Part of the back story of my fiction series is a fictional group of people that form a shadow government. They’re run by a group of six men known as the Inner Circle.
Where did I get the numbers for the inner circle?
I’d already postulated that Controller and Lynch would be known more by their job designations. That’s from Three Days of the Condor, where a single CIA operative who served as contact with street operatives was known as Control.
Incidentally, that designation actually originally belonged to a man who monitored everything going on in the strangest TV series ever made, “The Prisoner.” Control was a bald man with glasses who ran the Village from the control room, clutching only a telephone. When Three Days of the Condor was written, they obviously borrowed the concept.
Mad Max also borrowed from The Prisoner. Australia became a form of the Village, except those living there were beginning to suffer from Madness. And the striped shirt thugs of The Prisoner became the police of Mad Max. The operator of their system was a scarred, bald man known as Control.
The most effective organizations are run with one man at the top, and a group of three working for him.
The Organization would be run this way as well. Number One would run things, but I never gave him a name. The quorum beneath him, the Inner Circle, would be First, Second, Third. The other half would be Four, Five, Six.
You see the rank structure now. Obviously First has slightly more power and influence than Fourth.
So how did I come up with all this? I don’t know. I just started typing and it came out. I named one man Six automatically, when Controller had to call someone about events he was unsure of. He wasn’t happy with Six’s answers, and he had to call…
Who?
One? One would be in control. So… call…
First.
That’s how I came up with the Inner circle. Later on, I was able to make the mental connections you see above.
Sometimes Inspiration is accidental. well, with me, most of the time, I’m typing something, and it just comes out. When Lynch met someone, who would be a controller for the organization, I came up with the name Organization – because to them, there is only one Organization!
So someone would be Lynch’s Controller. What do I call him? Controller.
Simple. Now that’s several less names I need to come up with. And all the connections you just read about all came later!
