Operational Codex - Winter 21-22 (Patreon)

Read the Operational Codex - Winter 21-22

INTRODUCTION

In my time since coming to work with the DeltaGreenRPG team, I've lost count of how many times Dennis or Shane have dismissed a question with "it's in the fiction" or "well, you haven't read X yet."

Indeed, I hadn't read Delta Green's extensive publication history when I wrote Lover in the Ice. I didn't even own a copy of the book for two more years. I sort of intuited the system from playing with friends. Granted, I read a lot in the decade since then, but I had not read EVERYTHING. I was not read-in. Cleared, so to speak.

I was not briefed. 

I have been consumed by something larger than I can understand: a metastasized secret history. A lore as big and corrupt as our growing understanding of the dying American empire and contradictory propaganda realities. 

And so, as a novice, I consulted the old texts. In October 2021, I set out to read everything Delta Green had ever published. I finished in a bleary-eyed fever on Thanksgiving Day, hidden away from the concerned gaze of my loved ones in an unheated basement, operating two tablet readers, a laptop, and a muji notebook  with mustard-yellow binding marked DGDCOPHIST. It took another month or so to scrape myself and the notes off the floor, piling the remainders into some sort of recognizable shape glued together from weed and spreadsheets. 

Here's what I found.

No one is briefed. "It's in the fiction" is not a dismissal; it is a lament. Detwiller and Ivey aren't lying; it is IN the fiction. Multiple times. In a chorus of screaming, discordant voices. There is no Truth; only Truths.

They cannot answer for they do not know. Their weary confidence is a thin-film over a quivering eye of fearful introspection: what was the ending to that operation? How did reality continue afterwards? What did we decide, all those years ago? Why can I not remember? Why do the records lie?

PERSPECTIVE

I'm working on a book called Operational History. The basic premise is to create a sort of playable campaign through the Delta Green filing system. What did Joseph Camp see when he tried to get a grasp on what they were actually fighting? What lurks in those fireproof safes within the Library of Congress or beneath Fairfield Pond?

As such, I compiled a sort of narrative database, as much for my reference as everyone else's. I read every short story, every novel, every scenario, campaign, official blog post, etc. I compiled every mention of any Night at the Opera or Operation that a DG agent might have lived through, heard about, or reported on. No matter how tangential the reference.

I wanted to know what Delta Green -- when it needs to coalesce and centralize from all those cells and splinters -- could possibly know about itself.  Institutional memory in first person. 

Most of the descriptions are pulled text from the timelines and scenarios themselves. This is a concordance of fictional events across real publications. It isn't meant to replace reading the primary source material, just to help people find it. 

PARAMETERS

Do anything for 25 years and people are gonna disagree on what counts as "the thing." Here's what I left out and why. 

• I didn't include MAJESTIC, PISCES, M-EPIC, or other operations mentioned in the timeline for the same reason modern spy agencies don't have total access to ALL of each other's files. Delta Green only knows about other organizations based on its interaction with them. Even if published as gaming material, I limited myself to operations that Delta Green could know about, considering it's institutional sense organs at the time. 
• I didn't include anything published exclusively in the Unspeakable Oath or other properties mixing in CoC IP. I limited myself to published materials owned by the Delta Green RPG trademark. 
• As much of the Pelgrane Press online material is intended for future publication (ala The Borelius Connection), it is included in the timeline under the Fall of Delta Green license.
• Publications that don't exist yet (i.e. God's Teeth) are on the list. I only include in-progress operations if they are currently drafted and in the works. Twitch (i.e. Insolent Impulse) and DGDC recordings (i.e. Sanguine Thorn) are just workshops and won't be included until officially published by Arc Dream.
• Many entries are missing debrief information by merit of coming from scenarios. If the outcome is determined by player characters, the debrief is left blank. If, at a later date, a future publication establishes a "canonical" ending (ala "Convergence" and Strange Authorities), debrief is included. 
• I didn't include any Shotgun Scenarios or other fan-created works. I didn't even consider previous winners and/or those scenarios planned for inclusion in the upcoming collection. Until such times as agreements with authors are reached, those remain creator-owned outside the purview of this project. I limited myself to Operations I could reference for the Operational History project.
• Some operations were erased from reality. Some completely contradict the very tone of the game. If I couldn't place an operation in the timeline, check the "Uncertain" category.
• The majority of operations do not have "canonical" codenames. I've made placeholders in red, if only because names are pretty important in a reference document.
• I'll add Operations in the future as I can, but it's a 197 entries long as I type this. You want more? Make a copy and add 'em yourself.