History Main / MissionCreep

* Parodied in ''Film/AustinPowers: International Man of Mystery''. The defrosted Dr. Evil returning from TheSixties to TheNineties tries to launch into an old-fashioned spy supervillain plot only to be reminded that his organization in his absence had to CutLexLuthorACheck and branch into legitimate corporate enterprise so as to better serve evil of course.

* Police, often hamstrung by budget, manpower, practicality, etc. will find itself in such a situation. Suppose there is a spate of assaults, which leads to a full court press and showing the flag as a temporary or band aid solution. AndThenWhat? They do not have the resources to commit to fighting this specific crime long term. A permanent police presence will only move offenders somewhere else. So how to find a more permanent solution...most are in the unfortunate position of having to scale back to business as usual when it is not a serious or political enough to act on.

** In the backstory, Ozymandias attempted to form a super team called "Crime Busters" in the hope of better solving street-level crime. The Comedian then reminded him that it's meaningless in the fears of the atomic bomb. [[spoiler:Ozymandias takes this to heart, and to that end, starts building new resources and facilities so as to eventually save the world, by means of staging a brutal alien invasion that single-handedly ends the cold war and forces the US and USSR to peace in a GenghisGambit. In Ozymandias mind, he hasn't changed his goal and purpose, merely taken on additional responsibilities and tasks to achieve it]].

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--> '''Al Mualim:''' ''Altair, your mission has not changed. Merely the context within which you perceive it.''

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* The [[Recap/PersonOfInterestS01E03 third episode of Season 1]] of the TV show ''Series/PersonOfInterest'' is titled Mission Creep and discusses the concept.

* ''Film/BlackHawkDown'' by Creator/RidleyScott is set during the Battle of Mogadishu which was a TropeNamer when journalist Jim Hoagaland described the term when covering the conflict, and it's tragically illustrated in a film about soldiers finding a reality that severely complicates and compromises their brief. The film displays dramatically the manner in which a seemingly normal mission quickly gets severely complicated.

Mission Creep is similar and related to MotiveDecay, with the difference being that the original motives and goals still exist in some form. In cases where it is closest to decay, the goal becomes TheArtifact, but other instances exist of that goal still being primarily the main purpose but now intricately entangled with other related and/or separate goals, new responsibilities and unintended consequences. Wiki/TheOtherWiki has an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_creep article]] on Mission Creep noting that originally it applied to military operations in TheNineties which gradually became more and more complicated forcing planners to constantly update and alter initial plans to better serve the original goal but eventually facing up to inadequacy in completing the original task within its current framework. It has since been applied in many non-military situations to describe problems and roadblocks in the life-cycle of any group or mission.

* Critics of federal power in the United States Political System argue that this is what happened to the Constitution over time: Originally the Feds were only given a rather limited set of "Enumerated Powers" with ''everything else'' delegated to "the States or the people", however, there were two key clauses: First, the Federal government was explicitly granted the power to regulate trade between the individual states and second it was granted the powers "necessary and proper" for the exercise of its enumerated powers. Over the course of the 150 years since the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar, Interstate Commerce has greatly increased and so have the federal laws justified by regulating it. Because after all, if you have to regulate commerce between the states, you also have to regulate the railroads that carry the goods, right? And if you have to regulate the railroads, you also have to regulate the negotiations between railroads and their employees for salaries, right? And if you have to regulate that for railroads, the Fourteenth Amendment indicates you cannot treat a baker different from a railroad worker, right? Similarly, the Fourteenth Amendment is commonly interpreted to implicitly "incorporate" the Bill of Rights (which is usually worded as "Congress shall make no law"...) against the states, thus prohibiting Rhode Island from having a state religion (which it could and Maryland did when the Constitution was passed)

** Robert's Rebellion likewise began with Robert, Ned and Jon Arryn trying to arm themselves to protect them from Aerys II's death warrant. Slowly it expanded to becoming a rebellion to oust a 300 year old dynasty with Robert as King, a position he did not really want, but was more or less expected to accept to better protect the rebels and the soldiers from recrimination. The end result is a long peace managed by individuals with no real ideas on how to run Westeros other than replace one dynasty with other and hope that the rest of Westeros could fall in. This cracks in the SuccessionCrisis of the War of the Five Kings. It would have all worked out, more or less [[spoiler: If Robert's only trueborn heir had survived and/or if his wife hadn't had an affair with her brother]]

Mission Creep is the problem that begins ''after'' initial success. You see sometimes, success is not enough, it turns out your original goal was a woefully small part of a larger problem. Alternatively your solution can only solve that problem temporarily but you are unprepared at providing a long-term solution. In this instance, the original group decides to start expanding and takes on other goals and tasks to supplement their original goal. The original goal is still the main story quest for them, but along the way they find some fun side-missions that buttress their original goal. Initially, it seems that the group can handle these tasks and responsibilities but over time, tensions seep in because of the gap between original project and new responsibilities and without some way to address that gap and come to terms with the change from expectations to reality, mission creep can backfire, destroy or finish the group.