Agents of FATE: Sideline

So we're back to Agents of FATE, which now stands for something other than Fancy Acronym; Totally Empty. The Agents will be working for the Fictive Attachment for Tactical Espionage, with credit going to IRL friend Greg and the mysterious internetty Chris¹ in 3-to-1 measure.

Shuter and Laskey

I'm also wild about Chris' idea to have FATE be presumed fictional within the context of the setting². A series of books seems too low-key, though, and besides, nobody reads any more. I'm running with the notion of a syndication-length TV series, made with obviously low production values and sold on the cheap to cable channels with a lot of dead air to fill. This series, "Agents of F.A.T.E." ³, follows the adventures of F.A.T.E. superoperatives Clarinda "Blackbird" Shuter and Hank "Depthcharge" Laskey, and mixes vaguely accurate, fragmentary descriptions of the real FATE agency and its modus operandi with plentiful disinformation, ridiculousness, terrible acting, yawning plot holes, and baffling breaks with the tone, setting and style of the series in general⁴. FATE ensures that the show is aired in slots which maximize peripheral awareness; most people have had an episode of "Agents of F.A.T.E." playing in the background at some point in their lives, but couldn't tell you the plot to save their lives. Of course, there are also the fans, collecting minutiae and merchandise and maintaining wikis, fansites and the annual AoFCon in Atlantic City. As far as the mundane world is concerned, claiming to work for F.A.T.E. is the equivalent of saying you're with the X-Files - or, considering the chintziness of the show, the Office of Scientific Investigation and Research. That F.A.T.E. uses the same fictionalizing tactics within the show's continuity just makes evidence about the real FATE all the more unbelievable⁵.

There's some fun to be had here. While real FATE missions are deadly serious, carry the potential for betrayal at any moment, and often involve weighty decisions that can change the course of world events, the show is a goofy bit of CG-heavy pap in which the chemistry-free will-they-or-won't-they between Shuter and Laskey is given precedence over any possible consequences of a mission⁶. PCs who try to invoke the agency's name will be presumed cosplayers or worse. After a particularly harrowing or betrayal-ridden mission, I could switch it up and run a game in the morally duochrome metafiction of F.A.T.E. - Perhaps as the heavily fictionalized but sole remaining record of an early FATE operation with relevance to the FATE group's next assignment.

... Then again, this kind of over-the-top doesn't really mesh with the life-or-death, trust-no-one mood I originally set out for with FATE (Well, to the extent that I set out anything - Greg Stolze, eat your heart out⁷). It's a neat idea, but it'll take a lot to make it work right. I think I'll try and clever up some actual mechanics first, and maybe take another stab at it afterwards.

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1. I've known a lot of Chrises in my time, so you'll forgive me if you know me IRL but I can't identify you from ten sentences. If you're a total stranger, well, thanks for reading my blog and contributing to this thing of ours. You're a rad dude.
2. I have a total boner for secret agencies maintaining their secrecy by loudly declaring themselves fake, as obliquely hinted by the MALARKEY¹ designation in the Changeling Cold War setting I posted back in the hoary mists of around this time last year.
1. Which is, natch, more or less a lock stock and barrel steal from Charles Stross' A Colder War, in which ultimate top secret materials are marked BOOJUM. Oh Charles Stross, you were pretty okay before you started running your mouth about the singularity.
3. Note the ellipses - their presence distinguishes between the fictional F.A.T.E. and the real FATE. 
4. The latter two are exemplified by "Operation Daggerblade"¹, the episode where Laskey "retrogresses" into a literal goblin and vanishes into the New Jersey Pine Barrens as Shuter weepily bemoans his "incurable" condition. He is back to normal in the next episode and no explanation is ever provided.
1. And yes, all the series episodes have titles like this.
5. Annnnnd I do believe my secrecy-through-fictionalization boner just went fractal.
6. The continuity is intentionally and irrevocably mangled: For example, other events of "Operation Daggerblade" are often referenced in later episodes, but never the 'goblinization', leaving its status in canon a source of constant flamewar. FATE did this intentionally, as the canon arguments keep the fanbase occupied and off the trail of the real organization.
7. Stolze bemoaned how other writers for Unknown Armies had written material that contradicted certain rules he thought the setting required, while acknowledging that he never actually made those rules explicit. Here, I've managed to do the same thing to myself.