History Main / RevealingCoverup

* In Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs's ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'' novel "Thuvia, Maid of Mars", Carthoris is framed for Thuvia's kidnapping. Not his love would have let him leave the matter alone, but it always helps, to implicate his honor.

* Instead of having your agent sneak into the embassy to [[SpyCam photograph the codebook]], you're going to make huge splashy headlines to get everyone looking the other way. Why, after you order the agent to fake a gas leak and [[FieryCoverup blow up the embassy]], surely no one will notice a codebook gone missing. It would be the ''last'' thing they'd suspect.

* Instead of having your agent sneak into the embassy to [[SpyCam photograph the codebook]], you're going to make huge splashy headlines to get everyone looking the other way. Why, with your plan to fake a gas leak and [[FieryCoverup blow up the embassy]], surely no one will notice a codebook gone missing. It would be the ''last'' thing they'd suspect.

* Instead of having your agent sneak into the embassy to [[SpyCam photograph the codebook]], you're going to make huge splashy headlines to get everyone looking the other way. Why, with your plan to fake aliens landing and [[FieryCoverup blowing up the embassy]], surely no one will notice a codebook gone missing. It would be the ''last'' thing they'd suspect.

It never works. Inevitably they'll connect the fake aliens to your organization, making them wonder what you're up to, which will lead them to the (hitherto unknown) [[TheMole Mole]] you had planted in the embassy staff. Then it's heroes getting [[strike:all over your business]] all up in yo' bidness [[OhGodWithTheVerbing with the rappelling]] into the [[SupervillainLair volcanic headquarters]] and the shooting and the debris falling into the SharkPool and having to run away while waving your fist and yelling about [[YouMeddlingKids getting away with it if it hadn't been for those darn kids]]. ''Then'' you have to find a new lieutenant after [[YouHaveFailedMe having shot the previous one]] for having the bad taste to point out that it was your plan that caused all this when you'd have been further ahead just getting the damn pictures taken.

* ''VideoGame/RuneScape'' quest "One Piercing Note" has you investigating a series of murders in a convent, whose victims all have their feet mutilated. The first also has her ''face'' mutilated beyond recognition. This is supposed to tip the player off that [[spoiler: the first victim is not Sister Anna as the other nuns had assumed, but the missing novice Isabella, dressed in Anna's habit and placed in her bed. [[TheFundamentalist Sister Anna]] [[FakingTheDead is the killer.]]]]

