Federal Bureau of Control

Federal Bureau of Control
Formed	Unknown (prior to 1954)
Headquarters	Oldest House Manhattan, New York, NY, U.S.
Motto	Invenio, Investigatio, Imperium
Goals	To contain, research, and control paranatural phenomena.
Director	Jesse Faden

“	Our mission is to expand the limits of human understanding and contain those elements we cannot yet control.	”
— Zachariah Trench

The Federal Bureau of Control (FBC) is a clandestine United States government organization tasked with the containment, study, and control of paranatural phenomena. Operating on a national scale, the FBC investigates events and objects which violate the known laws of nature, with the goal of understanding and controlling these elements. The Bureau's headquarters is a mysterious Brutalist skyscraper in New York City known as the Oldest House, which exists outside of ordinary reality.

The FBC is responsible for both the scientific study of paranatural elements and the protection of the nation (and humanity as a whole) from these forces. Among the phenomena studied by the FBC are Altered World Events (AWEs), Altered Items, Objects of Power, and other realms and dimensions beyond our own. The Oldest House, itself a paranormal location, serves as a containment and study facility for these types of phenomena.

The leadership of the FBC is determined by the Board, an extradimensional being, through the Service Weapon Object of Power. The current Director of the Federal Bureau of Control is Jesse Faden, having succeeded the late Zachariah Trench after his death during the Hiss invasion.

History

File:The Oldest House (2).png

The Oldest House, headquarters of the FBC.

It is unknown when the Federal Bureau of Control was created, though it was "young" in the year 1954. The agency's objective is to protect the United States and the world from unknown forces via containment, study, and ultimately control. The FBC is the U.S. government division responsible for investigating paranormal or "paranatural" phenomena - objects, places, or elements which violate the known laws of reality and exist outside of scientific comprehension. The existence of said phenomena is not publicly known, as the FBC engages in elaborate cover-ups to prevent knowledge of said phenomena from spreading.

It is unknown whether the FBC's jurisdiction extends beyond U.S. borders or if other nations have equivalent paranatural investigation agencies; some Altered Item files suggest the FBC has acted beyond U.S. borders. As per their primary goal, the FBC seeks out paranatural phenomena across the country and possibly the world, studying them and attempting to contain them to the best of their abilities. Among the phenomena investigated by the FBC are Altered World Events (AWEs), wherein the laws of our reality are violated by forces seemingly originating from alternate dimensions. Ordinary objects can be affected by paranatural forces, and are referred to as Altered Items and contained by the FBC. Certain Altered Items called Objects of Power are capable of causing AWEs and are connected to the Astral Plane.

In 1964, while investigating an AWE case in the New York City subway tunnels, the FBC discovered the Oldest House. Referred to as a "Place of Power," this shifting location exists outside of the normal laws of reality, being far larger on the inside than the outside. The FBC deemed the Oldest House an optimal location for containing Altered Items and Objects of Power and converted the site into its headquarters. The FBC learned to manipulate the Oldest House using paranatural rituals based on synchronistic connections; by doing so, they created Control Points and relatively stable areas of the building meant for research and containment. The Oldest House was divided into sectors separated by Firebreaks, which were intended to protect the building in the case of a catastrophic breach of containment. The discovery of the Oldest House also saw the discovery of the Service Weapon and thus the Board, an extradimensional being which determines who can wield the Service Weapon. The Bureau ordained for the wielder of the Service Weapon to be the Director of the Bureau by default, due to the importance of the Board and Objects of Power to the Bureau.

The first wielder of the Service Weapon was Director Northmoor, who at some point lost control of his paranatural powers and was contained by the Bureau in the Northmoor Sarcophagus Chamber (NSC), where he became a source of power for the entire Oldest House. Northmoor was succeeded by Zachariah Trench, his subordinate, who took the Service Weapon almost on a dare. He made major changes to the Bureau's infrastructure, including the establishment of the Panopticon. During Trench's tenure, the Bureau investigated in AWE in the town of Ordinary, Wisconsin, where Trench and his Head of Research, Casper Darling, found the Slide Projector Object of Power, which opened doorways to other dimensions. They contained the OOP as well as a child named Dylan Faden, who was made a part of the Prime Candidate program, established to determine Trench's successor based on eligibility for wielding the Service Weapon through parautilitarian abilities. Trench and Darling repeatedly explored Slidescape-36, the only surviving slide dimension, after Jesse Faden (Dylan's sister) destroyed the other slides. Trench, however, had kept one of the burned slides.

The events of the Hiss invasion transpired on October 29, 2019.

Purpose & Goals

The founding principles and mission statement of the Federal Bureau of Control are not known. The apparent goal of the organization is to contain, study, and ultimately "control" paranatural phenomena, while keeping the existence of these phenomena a secret from the general populace, for unknown reasons. The Bureau is believed to have been founded in the twentieth century, which suggests that the discovery of the paranatural was relatively recent, but this is unconfirmed; it is possible the FBC had predecessors. Additionally noteworthy is that the Bureau appears to operate internationally, with several Altered Items having been acquired in foreign countries such as Cuba and Japan.

The FBC is a scientific organization that seeks an understanding of paranatural phenomena through objective, empirical research. However, these methodologies may not always apply, as paranatural phenomena seem to gravitate to the human mind and thus tend to be highly subjective and ambiguous. Additionally, the nature of the paranatural to defy physics and even logic suggests these forces may not be comprehensible or controllable. Nonetheless, the FBC focuses its efforts on control of these forces, developing rituals and studying Altered Items and Objects of Power with the intent of learning to control unexplainable forces. The Director of the Federal Bureau of Control is selected specifically due to their ability to control Objects of Power.

The Bureau is connected to the Astral Plane and the Board acts as an advisor or overseer for the Bureau as a whole, which is why the image of the Black Pyramid appears in the Bureau's logo.

Divisions & Departments

• Executive Sector
  • Office of the Director
  • Communications Department
  • Accounting Department
  • Human Resources Department
  • Nostalgia Department
• Maintenance Sector
  • NSC Power Plant
  • Janitorial Department
  • Black Rock Mining
    • Black Rock Processing
• Research Sector
  • Dimensional Sciences Division
  • Parapsychology Division
    • Hypnosis Lab
    • Extrasensory Lab
  • Parakinesiology
  • Ritual Division
    • Protective Studies
    • Synchronicity Lab
    • Luck & Probability
  • Astral Plane Research
• Containment Sector
  • Panopticon
    • Archives
  • Logistics
  • Security
  • Medical
• Investigation Sector
  • External Surveillance
    • AWE Response
    • AWE Forensics & Analysis

Members

Leadership

• Jesse Faden, Director
• Emily Pope, Head of Research
• Helen Marshall, Head of Operations

Other Members

• Simon Arish, Security Chief
• Frederick Langston, Panopticon Supervisor
• Raya Underhill, Senior Researcher
• Ahti, Janitor

Gallery

Trivia

• The Federal Bureau of Control is partly inspired by the SCP Foundation, a fictional organization from an eponymous online collaborative fiction project. Like the FBC, the SCP Foundation is a morally ambiguous global organization responsible for containing items which violate the laws of reality. The format of the FBC's containment files for Altered Items is directly based on the SCP Foundation's SCP containment files, beginning with an item's classification number followed by "containment procedures" and then a description of the object and its supernatural effect.
• An Easter egg in the video game Quantum Break (a title by Control developer Remedy Entertainment) mentions a "Bureau of Altered World Events." This organization is said to have had ties with Monarch Solutions, the antagonist organization of Quantum Break.