Beachfront bargain hunt locations

I'm up, and can't sleep. I noticed that 5 different people were selling the exact same product, same descriptions, same pictures but with different prices, located in different cities.
I really wanted to click on the link they posted, but resisted the urge. What do you guys think, scam or no scam?
I'm wondering if it's all the same person or all different people.

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Previous Chapter
Chapter Ten:
Heading back from axe combat training with Ceras, I detoured and headed to the lakeshore instead of the palace. Though I was right outside the gate, I wasn’t too interested in heading inside yet.
I wanted to sit in the sand and grass and wait to see if a ship carrying my girlfriend would sail by. It’d been a few weeks since Lily left Perth by boat for an assignment in the Tulip Court, and I’d missed her terribly since.
My bed was awful lonely, and I missed the late-night conversations we used to stay up and have, legs intertwined as we shared a chair and ate popcorn together.
Of course, I loved finally getting to spend some time with the queen as she’d been busy working on her proposal for Bliss. But Lily was a different kind of energy, and she occupied a separate piece of my heart, one that ached for her.
Pulling my legs up to my chest, I remembered that we’d be leaving for Kilgara, where every court in Faerie would meet on neutral ground while the rulers of each land decided who would host the upcoming Bliss.
I was to remain in my wolf form the entire time from the moment we left Featherstone until we returned for my protection of course. Supposedly, I would be harder to attack or capture when I weighed 200 pounds and had razor-sharp fangs and claws.
And I’m sure my inner wolf would appreciate the long spur to stretch her legs as we traveled beside the queen and put every wandering stare her way in its place.
That was two days from now, of course. And now. . . was now. In the moment, my heart, a piece of it, anyway, felt lonely. It missed the fae that connected with me on a more human level than the maelstrom of glamour that was her majesty.
While I sat there watching the occasional redeye buckfish leap from the water to catch a dragonfly on the surface, I heard a certain piskie approaching from the palace.
Barsilla’s wings buzzed as she flew around and into view, carrying the little clipboard she always had with her.
“Oh, hey Barsilla. Did you need something?” I asked, lifting my chin from my arms where it’d been resting while I sat there.
Varella’s left-hand lady cocked her head to the side, looked down at some tiny scribbling she had, and then stared back up at me.
“Ceras mentioned you seemed extra moody during your combat training today, and now I find you out here moping by the lake.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not moping,” I said, with all the convincing tone of a teenager stamping her foot. “I’m just. . . resting after a hard workout. That’s not illegal in the Raven Court, is it?”
Barsilla rolled her eyes like a mother dealing with a sulking teen. Dammit, what was that suddenly all I could think about?
“Your mortal emotions aren’t something the queen can afford to be distracted by right now, especially not with the summit coming up. And make no mistake, she will be distracted if she catches you moping. So, you might as well tell me what’s wrong so I can waste my time fixing it and avoid any diversions on the queen’s part,” the piskie said.
I let out a sigh and turned my attention back to the lake because my problem was simple to describe and impossible for Barsilla to fix. . . unless her magic included the ability to summon my girlfriend at the drop of a hat.
“I miss Lily. That’s all,” I said, putting my chin back down.
Barsilla opened her mouth and then closed it again. She thought before speaking, but I don’t think it did her a lot of good because she was still going to inevitably be a jerk about this.
“By the gods, you’re such a needy puppy!”
Then she rolled her eyes a second time.
“But that is a problem easily fixed. Follow me,” she said, and I stood, wondering what she intended to do.
Barsilla led me back into the palace and into a room I’d never been in before. Feathers stood outside the room protecting it but slide aside for Barsilla and me without a word.
The room we walked into was filled with paintings of ravens, crows, and magpies. Some sat in trees, some by rivers, and others under bushes, scavenging for fallen nuts and berries. There must have been about 20 paintings in different styles ranging from lifelike portraits to impressionist scenes.
“What is this place?” I asked, still looking around at all the artwork.
“This is the Hall of Winged Messengers. Our queen will sometimes use these birds to contact others discreetly,” Barsilla said, coming to rest in the seat of a large red velvet chair.
“She uses. . . the paintings to talk to other people?” I asked, scratching the back of my head and trying to picture how that would work.
Varella’s left-hand lady shook her head. But I did notice that she didn’t roll her eyes this time. That was progress. . . for me anyway. I tended to ask a lot of stupid questions. Or at least, questions faeries would find ignorant because I didn’t know any better.
Deciding to teach by example, Barsilla instructed me to select a bird and walk over to the painting it sat in. I still didn’t know what the hell I was doing, so I found a magpie with black and white feathers and blue-tipped wings. The painting it sat in showed the bird huddled between several wildflowers, perhaps hunting for something to make a nest with.
“Hold out your hand in front of the bird and say, ‘Queen Varella commands you to carry my words.’”
I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I slowly held out my right hand in front of the painting, palm up flat. Then I said, “Queen Varella commands you to carry my words.”
At first, nothing happened. And I gave Barsilla a look of suspicion. Was she making a joke of me? It would be like the fae to pull a prank like this on a mortal unfamiliar with their ways.
She just motioned that I turn back to the painting. When I did, a magpie hopped off the canvas, suddenly springing to life in a three-dimensional world. It flew off the artwork as if the oil paint was being rewound in time, returning to its paintbrush.
But instead of turning back into paint, the animal kept its form and hopped down into my open hand. I felt its thin twig-like talons hop across my hand as its head tilted from side to side. The bird looked like it was waking up from a long hibernation. Then it looked up at me with its red eyes, black dotted pupils focussed directly on my face.
Looking back at the canvas, I noticed the bird missing from its scenery. Only the wildflowers and sky remained.
The magpie continued to hop around in my hand, stretching its wings and turning its head this way and that.
“I. . . is this a real bird?” I asked, looking at the piskie that was just half the magpie’s size sitting across the room from me.
She hovered closer, and I expected the animal to see her as prey given their size difference. But the magpie made no move to leave my hand.
“That bird is made from the queen’s glamour, as you carry in your wolfheart. Only those with her majesty’s magic can call forth these birds and send them out into the world,” Barsilla said, motioning to the other ravens and crows. It was a room full of carrion callers.
