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

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

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - Did Dolores Umbridge Have Any Association with Voldemort (or Death Eaters) before His Return?

I noticed that Dolores Umbridge was born during the first Wizarding War, so it's very likely she wasn't a Death Eater then (but she is pretty evil -- who knows?). After that Voldemort was not around in a way that could affect many people, and most wouldn't know he was planning to rise again. During that time, and up through Voldemort's return (in Goblet of Fire ), did Umbridge have any connection with the Death Eaters or with Voldemort? Was she doing what she did on her own, or was it because of an association with Voldemort or his allies? Answer Dolores Umbridge was definitely not a good person. However, as Sirius points out, "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". Remember that he also says that he doesn't believe Umbridge to be a Death Eater, but that she's evil enough (or something like that). I think there are two strong reasons to believe that: Umbridge was proud to do everything according to the law, except when she trie...
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - What is the difference between Diffindo and Sectumsempra?

In the Harry Potter books, Diffindo is called the 'Severing Charm' and it’s most commonly used to cut ropes and the like. However, in the last book Hermione uses it on Ron but misses, creating a 'slash in his jeans' and his knee gets cut, causing him to 'roar in pain'. We've only seen Sectumsempra used once on screen when Harry directly uses it on Malfoy in the sixth book, but there it's mentioned that he is 'waving his wand wildly'. Wouldn't Diffindo, if used in such a fashion also cause a similar effect? Similarly, if it was able to cut Ron, it would also be able to, say, chop off an ear (George's)? In that case, how are these two spells different, except for Sectumsempra seemingly used exclusively to hurt humans? Answer While Diffindo and Sectumsempra both can be countered by other spells, Diffindo is far more easily countered. Reparo, a relatively common spell, can completely reverse its effect when used once. “He pulled the old cop...
Post a Comment
Read more