Morrow Project and the US Government

[tsofian]

The Morrow Project and the Law
It is painfully obvious that the Morrow Project has absolutely no concern for any laws and regulations from Federal to local. A quick survey of Morrow Project activities indicates a number of gross violations of legalities. For brevity’s sake I will just give a short list of Federal Agencies that will be unhappy with MP activities
DOD-Having what amounts to a private army isn’t going to go over well
FAA-So are all these aircraft licensed?
NRC-Unlicensed reactors and radioactive materials
DOE-Fusion Charges
BATF-Destructive devices and automatic weapons
FBI- Where is all the money coming from? All sorts of activities that cross state lines
FCC-Unlicensed radio equipment
FDA-Experimental drugs, experimental medical procedures
DEA-Unlicensed ownership of restricted drugs
Customs-Importation of foreign weapon systems
EPA-Where are the environmental impact statements for all the bases and bolt holes
OSHA-So where is all the required safety plans and training? Have all the MP personnel injuries been properly reported? Who has been inspecting the sites for safety violations?
Postal Inspectors-I can see a lot of wire fraud being involved in these operations
FEC-Where is all the money coming from?
IRS-So taxes anyone?
Coast Guard-If the Project has boats and ships are they licensed and inspected?
DOT-so was all that hazmat moved around properly placarded and was the paperwork correct?
BLM-Building on public lands
To me this indicates that the Project is protected. It can only function with active cooperation from the Federal Government at the highest levels.

[cosmicfish]

I do not think that the protection exists "at the highest levels" - after all, those same "highest levels" created the Snake Eater teams to investigate and potentially destroy the Project post-war, and it is ridiculous that their existence was not matched by a significant pre-war investigative effort as well. The Project no doubt had some allies in a few key positions, but it could not be more than a tiny, tiny fraction of the government.

The fact that the Project already required the active participation of big movers in science and industry means that they had tremendous resources as well as a time-travelling patron. Indeed, a packet of files pressed into the hands of BEM at the right time would give the Project plenty of warning to sidestep anything that would significantly expose the Project.

[tsofian]

I have never thought that Morrow could travel through time easily or often or perhaps with pin point accuracy.

I also never saw the Snake Eaters as being there to destroy the Project, it always seems to be stated that they are observing the Project. This is not inconsitant with the government knowing about the Project, and in fact it would make perfect sense for the Government to watch this group. It also indicates to me that the Government does know about the Project and offers at least a general level of approval.

Here is the logic
The Government definitely knows the Project exists-otherwise they would not have put together the Snake Eaters.

Even though the Project is in gross violation of a simply huge number of Federal, State and Local regulations there is no action being taken to pursue investigations or litigation vs the Project.

This means that in some fashion the Federal Government has decided that the only action it is taking against the Morrow Project is to set a limited number of watchers to see what they are up to. If the Government wanted to destroy the Project they wouldn't use Snake Eaters-They would use a Special Prosecuter

[ArmySGT.]

From canon materials, The U.S. government was just coming into awareness of the Project and Bruce in particular. A Cabinet level meeting going on as departments began to share information the day the War began.

I would say that the Council had been very capable of compartmentalizing information within itself. So much so that employees within the company were fed deliberate mis-directions and plausible reasons. "Oh, all these V-150 hulls? They are for some U.S. Defense project. I hear it is for anti communists in Viet Nam or something".

[cosmicfish]

The government knows the Project exists, but there is no clear indicator that they know anything else about them. We are not given much guidance, but considering the way governments tend to operate going into war, and considering that TMP is NOT designed to recreate the former US government nor explicitly obligated to obey it's orders, I would be astonished if they had any real idea what the Project was beyond thinking it similar to the Rich Five - a bunch of industrialists trying to save their asses through the war.

And the more the US government knows about and approves of the Project, the harder it is to justify keeping the Project small and manageable. When you start talking about Presidents and Cabinet members actively supporting the Project then the whole scarcity issue gets very hard to swallow. The Project would be flush with cash and supplies and supported in their concealment by elements of the government itself.

It occurs to me now that the Snake Eaters might have been frozen with a different primary mission - raising an insurgency against an anticipated post-nuke Russian invasion! The whole "watch out for the Morrow Project" might have been something slipped into their "wake up" briefing, a small update on a small rogue group that might be recruited for or against foreign invaders.

[dragoon500ly]

In my own version, there is a contact with the Kennedy administration and there is some military contact through carefully selected officers to provide key training and logistical support, with some funding through the Black Ops budgets. This was always kept low-key and with the assassinations of the brothers, this support is quietly terminated by the Project.

[cosmicfish]

In my own version, there is a contact with the Kennedy administration and there is some military contact through carefully selected officers to provide key training and logistical support, with some funding through the Black Ops budgets. This was always kept low-key and with the assassinations of the brothers, this support is quietly terminated by the Project.
But why have this at all? I mean, it is back story the players will never hear with benefits they will never see. Government involvement adds risk and wealth and control and politics and lots of issues that are probably worse for the Project than any benefit. A few carefully-placed moles, perhaps, to influence (or warn about) investigations and to creatively misplace some paperwork, but anything higher and you start leaving yourself open to hard-to-answer questions.

Remember, the goals of the Project are not the goals of the US government, and that would make any real level of knowing cooperation difficult.