Despite my expectations that the bird would start chirping or cawing in some way, I found the animal strangely silent. It might occasionally look away, but otherwise, the magpie seemed to do nothing more than observe me.
“So. . . how does this work exactly?” I asked. “Am I going to write a message on a tiny piece of paper, and this magpie will carry it to Lily? Like on Game of Thrones?”
Barsilla furrowed her brow.
“This isn’t a game, pet. And you don’t need to use a throne to send your message either. I swear, you mortals say the weirdest things. The first thing you need to do is hold the magpie up to your chest.”
“Why?”
“So it can hear who your heart beats for, who you want to send a message to. I still find it strange that not only does our queen have a soft spot for a mortal, but she’s also willing to share her puppy with her subordinate. Still, it’s not my place to question her,” Barsilla said.
I slowly held the magpie up to my chest as instructed. Part of me felt like I was still being pranked. But the magpie just hopped over to my pinky finger and placed its ear against my breast, closing its eyes and listening to my heartbeat.
“I will question you, though, royal pet. Describe for me your heart when you think of Lily. Then tell me how it compares to when you think about your mistress. I simply can’t imagine being in love with both of them, a queen, and a spy,” Barsilla asked.
When the bird was finished listening to my heartbeat, it skipped back into the center of my palm and started watching me again, presumably waiting for whatever message I was going to give the bird to carry.
And it wasn’t bad enough that I had to figure out the exact words I wanted to send to Lily. I had to answer prying questions from Barsilla about my feelings? Fuck. Even I didn’t understand my feelings half the time.
Polyamory was a new thing for me. Being gay took me long enough to understand. I mean — I understood on some level what it meant to look at girls in my high school and think, Fuck, she’s so pretty.
The way talking to a crush left my heart jogging in place like it was warming up for a marathon took weeks and months to sort out. Then I had to try to figure out if a girl felt the same way about me, and fuck was that even more difficult.
But I did figure it out eventually.
Now here I was still trying to figure out how to love two women at the same time when each made my heart quiver in different ways. They made other parts of me quiver as well. But that was neither here nor there.
And Barsilla wanted, what? An essay on how they made me feel? Shit. I’d have an easier time lecturing her on quantum physics.
“What do you want me to say?” I asked.
“I want you to tell me how two fae ladies I’ve known for much longer than you make a werewolf howl in heat,” Barsilla said.
I scoffed. No way was I telling the piskie things Varella and Lily had done to make me howl in ecstasy. But the more I thought about it, I realized she wasn’t asking about deeds, but emotions.
Fae weren’t like mortals. Their understanding of our emotions and motivations was limited to what they observed when they took a vacation in the realm where time still flows.
That’s part of the reason I connected so deeply to Lily. She was half-human, and that meant it was easier to talk to her about my fears and dreams, really lay them out on the bed sheets in front of her. And she understood. Gods, she understood. Maybe that was what Barsilla wanted here. . . to understand.
“Well. . . Lily — see — she makes me feel like there’s no one in the world except for us when we’re together. Like reality and all its problems and the people who make them are so far removed because she’s taken my hand and guided me to a place of gentle love and sweetness.”
The piskie wrote something down on her clipboard and nodded.
“And your mistress? How does she make you feel?”
Taking a deep breath, I considered the morning we’d had a couple days ago.
“My mistress. . . she makes me feel like I’m in the eye of a hurricane. All the power in the world to destroy anything that tries to do me harm while I’m kept safe and sound at the center of the storm. With her, I feel like I’m going to be swept away at any moment, but when it happens, the place I’ll be swept to is in her arms. And I trust that whether I’m on the ground or in the sky she’ll protect me.”
Barsilla smiled as she took more notes.
“What was all that about?” I asked, cocking my head to the side like the magpie in my hand.
She finished writing something and then looked back up at me.
“Now you know exactly how you feel about each of them. No more wishy-washy shit humans do. Love each of them with the full confidence that you can love two people at the same time and be loved by each of them simultaneously.”
With that, she started to fly over toward the door. Barsilla stopped just before opening the exit and looked back my way.
“When you’re ready to send your message, hold the magpie up into your direct gaze and speak to it as if it were Lily. The moment you look away or lose focus, it’ll fly away to carry your message, regardless of whether you were finished.”
Then, Varella’s left-hand lady left me alone with the magpie. I felt a little nervous about getting my message cut off. It didn’t take much to distract me. I suppose that was something I had in common with the corvid I was holding. My brain could think, shiny! at a moment’s notice. Perhaps that’s how I fell in love with two different faeries in the first place.
But instead of getting distracted, I thought about my girlfriend, the lesbian faerie I missed cuddling with every single night, the gay girl who wasn’t just part of my dreams, but my waking world as well.
Holding up the magpie about a foot from my face, I looked deep into its crimson eyes and said:
“Dear Lily, I miss you more than you can know. And I hope the bird that tracks you down over in the Tulip Court doesn’t make me sound too clingy. I’ve yet to see how fae react to clinginess. But in case it’s negative, do me a favor and pretend this message is a lot more breezy and cool than it actually is.
“Featherstone feels lonely without you. I’m happy when I’m with my mistress, but in other moments, my heart pines for the girl who plays board games with me in my room and holds me close when I bolt awake after a nightmare about my father until I come back to reality, safe and sound.
“But I know your mission is important. I would never ask you to come home early and risk disappointing our queen. So instead I’ll just ask two things. First, think of me in the moments when that mask you wear feels a little too tight and smothering. Remember that I’m here waiting for you in a place where you just get to be Lily, my girlfriend. Not a wing for the Raven Court. Second, come back to me safely. Because even though I know you’ve been doing this for years, and you’re the best spy my mistress has. . . I might still worry.
“Oh, and bring me back a cool Tulip Court souvenir if you can. Maybe a tulip? Actually — scratch that, magpie. That’s three things, and I said I’d only ask two. Seriously. Don’t repeat this part to my girlfriend. It’ll make me look stupid, like I don’t know how to use a winged messenger. So you’re not gonna say this last part, right?”
I was interrupted by the sound of Barsilla’s raucous laughter coming from outside in the hallways and looked away for a split second, fearing she’d overheard me.
When I looked back, only a single black and white feather remained in my hand.
“Aw, shit.”