* ''VideoGame/ClockTower3'' has the protagonist's grandfather plan to sacrifice the protagonist when she turns 15 in order to gain immortality as an evil creature. To accomplish this he sends strange letters, sets up traps, and throws her into various evil settings. Along the way, she clues in that something very wrong is going down, awakens her evil-fighting powers, and hones her combat skills by killing off other evil creatures; by the time he finally confronts her, she is ready to take him down. The alternative, not pulling any of that crap and just welcome her home, celebrate her birthday, and then suddenly sacrifice her when the time is right, doesn't really occur to him.
* In ''VideoGame/CultistSimulator'', one can be tempted to send minions to destroy evidence or kill the investigators following them. Sadly, should the minion fail, not only are the pieces of evidence and the hunters still around, but it will also create ''more'' Notoriety. Which is a very ''bad'' thing as it is what one needs to produce ''more'' pieces of evidence.
* ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'': The boss of a level is always buried in the deepest part of an area. However, because the layout is revealed from the start, unless there are two rooms furthest away from you equidistant from each other, this means you know exactly where the boss is and can go straight there without worrying about detours. You're also unlikely to stumble on it accidentally, so you can make sure to power up as much as possible before going in.
* In ''Videogame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon'', [[MegaCorp Armacham's]] attempt to silence anyone who could talk about Project Origin and the horrible things that they did in said project to create psychic {{Super Soldier}}s is what clues the FEAR investigation team into their involvement in the first place. That being said, the [[PlayerCharacter Point Man]] being forced to nuke the city to prevent [[PersonOfMassDestruction Alma]] from escaping and Alma's subsequent massive world-ending psychic rampage does mostly cover up what happened anyway. The impending apocalypse tends to do that.
* In ''VideoGame/GodEater'', it's repeatedly stressed that resources are incredibly tight, those needed for the titular God Eaters even more so. So when Lindow goes MIA, the number of orders the top brass issue to countermand normal search and rescue protocols only serve to upset and tip off anyone remotely connected to his squad. In short, [[spoiler:trying to make him KIA via ManchurianAgent was a MortonsFork for them. Materials recovered? The field team would notice discrepancies. Shut down the investigation? Might as well announce you're up to something. This is the first domino in the chain that brings down the first ArcVillain.]]
* ''VideoGame/IWasATeenageExocolonist'': One of the events involving Cal's secret pet Socks has Sol find Cal while he's trying to prevent an on-duty Vace from entering the barn in which he's keeping Socks. Vace points out that he could have very well ignored the barn, but Cal going out of his way to make sure he doesn't enter it has made him want to do just that.
* The entire plot of ''VideoGame/{{Judgment}}'' (and arguably the franchise itself) is ultimately the result of a cover-up ''of'' a cover-up: [[spoiler:medical researcher [[BigBad Yoji Shono]] illegally tests his experimental anti-Alzheimer's disease drug AD-9 on an elderly patient, which kills him, prompting Shono to hastily frame hospital orderly Shinpei Okubo for the murder. By sheer luck, Okubo's panicked actions make him look guilty as sin but protagonist Takayuki Yagami is appointed as Okubo's attorney and manages to acquit him. Said acquittal was only based on reasonable doubt on Okubo having committed the crime, not actual hard evidence, meaning as far as the general public and the legal system was concerned, Okubo was still a murderer who GotOffOnATechnicality. If Shono had simply left it at that, he could have gotten away scot-free. Instead, Shono's paranoia over the case being potentially reinvestigated led to him framing Okubo ''again'' by murdering the latter's girlfriend Emi. The shame of having seemingly contributed to Emi's death by defending Okubo caused Yagami to quit being a lawyer and become a private detective, which would eventually lead him to get entangled in TheConspiracy behind AD-9 and eventually expose Shono's crimes.]]
* ''VideoGame/LANoire'': You know, it may have just been the deadlines and lack of serious threats talking, but burning down entire houses with families still alive in them is NOT a good way to hush up a government-level scam. Cole proceeds to crack the case wide open. Sadly, his rival remixes the cover-up so that the corrupt higher-ups are arrested, but the multibillion-dollar redevelopment project (read: highway that made Los Angeles a wretched megacity) goes ahead.
** The earlier case "The Fallen Idol" is also an example of this. What appears to be a drunk-driving crash was actually [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident staged to kill the driver and passenger]]. Further investigation uncovers child molestation, murder-for-hire, and finally ends in an extensive shoot-out with gangsters.
* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil6'' reveals that Umbrella Corp's attempt to "accidentally" trigger an outbreak of a city-wide mutant-zombie virus back in ''2'' was this. Even though it revealed the majority of Umbrella's crimes against humanity to America and resulted in their bankruptcy, it prevented most of Umbrella's research data from reaching the hands of The Family, a government conspiracy that effectively controlled United States policymaking since the 17th century. This allowed C.E.O. Spencer to continue his research projects to achieve godhood without the Family knowing the true potential of the viruses. Ultimately, the gambit utterly failed, because Wesker and B.S.A.A. tracked Spencer down; the former killed off his stepfather, and the latter unwittingly sent the data to the Family in their reports to the White House.
* ''VideoGame/RuneScape'' quest "One Piercing Note" has you investigating a series of murders in a convent, whose victims all have their feet mutilated. The first also has her ''face'' mutilated beyond recognition. This is supposed to tip the player off that [[spoiler: the first victim is not Sister Anna as the other nuns had assumed, but the missing novice Isabella, dressed in Anna's habit and placed in her bed. [[TheFundamentalist Sister Anna]] [[FakingTheDead is the killer.]]]]

-->-- ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'', [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff900/fv00875.htm #875]]

->'''Father Brown:''' For an intelligent murderer, such as you or I might be, it is an impossible plan to make sure that nobody is looking at you.\\
'''Flambeau:''' But what other plan is there?\\
'''Father Brown:''' There is only one... to make sure that everybody is looking at something else.
-->-- ''Literature/FatherBrown'', "The God of the Gongs"

* Alternately, you or one of your minor minions has done something stupid. Admiting it would be embarrassing, so you tell a minor lie... and [[SnowballLie then another, and then another]], and suddenly you're committing murder to cover up the cover up of a parking violation.

* Alternately, you or one of your minor minions has done something stupid. Admiting it would be embarassing, so you tell a minor lie... and [[SnowballLie then another, and then another]], and suddenly you're committing murder to cover up the cover up of a parking violation.

Instead of having your agent sneak into the embassy to [[SpyCam photograph the codebook]], you're going to make huge splashy headlines to get everyone looking the other way. Why, with your plan to fake aliens landing and [[FieryCoverup blowing up the embassy]], surely no one will notice a codebook gone missing. It would be the ''last'' thing they'd suspect.

