History Main / MilkmanConspiracy

* Garbage disposal mafias are a more widespread example. Anywhere from New York to Naples, and even with more profitable illegal enterprises coming up, many criminal organizations just can't resist dipping in and taking over that particular industry despite its unglamorousness. [[UsefulNotes/TheMafia In particular]], the Genovese and Lucchese crime families (and to a lesser extent, the Gambinos) have made millions in the waste disposal industry since the 1950s.
** After all, when you have control over the means of disposal, [[FridgeBrilliance it's a lot easier to use it to dispose of inconvenient evidence, or individuals]].
* [[https://www.cracked.com/article_18845_6-secret-monopolies-you-didnt-know-run-world.html 6 Secret Monopolies You Didn't Know Run the World]].
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** ''VideoGame/Psychonauts2'': The Delugionary mole in the Psychonauts, responsible for resurrecting the BigBad of the game, [[spoiler:the crown prince of a tyrannical Eurasian dynasty [[FluffyTheTerrible Nick Johnsmith]]]], is for all intents and purposes ''an overpaid blue-collar worker ([[spoiler:mailman]])''. They manage to completely fool an agency filled with literal mind-readers ''for twenty years'' despite being a pathological narcissist.

** ''VideoGame/Psychonauts2'': The Delugionary mole in the Psychonauts, responsible for resurrecting the BigBad of the game, [[spoiler:the crown prince of a tyrannical Eurasian dynasty [[FluffyTheTerrible Nick Johnson]]]], is for all intents and purposes ''an overpaid blue-collar worker ([[spoiler:mailman]])''. They manage to completely fool an agency filled with literal mind-readers ''for twenty years'' despite being a pathological narcissist.

[[folder:Film]]

* The card game ''TabletopGame/{{Illuminati}}'' occasionally displays this. While you typically need to have groups that would logically be powerful, small ones help you out as well; people can win by taking control of the Furries.
** Indeed, a classic example in game is the "Secret Masters Of Fandom attack to control California."
** Another, quite typical example: The Boy Sprouts, with the aid of the Congressional Wives, attack to control Fnord Motor Company.

-->-- ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'', in the eponymous level, in a pristine double-barreled example.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' episode "Employee of the Month", Beast Boy discovers that the local burger chain hides intelligent space tofu that kidnaps cows to use as fuel while selling a "Meaty Meaty" substitute through a store front managed by an android made of tofu.

* ''Film/Mutafuckaz'': Luchadores ''are'' black-ops superheroes who work with a genius scientist to stop an alien conspiracy from destroying the world for resources.

* In the ''Film/DevilFish'' episode of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', Mike and the Bots start making fun of Dolphins, only to find out that Dolphins are a space-faring race that attack the Satellite. Later, Mike gets cocky and starts teasing an electrician, only for him to call in his dolphin buddies to start blasting the Satellite again.

[[folder:Machinima]]
* ''Machinima/ArbyNTheChief'' has [[TheBully Eugene Black]]'s trolling clan which, for a ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' clan, has managed to garner an impressive influence, being able to obtain the Internet history of a copycat troll as well as dissolve some legal trouble that [[EvilGenius Colin Hunt]] was in.
* In ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'', a bizarre Milkman Conspiracy is set off when [[spoiler:Vic, the obnoxious dispatch operator back at "Blue Army Headquarters," is told, in the past after some time travel, that "Red and Blue are the same thing." Vic takes this literally and it eventually turned out that because of all this, the commander-in-chief of both Red and Blue armies is, in fact, Vic, who has been setting them at war with one another over one offhand comment.]]
** The conspiracy deepens: [[spoiler:Vic manages to do this because he's actually ''the computer that's running the Capture the Flag game that everyone is playing''.]] At least, that's what the last episode implied.
** It should be noted that in the end, it's not really a Milkman Conspiracy, it only ''appears'' to be one. The truth is even more complicated. [[spoiler:In short, both the Red Army and the Blue Army are made up of rejects from the regular army on training bases controlled by the Freelancer Project. Scenarios are set up on these bases to train Freelancers, all of whom are aware of the deception while the "simulation troopers" are not. However, simulation troopers who do well enough are apparently shuffled back into the regular army, such as Donut (apparently?) and Tucker.]]
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* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': Wilson Fisk's criminal empire pretty much works like one, where he has all sorts of various schemes to make money and skirt asset freezes below the radar.

* In ''Webcomic/Homestuck'' the Betty Crocker brand of baking products is secretly a front for [[spoiler:a genocidal alien empress hellbent on conquering the world and wiping out humanity.]]

* ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}'' features a vast conspiratorial organization made up solely of guys named Dave. ''All'' the guys in the world named Dave. [[spoiler:At one point, protagonist Dave Davenport gets kicked out and his name becomes David. The other protagonists don't care and decide to keep calling him Dave anyway.]]