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Turaga, the Tribra Dragoon, is a warrior that Yerkes, the Tribra Viking trained, and that was involved in the war between the Valixiar and Tribiz Tribe ten years ago by being involved in the "Void Ring," which is an arena located within the Nexus Cross, the home of the Nexar Tribe, where 27 warriors fight to the death to serve the Nexar Tribe and for power. Before he joined the "Void Ring," Turaga was known for slaying many dragons throughout Diversia. He develops an absolute hatred towards them as they are responsible for killing his older sister, who meant the world to him and vowed to eradicate every dragon that ever crossed his path. As time progresses, he becomes mentally unstable during his conquest of hunting dragons, hurting his allies, and being kicked out of the Tribiz Tribe during the war between the Valixiar and Tribiz Tribe. As he wanders throughout Diversia searching for power, he encounters Ingram, the Nexon Siren. Ingram offers Turaga to join the "Void Ring" in exchange for granting his desire to have the ability to revive his older sister, which Turaga accepts. He has been transported to the Nexus Cross along with other beings to fight each other. Turaga's abilities consist of immense strength, using his rage to heal himself, an expert in many types of heavy weapons, absorbing fire using his armor, causing the ground to shake by stomping his feet, fast reaction time, creating complex attacks that can immobilize his enemies, and adapting to any harsh environments. Turaga's ultimate ability, "Dragonic Demise," allows him to absorb all of his negative emotions and converting it a giant sharp spear construct that can deal a heavy blow on any being with only one pierces on any part of his enemy's body, which resulted in them being absorbed, leaving a circle of flames behind as a warning to those that dare cross his path.
To give a gist of the Tribiz tribe, they are different from the Valixiar and the Nexar as they gain power through cooperation and unity. Furthermore, the Tribiz has other races and has the most technological advances throughout Diversia.
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Something that i am extremely fascinated about in Stranger Things is the government conspiracy angle of the series, and over the seasons, i felt that the writing started to give us less details about how the government agencies work in this universe. Also, many details of the lore are still unresolved, and i fear some of them might not be resolved in S5, so I decided to make an analysis of everything that involves the government in the show to create my own version of the timeline of the events involving the U.S. government, and gather information to hypothesize events that may have happened offscreen, the occupations of some characters within the government and what agencies are involved with everything that has happened in the show since S1. I hope you guys enjoy the read!
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PROJECT MKULTRA
- In 1953, The MKUltra program was officially sanctioned by the CIA, a multimillion-dollar initiative intended to develop mind control techniques. The experiments would be conducted in many hospitals, prisons and colleges across the U.S. Hawkins National Laboratory was one of many facilities in the U.S. where MKUltra was being conducted - Dr. Martin Brenner was the director of CIA operations at this laboratory.
- MKUltra is a real CIA-sanctioned research that was officially halted in 1973. And it was the basis for a science-based horror in the show's lore. But the Duffers never wanted to really dive into it, as the story they wanted to tell was mainly inspired by the Montauk Project and would focus in children with super powers and other dimensions.
There is a little talk about it in the official behind the scenes companion Worlds Turned Upside Down:

