Altered World Event

**Altered World Events** (**AWEs**) are events in which paranatural forces intrude upon perceived reality, resulting in reality being altered. AWEs are responsible for the existence of Altered Items and Objects of Power. The term is also used to broadly refer to other paranatural occurrences investigated by the Federal Bureau of Control. The Investigations Sector in the Oldest House is dedicated to the study of AWEs. Other areas devoted to AWE research include portions of the Research and Containment Sectors.

The term "Altered World Event" is modern FBC terminology. Prior to the death of Director Theodore Ash, Sr. in 1964, the FBC employed the term "Paradimensional Occurrence" instead, which reflected the organization's origins in occultism.

## Nature

Altered World Events occur when paranatural forces intrude upon perceived reality. When this occurs, reality is altered, often in unpredictable and dangerous ways. These forces come from other dimensions or planes of existence, and often manifest in the form of unknown energies and resonances. The Federal Bureau of Control is responsible for investigating and containing AWE instances on a national and global scale, and devotes significant research to understanding their nature.

AWEs appear to be affected by the human collective unconscious; paranatural forces often gravitate to archetypes created by human culture and psychology. This often results in the creation of Altered Items or Objects of Power, ordinary objects infused with paranatural energies, which gives them special properties and abilities. The nature of this connection between the collective unconscious and paranatural forces is not fully understood, and has been described on multiple occasions as "unknowable."

Officially, any event caused by the manifestation of an Altered Item is supposedly classified as an AWE, but this does not appear to be consistent, as there are far more Altered Items catalogued in Bureau records than AWEs. The FBC also classifies other types of paranatural events as AWEs, such as the "planar friction" sound observed in AWE-37. Because of the vagueness of the term and the unpredictability of paranatural forces, AWEs are very diverse in nature. Known AWEs vary significantly in the severity of their alteration to perceived reality, ranging from the sudden appearance of an unknown but inert object (AWE-46) to the total rewriting of local reality (AWE-35). There are no known limits on what AWEs may manifest as, or what impact they may have on reality.

Certain AWEs may be influenced or caused by paranatural entities, such as Polaris or Fra.

## List of known AWEs

The following tables list all paranatural occurrences **officially identified by the FBC as AWEs.** Many other events involving Objects of Power, Places of Power, or Altered Items (for example the X-Ray Light Box incident, the Burrough Tractor incident, or the Hiss invasion) may loosely qualify as AWEs under the current vague definition, but for the sake of accuracy, they are excluded here if they are not specifically labeled AWEs in-universe.

## Notes

1. ↑ The actual name of the garage appears to be a different word such as "Hoffington."
2. ↑ In real life, Ballard, Utah is the location of Sherman Ranch, a place known for numerous claims of paranormal activity. While Ballard is not mentioned anywhere else in-game, the Collectible Marshall: AWE Investigations mentions Sherman Ranch as a location being investigated by the FBC.

## Mentions in other media

Remedy Entertainment, the developer of *Control*, has alluded to Altered World Events on multiple occasions in previous games.

* In the *Alan Wake* blog "This House of Dreams" (2012), there is a scene in which a federal agent appears wearing a badge that reads "AWE."
* In *Quantum Break* (2016), one Quantum Ripple event will cause numerous conspiracies to arise on the Internet regarding a "Bureau of Altered World Events," affiliated with the organization Monarch Solutions.
* Additionally, a chalkboard in *Quantum Break* mentions the acronym AWE as standing for either "Altered World Event" or "Alan Wake Experience." Graffiti reading "AWE" can be found throughout *Quantum Break*.
* In *Alan Wake 2* (2023), at the start of Return 8 Deerfest, Agent Estevez mentions an as yet unknown AWE that occurred in Eagle River.

## References

1. ↑ Objects of Power (Multimedia)
2. ↑ Meteor Hill Summary
3. ↑ Urban Legends
4. ↑ Altered World Events
5. ↑ Jesse Faden: *"Have you ever seen an AWE?"*
Frederick Langston: *"Not out in the field. AWEs are just Altered Items doing their thing. The Bureau goes in, locks everything down, and then they bring me back some... clock or a gumball machine that made the town blind or something."*
(Conversation topic with Frederick Langston during Finnish Tango)
6. ↑ Approximately 85 Altered Items circa 2017 vs. 48 AWEs circa 2017
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 AWE scene recording tape reels
8. ↑ At the conclusion of *AWE*, Frederick Langston informs Jesse Faden that an alert was triggered in the Investigations Sector indicating that an AWE will occur "a couple years" in the future at Bright Falls. This is likely foreshadowing *Alan Wake 2*.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 The Operations Center in the Investigations Sector contains nine monitoring stations linked to FBC outposts at locations where AWEs previously occurred. Four of these locations are not mentioned anywhere else in *Control*. The nine locations are: Ballard, UT; Bright Falls, WA; Keystone; Lansing, MI; New York, NY; Ordinary, ME; Pemberton, NJ; Rocky Mount, VA; and Sterling, CO.
10. ↑ Kiran Estevez: *Welcome back, Wake. You are Wake now, right? With the Shadow out of you? Some good news, at least. Bad news is I haven’t seen a situation this fucked since the AWE in Eagle River.*
(*Alan Wake 2*)
11. ↑ "This House of Dreams", 2012/03/14
12. ↑ Quantum Ripples on the *Quantum Break* wiki
13. ↑ Chalkboard from *Quantum Break*

 Miscellaneous

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