organization has done its best to keep the populace ignorant of the paranormal using the distractions of well written news paper covers and entertaining mass media programs. While their goal is clearly to exploit humanity, it’s underlying purposes appear to be as strange and as mysterious as the artifacts and creatures that they seek to take away from the Hoffman Organization.
Only a few “facts” are known about the Combine.
- Fact: It is extremely secret. Most of its agents are dupes who know little about who or what they are working for.
- Fact: Its higher powers are is mostly, perhaps exclusively, mundane. So far, nobody with paranormal powers has been identified as working for the higher seats of the Combine, although there are rumors that the Combine is establishing training camps to raise a new breed of paranormal agents.
- Fact: It can wield enormous influence, often in subtle ways. On many occasions, when someone has gotten too close to the Combine, strange things have started to happen to her. Her electrical power gets shut off, her credit cards get canceled, or she is accused of a crime or sued by somebody she has never heard of. The number and intensity of the problems rise in proportion to how close the person has gotten to learning something important about the organization or its activities.
- Fact: They are not afraid to use lethal force to keep the secret. Those who press on despite the difficulties (or who use paranormal powers to circumvent them) eventually are visited by teams of unsmiling men in business suits, who proceeded to murder or attempt to murder them. If anyone has ever survived the hunt of the Combine is unknown.
Beyond this, very little is known about the Combine. Some people speculate that the organization is a mundane conspiracy of enormous power who has a high interest in obtaining paranormal powers to solidify their control over the mundane masses. Others think that the Combine is the puppet of a more powerful force who uses its powers subtly to avoid detection, relying whenever possible on its human pawns. And some think that no one organization is in charge, that there are several Combines, each fighting each other.
| Just Say No |
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| On rare occasions agents may find themselves confronted by mysterious strangers who identify themselves only as ‘The Combine’. While their faces vary from stranger to stranger, their allure and message are always the same. Give them information on the Organization, and they will promise you freedom. Of curse, not all agents want to be free of the Organization, and while others may the idea of being free should seem like an unreachable dream. Still, the Combine is a steady and real threat in the world of the Project and Organization, and their promise is alluring to even the most seasoned and loyal agent leaving many wondering in the back of their mind, “What /would/ I say?” |