I wouldn't say we had done necessarily a deep dive into it. It was more a surface glance of seeing what they were up to and then using it as an excuse to have science-based horror in our narrative. — Ross Duffer

- The presence of the MKUltra in the lore is what canonically establishes the CIA as the bad men we see in S1 and briefly in S2. The agency is only mentioned once in the show when Hopper and Powell are investigating documents about the HNL/MKUltra, but we can confirm that the CIA was also responsible for funding Brenner's program as in the Worlds Turned Upside Down book we can see government cards with a "Central Intelligence Agency Clandestine Ops" badge in it.
PROJECT INDIGO
- Doctor Brenner's program. It's the main government project of Stranger Things, and although never mentioned in the show, the name of the program was supposed to be "INDIGO" which was also the proposed name of the show as stated by the Duffers in their MasterClass:

So we just came up with a bunch of ideas. We had The Keep, we had INDIGO which was gonna be the name of the government program, and amidst that we had Stranger Things. — Ross Duffer

It's unclear if the Duffers kept the name as it was never mentioned in the show, but the name is mentioned in the Suspicious Minds book, which was supervised by one of the show's writers - Paul Dichter.
Project Indigo is basically the Hawkins equivalent of the Montauk Project. While the MKUltra was the Duffers' basis for a science-based horror in the lore, INDIGO is where the most crazy, cutting-edge developments in science come in. The Duffers had the desire to play with the "sandbox" of elements that the Montauk conspiracy could offer. In the conspiracy, there were talks about children with psychic/psionic powers (which became the Numbers 001 to 018), other dimensions (like the Upside Down, Dimension X and the Hellscape), alien contact, monsters being unleashed (Demogorgon/DX entities) and even time travel, which is something that was originally part of the ST mythology as we can see in the document below:
The Montauk Pitch by the Duffer Brothers
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THE PROGRAM STARTS
- As we learned in S4, the beginning of the program happens in 1959, and is a result of Dr. Brenner discovering a boy with extraordinary psychic abilities, Henry, after his mother contacts him in the hopes of sending him to a facility where he would be locked away and fixed. Henry, knowing what his mother was planning, decided to kill his whole family, but would eventually fall into a coma due to not knowing his limits while using his psychic powers.
- Brenner knew what the boy did and also what he was capable of, and wanted to not just study but also control him. After the Creel House murders, Brenner would take Henry to the lab and the CIA would cover up anything that could compromise their operation. Victor Creel, the only survivor of the events in the house was declared legally insane, the records of what Victor claimed to have occurred in his house were sealed.
- Brenner eventually sold to the CIA a separate program that he planned to start, a program that would study Henry Creel who was presented to the government as a potential weapon against the Soviets as stated by Matt Duffer in this interview by Deadline.