** This is discussed by Shaka about the destruction of Ohara for [[HeKnowsTooMuch knowing too much]] about the Void Century. He points out that the World Government being threatened enough by Ohara's researchers to kill them all basically confirmed to the world that everything they had discovered was true. What's more, the destruction of Ohara didn't end up destroying the knowledge either, as the documents were saved from the flames and later recovered somewhere the World Government would not be able to find, something that wouldn't have happened if Ohara hadn't been targeted.

* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'': In one story arc, Calvin attempts to fix a leaky tap by himself, but ends up flooding the bathroom. He tries to fix the problem without his parents finding out by singing a little tune while collecting several buckets, saying [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial nothing is wrong, there's no need to panic, he just needs some buckets for... nothing important]]. His parents are instantly clued in that Calvin has done something really, ''really'' bad.

See also StreisandEffect, where people search for the covered-up information ''because'' it's covered up.

** Likewise, this is the entire reason why we have the WalkingSpoiler trope. If you're reading the "Characters" subpage for a work, and you notice that a character has more than half of his or her entries whited out -- often to the point where even ''trope names'' are covered up -- you're probably looking at a character who is at the center of a major twist, such as him or her turning out to be a villain, dying early, or having an important secret.

** This is exploited by [[spoiler:York]] in the Egghead Arc. They were trying to use the World Government to eliminate Vegapunk, so they leaked information that Vegapunk was studying the Void Century so the World Government would send investigators to Egghead Island. Unfortunately for them, Vegapunk covered his tracks extremely well, and the investigators found nothing suspicious. So [[spoiler:York]] decided to kidnap the investiogators to stop them from reporting back, and continued to do so with everyone sent to the island to follow up on the continued disappearances until the Government decided to send in the highly-elite Cipher Pol 0 Agents.

* In Creator/HarryTurtledove's ''Noninterference'', Standard Operating Procedure for [[TheFederation Federacy]] Survey Service field teams observing worlds inhabited by [[RubberForeheadAliens sufficiently human]] [[GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe looking sorts]] with transportation[=/=]communication advancement below a certain level is to [[AlienNonInterferenceClause hide any excess tech]] and pass themselves off as travelers from somewhere a bit off the local maps. The fellow that took pity on TheHighQueen of an early Bronze Age city-state (and got cashiered for his trouble) claimed to be from somewhere far to the west when he gave her something for her end-stage cancer. When the follow-up team swung by 1500 years later they dropped off a couple in a town on the western end of a near renaissance-level continent-spanning quasi-theocracy who called themselves jewel traders from the far northwest, were quietly pumped for information by one of the local priests within a day, and the next morning were seized and put onto a well-guarded carriage to the Holy City as per standing orders from the Eternal Goddess.

* ''Videogame/DiscoElysium'': A mercenary sent to break a strike is seen being lynched by a group of neighborhood militiamen, and the perpetrators aren't shy about declaring that they killed him for being a violent creep to the local women. It might seem lke an open-and-shut case, but obviously it goes much deeper than that. [[spoiler:Said mercenary was killed by a sniper while hooking up with [[FemmeFatale Klaasje Amandou]], who had made some VERY powerful enemies and didn't want to risk being noticed by them if she was taken in for questioning, so she arranged the whole thing and tried making it look like it was orchestrated by a jealous lover. It's downplayed if the player doesn't put everything together, or does and still lets her slip away, but it's possible for you to realize her involvement and detain her, which is exactly what she was trying to avoid and more than likely results in her being killed. As the cherry on top, ''she'' is the one who made the anonymous call about the corpse in the first place, [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished because she didn't think he deserved to be left rotting in the tree]].]]

* ''Manga/DeathNote'':

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', the denizens of Punk Hazard try to trick Smoker out of investigating their island by putting out toxic gas. The idea was to make him think it was still uninhabitable after a prior accident. Unfortunately, Smoker knows the history of that island and this only makes him ''more'' suspicious, because there shouldn't be ''this much'' gas after all this time.

* The Alliance in ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' (and the predecessor series ''Series/{{Firefly}}'') spent a whole lot of time and effort hunting down River Tam, including murdering just about everybody who may have been in contact with her in order to cover up what she learned through her telepathy and being in the same room as several high ranking Alliance members. River, being insane, probably didn't understand what she knew and, in any case, wasn't in any position to tell anybody even if she did. But the Alliance's campaign of persecution gave Serenity's crew a big motive to find out and make the information public knowledge.

* In the ''Series/MurdochMysteries'' episode "Promising Young Ladies", [[spoiler: the murderer frames someone by using her hatpin as a weapon, which snaps in half. Not knowing that she subsequently took back the other half of the hatpin, and that Murdoch found it in her belongings, he then plants a photo showing her with the hatpin on Murdoch's desk. When Murdoch discovers this photo has no provinence within the investigation, he realises she's being framed.]]