* The backstory of ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'' shows that the entire world was brought to heel and taken into a state of AnarchoTyranny by the UltimateDespair, a cult of ''high-school students'' (from an elite academy for the best of the best, but still). In addition, said students manage to capture a major robotics company that they used to built their armies.

* In ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate'', the French research institution CERN--here called [[BlandNameProduct SERN]]--have secretly been trying to create time travel, killing at least 14 human tests subjects in the process, and have a network of armed agents called Rounders that are recruited through cellphone texts. In the timelines where they complete it they immediately use it to take over the world and turn it into an impossibly bleak {{dystopia}}. The visual novel [[SubvertedTrope reveals that the true masterminds]] are the [[TheIlluminati Committee of 300]].

* AEGIS from ''VideoGame/GateKeepers'' is a secret global unit created to wage a secret war against the Invaders. It has the highest military clearance and it has authority over any army. It just so happens its most visible members are ''high school students''.

* Hilarious subversion in the film ''Film/TheStupids''. The [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin titular family]] ''believe'' they've uncovered one of these, involving the police, garbage collectors, the New York Times, the local deli, the local Chinese restaurant, and bees ([[MemeticMutation my God]]) to steal all the world's mail and deliver it to a man called "Sender" (Creator/ChristopherLee!) (because the father, who used to be a mailman, got suspicious about all those letters that said [[WhatAnIdiot "return to sender"]]). The twist is that, not only does this conspiracy not exist, but in their efforts to thwart it, the Stupids manage to [[SpannerInTheWorks mess up an actually dangerous conspiracy entirely by accident]]. Oh, and they find Sender, and he turns out to be, not Christopher Lee, but [[Series/CaptainKangaroo Bob Keeshan]]!

* During the Brezhnev era in the USSR, the [[https://upittpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/9780822961086exr.pdf Chief Administration of Trade (Glavtorg) and the Administration of the Moscow Fruit and Vegetable Office (Glavmosplodovoshprom)]] - [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer yes, of all things]], a trade association of ''greengrocers'' - accumulated a substantial amount of power, resources, and influence within the Soviet system, such that when [[https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/the-kgb-campaign-against-corruption-in-moscow-1982-1987-by-luc-duhamel/ Yuri Andropov's short-lived government and the KGB attempted to diminish their institutional cachet through anti-corruption campaigns undertaken in the early- to mid-1980s]], the latter effectively lost the battle (sharply contrasting conventional assumptions about the absolute power of the KGB in the post-Stalinist, pre-glasnost/perestroika Soviet Union).

* During the Brezhnev era in the USSR, the [[https://upittpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/9780822961086exr.pdf Chief Administration of Trade (Glavtorg) and the Administration of the Moscow Fruit and Vegetable Office (Glavmosplodovoshprom)]] - [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer yes, of all things]], a trade association of ''greengrocers'' - accumulated a substantial amount of power, resources, and influence within the Soviet system, such that when [[https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/the-kgb-campaign-against-corruption-in-moscow-1982-1987-by-luc-duhamel/ Yuri Andropov's short-lived government and the KGB attempted to diminish their institutional cachet through anti-corruption campaigns undertaken in the early- to mid-1980s]], the latter effectively lost the battle (sharply contrasting conventional assumptions about the absolute power of the KGB in the post-Stalin, pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union).

* During the Brezhnev era in the USSR, the [[https://upittpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/9780822961086exr.pdf Chief Administration of Trade (Glavtorg) and the Administration of the Moscow Fruit and Vegetable Office (Glavmosplodovoshprom)]] - [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer yes, of all things]], a trade association of ''greengrocers'' - accumulated a substantial amount of power, resources, and influence within the Soviet system, such that when [[https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/the-kgb-campaign-against-corruption-in-moscow-1982-1987-by-luc-duhamel/ Yuri Andropov's short-lived government and the KGB attempted to diminish their institutional cachet through anti-corruption campaigns undertaken in the early-to-mid 1980s]], the latter effectively lost the battle (sharply contrasting conventional assumptions about the absolute power of the KGB in the post-Stalin, pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union).

* During the Brezhnev era in the USSR, the [[https://upittpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/9780822961086exr.pdf Chief Administration of Trade (Glavtorg) and the Administration of the Moscow Fruit and Vegetable Office (Glavmosplodovoshprom)]] - [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer yes, of all things, a trade association of ''greengrocers'']] - accumulated a substantial amount of power, resources, and influence within the Soviet system, such that when [[https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/the-kgb-campaign-against-corruption-in-moscow-1982-1987-by-luc-duhamel/ Yuri Andropov's short-lived government and the KGB attempted to diminish their institutional cachet through anti-corruption campaigns undertaken in the early-to-mid 1980s]], the latter effectively lost the battle (sharply contrasting conventional assumptions about the absolute power of the KGB in the post-Stalin, pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union).