He knew what this kid did and also what he was capable of when he was young. Brenner’s going, how can I mold this character, but not just into a weapon? That’s really how he sold it to the government, but for him as a scientist, it’s like, what other worlds can this kid show me about how our universe works? — Matt Duffer

- As a scientist, Brenner had the desire to not only mold Henry into a weapon but also use him as a means to reach other worlds/dimensions and understand how the universe works. That makes me think that, at the time, Brenner expected Henry to be able to do what he would later discover only Eleven could do, which was the capablity of opening a rift or tear in time-space via psychic energy.
- At some point, I would guess in late 1959 - early 1960s, an unknown event led Brenner to pacify Henry's abilities via Soteria. After that, Brenner would decide to evolve his program, replicating Henry's powers in other kids. This is something Matt Duffer confirmed that S5 will explore,

It’s something we will get into in Season 5. What happened to that program once Henry became involved and how Brenner evolved it into including multiple kids. We’re going to go back and see some of that in Season 5.

How Brenner tried to replicate Henry's abilities is unclear, but there's something mentioned in the Montauk bible that caught my attention and could be a brief explanation of how these preternatural abilities arise in some individuals:

ELEVEN was an orphan with telekinesis. her preternatural abilities have been linked to mutations caused by her mothers drug use.

In this version of the Eleven's backstory, the Duffers had not yet conceived El's mother being Terry Ives, the MKUltra involvement in the lore, and El's abilities being the result of experiments on her mother. Instead, we have genetic mutations caused by drug use.
If there's any chance this is an explanation to how some individuals are born with psychic abilities, i suspect that Brenner knew that drugs had the potential to cause such mutations and that via experiments and training, he would unlock these supernatural psychic abilities. Knowing that, Brenner would use the MKUltra (which mainly involved psychedelic drugs) as a means to new supernatural kids to be born, just like it happened to Eleven.
Virginia Creel's backstory
In episode 7, Henry mentions that his parents did "such awful things." and that he "held up a mirror" to show them who they really were, but we never got to see what Henry used against his mother. Whatever awful thing she did, is still a mystery in the show.
Also, Virginia somehow knew that Henry had supernatural abilities, so i think it's plausible to assume that, perhaps, Virginia knew it because of something dark in her past, something she believed resulted in her son being born with supernatural abilities and becoming a "broken" kid. The drug element that i mentioned before could also play a role in the origin of Henry's powers and whatever these dark memories of Virginia are.
In S4E7 script, we can see that the whole part where Virginia suspects Henry is the responsible for the strange happenings in the house and contacts Brenner to lock her son away is missing. Meaning the writers later decided to add more layers to this backstory that may be explored in S5.
The Duffer Brothers have confirmed in interviews that S5 will explore more of Henry's prequel story, and it was recently revealed in an article from BBC that the 'The First Shadow' stage play influences S5, so i'm hoping this means we'll see more of the Creels, specially Virginia.

They were able to adjust some of the "things in the play" and said that working on it had given them ideas for the upcoming season five.
Matt Duffer added: "Some of the mythology stuff is a little bit trickier, but like Ross said, it's been fun to have the play influence the show, and the show influenced the play,

1960's - THE PROGRAM EVOLVES
- The evolution of Brenner's program logically took place during the 1960s, and some of that was already hinted in S2 when we discover that Terry had documents about people she believed were like her daughter. In some of those documents we get to see that Kali was abducted in London, a Cleveland teen girl who was seemingly abducted in Indiana, and a newborn boy was taken from a hospital. The baby was in the care of a nurse who was found dead in her home.
- in 1969, Ray Carroll started working at HNL as an orderly.
1970's
- At some point in the early 70's, Terry Ives got involved with MKUltra. (In the Suspicious Minds book, we learn that Terry was involved with MKUltra in 1969 but i'm not considering any information from the book due to the huge amount of inconsistencies.)
- After Brenner kidnapped Eleven in 1971, the BreneHNL would face charges and lawsuits from Terry Ives but they were denied due to lack of evidence.
- In 1973, the MKUltra was officially halted.
- In 1974, Terry would try to take Eleven from the laboratory. Brenner ordered Terry to undergo an eletroshock therapy, ordering Ray Carroll to set the voltage up to 450 and then proceeded to electrocute her until her brain was damaged.
- In 1979, One succeeded in having El "free" him by removing the Soteria from him. Regaining his psychic abilities, Henry kills all the Indigo numbers except for Eleven who would eventually banish him out of our dimension. After the attack, El falls into a coma, and Brenner doesn't dare bring another number to the lab. Instead, Brenner focuses the experiments on Eleven, who has repressed not only her memories of the past events but also her powers after waking up from her coma. Brenner knew that Eleven's abilities weren't lost but needed a "spark" to be restored.
1983
- Brenner believed that One was somewhere out there, "hiding in the darkness", and in 1983, after Eleven's powers were restored, Brenner would eventually use her abilities to find him.
- In one experiment, El hears a strange sound that would get Brenner's attention. Despite El getting scared and the experiment being aborted, Brenner would repeat the experiment with the intention of making "contact".
- On the night of november 6, 1983, El makes psychic contact with the Demogorgon in the Void, inadvertentely creating TUD, opening the mothergate and unleashing the monster. She eventually escaped the HNL that night.
- On the next day, Brenner and the CIA receive a visit from agents that according to the S1E1 script were NSA. CIA and NSA agents would eventually work together to find Eleven and cover up anything that would compromise the secrecy of their clandestine operation.
- Brenner and his team of agents along with MPs would go to the Hawkins Middle School in order to find Eleven after Hopper revealed her location. For their surprise, the Demogorgon appears in the school, distracting the agents and MPs, allowing the kids to run away from the CIA with Eleven. Brenner is brutally attacked by the Demogorgon, but survives the attack.
- After the events in the school, we see hopper entering a black sedan with CIA agents.
- CIA agents go to the Wheelers House searching for Eleven. This is the last time we see Brenner's men in the show. In the next season, the HNL would have a new director and a new staff.
- In a clipping at Hawkins Police Station, there's information on the aftermath of the events in november, 1983, where we learn that Joyce Byers publicy alleged that Will was the subject of a secret government program. Joyce's allegation comes amidst the investigation into the past allegations of the lab's involvement with mind control experiments (MKUltra).
- As to where Brenner and his entire staff were after the events in november, it is unknown, but i suspect Owens knew about what happened to them as in S2 he seems to be certain that Brenner's men were gone.

