Skip to main content

men in black - How many field agents does MIB have?


I'd be interested in a number (or at least an estimate) of how many field agents Men In Black (MIB) agency has.


I'm specifically referring to field agents, as opposed to guys on cleanup crews/headquarters workers/lab guys etc...


This can be something from an in-universe source (movies, comics, cartoons), or official out-of-universe source (DVD commentary, interviews etc...) or a detailed well reasoned logical estimate (in the vein of the recent answers about crew size of SG1 spaceships or # of people who know about StarGate).


To aid in the latter type of estimate, one possibly helpful fact is the quote from the movie:




At any given time there are approximately 1500 aliens on the planet



For the purposes of estimates, I am OK with only counting people based in NYC office if your starting data involves logistical data/details from NYC headquarters building (e.g. size of locker room, armory details etc...).



One of the possible answers may be "25" - based on the agent naming convention (A-Z, with Z of course taken up by no-longer-an-agent agency boss Zed). But realistically speaking, I don't see how that'd be even remotely enough to deal with 1500 aliens PLUS uncountable "happening every day" threats/emergencies. If you can show why the latter "too little" objection can be overcome, feel free to run away with 31 as the basis for your answer.



The impetus for the question is Xantec's answer which posed the limited amount of available agents as possible reason for Agent J being chosen as a senior partner in the pair of agents at the end of MIB1 despite being a rookie.



Answer



My comment rephrased as an answer, as requested:



I can't tell exactly how many MiB field agents there are, but, as you said, if MiB stick to the alphabet aliases policy, they can have up to 25 agents at a time + 1 Zed boss.


The movie states that they have around 1500 aliens on the planet at a given time, which means (at best) 1 agent per 60 aliens. It's a reasonable ratio, especially when comparing it to police per capita statistics, that stand at 1 cop per ~125-2700 civilians (with an avg of 1 to 333) - and I think that's including all type of police assignments.


Unlike the local police force, the MiB agents have to cover a huge territory, and that's when their awesome hover car comes in handy.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more