* During the Brezhnev era in the USSR, the [[https://upittpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/9780822961086exr.pdf Chief Administration of Trade (Glavtorg) and the Administration of the Moscow Fruit and Vegetable Office (Glavmosplodovoshprom)]] - [[yes, NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer a trade association of ''greengrocers'']] - accumulated a substantial amount of power, resources, and influence within the Soviet system, such that when [[https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/the-kgb-campaign-against-corruption-in-moscow-1982-1987-by-luc-duhamel/ Yuri Andropov's short-lived government and the KGB attempted to diminish their institutional cachet through anti-corruption campaigns undertaken in the early-to-mid 1980s]], the latter effectively lost the battle (sharply contrasting conventional assumptions about the absolute power of the KGB in the post-Stalin, pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union).

* The teams in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' operate this way. Reliable Excavation and Demolition and the Builders' League United are fronts for two organizations that secretly control every government in the world and are constantly at war with each other. Signs in the game's maps reveal more fronts for these organizations, such as Red Bread and Blu Corn. It's hinted that every major corporation in the world ultimately has ties to one or the other.

* Rare heroic example in ''VideoGame/SteelStrider'': The organization that deploys the protagonist in their souped-up HumongousMecha, periodically drops supplies and weapons, and supplies arms to rebellions against tyrannical planetary governments is...[[UnstoppableMailman an interstellar shipping company]].

** The TropeNamer is the famous Milkman Conspiracy level, centered around a pyromaniac milkman-spy and his secret group of {{Girl Scouts|Are Evil}} who are fighting against government agents. Although in this case the conspiracy is all in the head of the one man who knows about it. No, literally; the conspiracy is carried out by constructs within his mind, who represent the mental blocks that prevent [[spoiler:his destructively psychotic, hypnotically implanted alter-ego, the Milkman, from surfacing until he's been given a code phrase]], and challenged by ''other'' constructs which represent his attempts to sort out what it is he won't let himself know. Except he suspects himself as much as anyone else, so he fears both sets of constructs equally.

* There is a conspiracy theory that the US mattress store chain [[http://www.businessinsider.com/mattress-firm-responds-to-conspiracy-theory-about-its-business-2018-1 Mattress Firm is a front for a massive money laundering scheme.]] This is said because there are so many stores despite mattresses usually being purchased once every 7-10 years. Mattress Firm obviously denies the allegations.[[note]]A perfectly reasonable explanation is that the bulk of mattress sales likely come from hotels and motels, as well as anywhere else offering mass accommodation. These are places where mattresses tend to become ruined beyond repair, and therefore require entirely new mattresses.[[/note]]

* TropeNamer: The famous ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'' level. Although in this case the conspiracy is all in the head of the one man who knows about it. No, literally; the conspiracy is carried out by constructs within his mind, who represent the mental blocks that prevent [[spoiler:his destructively psychotic, hypnotically implanted alter-ego from surfacing until he's been given a code phrase]], and challenged by ''other'' constructs which represent his attempts to sort out what it is he won't let himself know. Except he suspects himself as much as anyone else, so he fears both sets of constructs equally.
* The ultimate culprit behind all the events in ''VideoGame/Persona4'' is revealed in the GoldenEnding to be [[spoiler:a random gas station attendant who, up to that point, wasn't even important enough to warrant [[NominalImportance a name or portrait]].]]
** If you pay attention to [[spoiler:said apparently unimportant NPC when they appear (notably only on days when it rains) you may pick up hints that they know more than they let on, but this requires paying attention to what appears to be a single, ordinary NPC in a reasonably-populated small town, with no hint as to their significance except for a single slight cue ''from outside the fourth wall'', about 70 hours of gameplay ago.]] Ironically, the only people likely to do this are those already in on the spoiler, having got the GoldenEnding and are on NewGamePlus.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Illuminati}}'' has shades of this; while the main secret society you're playing as is usually something as formidable as the Bavarian Illuminati or the Society of Assassins, the groups you control as part of your conspiracy network can be [[JokeCharacter some off-the-wall group]] (like "[[ScoutOut Boy Sprouts]]" or "[[FurryFandom Furries]]") that you basically stick on an end of your power structure when you otherwise couldn't make a move. On the other hand, some otherwise bizarre or unassuming groups can help your strategy, and the Church of the Sub-Genius (from an expansion) is an actual playable society that relies on being mediocre.

* In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'', ''los Iluminados'', a cult led by Ozmund Saddler, are a bunch of Spanish farmers and zealots... with an island fully equipped and devoted to studying the ''Plaga'' parasite and creating many types of monsters. Still, they are ''only'' farmers.