The point is, mistakes have been made. Yes. Abundant mistakes, but, the men involved with those mistakes, the ones responsible for what happened to your brother and Miss Holland's death, they're gone. They're gone, and for better for worse, i'm the schmuck they brought in to make things better. — Sam Owens

I've come to suspect that after the events of November '83, when the entire HNL staff was replaced, everything documented/recorded about the CIA's clandestine operations was securely locked away by CIA or DOE operatives, likely in the decommissioned Nevada Silo. (One alternate possibility is that those documents and recordings were stored in the Silo after the HNL was closed in december, 1984)
Something that I find interesting is that both the Silo Lab and Owens' residence are located in Nevada, and in S4E5, when Eleven is taken to the Silo, originally the titles "Ruth, Nevada" appeared on the screen, that was later removed, but it implies that both the Silo and Owens' residence were close. This leads me to suspect that long before Owens and Brenner conceived of the NINA program, Owens already knew about the abandoned Silo in Nevada and decided to used it to store every TOP-SECRET documents/recordings of the CIA operations at HNL.
https://preview.redd.it/qjidk3560i3b1.png?width=1334&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=287916d61b1b71b59d7b8c7ed3a7355f2b073f44
One interesting detail is that the idea of ​​the government securely locking away videotapes is something the Duffers planned for their original Montauk conception, which most of it was a prototype for what we've seen in Stranger Things. In The Montauk Experiment, the O.S.S. would securely lock away film cannisters with recordings of everything that happened in Camp Hero after the experiments ended in a blood-soaked event. Details in the document below:
The logline for 'The Montauk Experiment'
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DOCTOR SAM OWENS' POSITION IN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
- Sam Owens is a high-ranking member within U.S. Department of Energy as mentioned in the first official description of his character. Sometime between late 1983 - early 1984 he would be brought to HNL on a ‘clean-up’ assignment, tasked with containing the mess left by the CIA in 1983 and making things better.
- As I previously mentioned, Owens may have been responsible for locking away all the documented CIA experimentation at HNL, and he also may have known the whereabouts of Brenner and other scientists and CIA operatives who worked with him all along. I would even assume that Owens and Brenner may have been in contact all this time.
- During his time as director of the operations at HNL, Owens was involved in Will's treatment and in containing the spread of TUD.
- In November 1984, during the Demodogs invasion, Owens met Eleven, who eventually closed the gate, ending TUD invasion.
- A month later, the operations at HNL were officially shut down and the lab was closed after the release of the tape recording Owens' "confession", and Owens decided to help Eleven have a normal life under Hopper's care, giving him a forged birth certificate, and recommending Hopper to "let things cool off" for a year. This, of course, was done without the knowledge of the U.S. government.
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FACTONS WITHIN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
After the events os S2, in addition to the CIA Clandestine Ops and the DOE, other different agencies were introduced in the story:
- US Army/Pentagon that briefly appears at the end of s3 (although we've seen the Military Police in the previous seasons which is a branch of the Army), and would be an antagonist faction in S4.
- FBI agents who are presented as friends of Owens and allied to our main characters in S4.
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SULLIVAN'S FACTION
- At some point after the HNL was closed, Doctor Owens, in addition to his high-ranking position in the DOE, also gained some position within the U.S. Army/Pentagon, probably tasked with monitoring and maintaining security in Hawkins after the lab was closed and the military presence left town. Lieutenant Colonel Jack Sullivan was involved in this, and it's possible he and Owens worked together.
- An interesting detail is that the arm patch on Lt. Colonel Sullivan's uniform confirms that he's an United States Army Criminal Investigation Division operative, hence his associaton with the Pentagon.
- At some point (i assume 1985), rumors about Eleven being alive and receiving help from someone within the U.S. government began to surface within the Pentagon, this would affect Owens' reputation.
- It's also worth mentioning that in S4E6, Sullivan seems to imply that he knew or at least believed Brenner was alive.

Explanation two, Dr. Brenner's special little pet has gone rogue again and he and his lackeys are now seeking to cover it up. Perhaps in the hopes of selling their pet to the Soviets. — Lt. Colonel Sullivan

There's also this interview with Sherman Augustus where the interviewer asks him if Sullivan knows that Brenner is still alive, and Sherman's answer implies that Brenner being alive is something that wouldn't surprise Sullivan, Maybe because it was rumored within the Pentagon too. Basically, there's nothing that Sullivan doesn't know or expect about what's been happening in Hawkins and within the government since the events of S1.

I'm pretty sure he knows that there's certain elements... because he says in the dialogue "there's rumors that she's getting help from someone on the inside". So there is nothing that he is not, you know, equating in that situation, he's not surprised. Whatever it is, you have to be a really strong and dynamic individual to be able to go in and try to kick E.T in the butt. — Sherman Augustus

- In July 1985, Owens would find out about a foreign government invasion in Hawkins, and would go to Hawkins with Army/Pentagon forces to deal with the invasion, only to find an empty Soviet bunker.
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OWENS' FACTION
- After the events in July, Owens got fired from his position in the miitary for failing his assignment to monitor security at Hawkins, i believe the previously mentioned rumors about him may also have played a role in his dismissal.
- Owens, knowing that El had lost her powers, feared a further re-emergence of the TUD, which led him to begin developing a means to restore her abilities and bring them back stronger than before.
- Owens would ally with Brenner to develop a way to restore Eleven's abilities, and Brenner convinced Owens that the only way to do so was via a process of re-experiencing her repressed memories in a program that they would later call NINA. It's unclear when Brenner and Owens' alliance started, but i personally believe they knew each other for longer than we initially thought, and shortly after the July events, Owens' looked for Brenner's help in order to develop a means to restore El's powers.
- Despite being fired from his position in the military, Owens was still a DOE member and also had connections to the FBI (Ellen Stinson and other agents), and he used his power to clandestinely provide Brenner with the necessary resources to establish the NINA Project. For the program to be sanctioned, he had to compromise his principles, and risk his life and that of his family. Something worth noting is that in the episode 7 script, the dialogue where Owens expresses his disappointment with NINA's progress is a little different:

I've given you all the resources you've asked for, i've given you your people, i've compromised my principles, i've risked my life, my family's life, all because you assured me this would work. That this was the only way. — Sam Owens

By "i've given you your people" we can confirm that Owens gave to Brenner his old HNL staff, who as we saw in S4E8, were loyal to him. And we can also confirm by Sam's words that he had to give Brenner resources, meaning, wherever Brenner was after the events oF S1, he was left with no resources and access to his old staff.
- Owens and Brenner would establish NINA in the same abandoned Silo in Nevada where Owens presumably locked away all the video tapes and documents from HNL.
THE FACTION CONFLICT
- After Owens' dismissal, Sullivan apparently became the responsible for monitoring Hawkins and maintaining the security in the town.
- In March 1986, a supernatural murder in Hawkins comes to Sullivan's attention, and after an autopsy is performed by Army medical doctors, Sullivan concludes that the murder was done remotely, which tied in with the rumors about Eleven being alive and getting help from someone within the U.S. government who he, and probably other operatives within the Pentagon believed was Sam Owens.
- Upon that conclusion, Sullivan would begin a clandestine military operation in order to investigate Eleven's whereabouts, and this leads him to Owens.
- Something worth noting is that when we are first introduced to Sullivan, he arrives in Indiana in an U.S. Army helicopter to investigate the circumstances of an unusual murder, but when he begins his operation to hunt down Eleven, he goes to Ruth, Nevada in an unmarked black helicopter, alluding to the fact that this is a clandestine military operation:
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Sullivan arrives in Indiana
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Sullivan leaves Owens' residence in Nevada
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Something interesting about the scene where Sullivan visits Owens that adds some information on what the U.S. government has been up to is the dialogue between Sullivan and Owens from this audition tape which is a bit different from the dialogue from the show:

There were no signs of an attacker. No bruises, no signs of any struggle. It's as if her attacker was a ghost. — Lt. Colonel SullivanSo what is this, really? I mean, why are you here? all of the sudden you want to help again? — Sam Owens Dr. Owens, 30 civilians died last year, a foreign government invaded our country all under your watch. There had to be consequences, you've got to understand that — Lt. Colonel Sullivan

Owens' question implies that Sullivan has been helping him at some point, probably in monitoring Hawkins like a mentioned before, which would explain how he knew so much about what has happened there all this years.
And Sullivan's response implies that after Owens got fired, it became his responsability to maintain security in Hawkins, which is why he was there, asking Owens Eleven's whereabouts.
- Owens refuses to tell Sullivan Eleven's whereabouts, and Jack decides to do things "the hard way", taking multiple items from Owens' house in order to investigate everything Sam has done and everyone he has spoken to in 1985 and luckily, be able to find where Eleven is.
- Owens knew that the former Indigo test subject One was back when he saw pictures of Chrissy's body, and via a DOE intranet, he requests the immediate acceleration of NINA. He makes it clear that their secret program and facility were compromised and that the Pentagon was involved. And for the security of their program, Owens implements a communication lockdown.
- Owens uses his FBI connections to have agents help him find Eleven, maintain the secrecy of the operation and protect people closely associated with Eleven who could be found by Sullivan. Some of those agents are Ellen Stinson, who seems to be Owens' right hand, Agent Harmon, and Agent Wallace.
- In the meantime, Sullivan/the Pentagon was able to find out that Owens moved Eleven to Lenora Hills, CA, and would eventually send a group of agents/soldiers to find her.
- After finding Eleven with a group of agents and convicing her to go with him in order to get her powers back, Owens takes El to the Silo Lab while Agents Harmon and Wallace would stay with Mike, Jonathan and Will to protect them, and Agent Stinson would be closely monitoring Hawkins with 2 more agents.
- Sullivan, after a shootout in the Byers' house takes Agent Wallace to a black site to torture him in order to find out where Eleven was, and after a long time of torture, Wallace gave away Eleven's location.
- After NINA succeeded in restoring Eleven's abilities, Owens, believing she was ready, would call Stinson to have her prepare the transit from Nevada to Hawkins, Indiana through her connections at Nellis.
- Brenner would eventually betray Owens and considered killing him in order to stop Eleven from leaving the Silo Lab. After the conflict between Owens and Brenner, the Pentagon finally arrives at the location revealed by Agent Wallace and a conflict between the U.S army and the MP soldiers resulted in the death of Brenner, his men and all the scientists in the Silo Lab, except Owens.
- Eleven escapes the Pentagon with her friends, and we see Sullivan and some of his soldiers for the last time in S4, in the Nevada desert.
Episodes 8 and 9 made it clear that El still needs to hide and Sullivan's faction is still after her. It's worth mentioning that Sullivan was the only villain in ST4 not to be killed or at least injured, so it's almost certain that this guy will be back in ST5 to kick E.T's ass. Specially know that a full-scale TUD invasion is about the happen in Hawkins.
POSSIBILITIES FOR S5:
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Sullivan investigates the video tapes in the silo lab
S4 ended without us knowing what happened to Owens and Sullivan after eleven escaped, but we do know that both characters are in the Silo Lab and that Sullivan now has access to a vast amount of video tapes that he would certainly investigate and this would create many possibilities for the Pentagon's role in S5.
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Sullivan's Mission in Hawkins
Sullivan is still responsible for monitoring Hawkins, and at some point he will probably learn about what is happening in the town (which is also where El is hiding now), possibly via the military presence in Hawkins that we saw in the ST4 epilogue.
Something that caught my attention was the presence of a Research Lab vehicle on the set of downtown Hawkins, this vehicle never appeared in the show, and it was not mentioned in the script of episode 9. But it makes me think that at the end of S4, the Military is not just trying to help Hawkins citizen after this "federal disaster", but also researching into TUD, which perhaps is an operation led by Sullivan? let me know what you guys think.
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S1 parallels
If we have Sullivan in Hawkins in S5, we most certainly will get more Government vs Eleven scenes, which would parallel Brenner and the CIA in S1. I particularly believe that S5 will have many parallels with what the Duffers planned for the first season of Montauk,

ACT THREE (episodes 7-8) will climax with characters working together to outsmart the military, venture into this alternate dimension, save Will, and, hopefully, close this "tear" once and for all.

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Doctor Owens in 1959 flashbacks
Something I found extremely suspicious is that in S4, Owens seemed to know more than we initially thought.

He's claimed three victims so far, and when i saw the eyes, i knew... i knew that was him. He was him. He was sending us a message, letting us know he's back.

This sentence from Owens confirms that he somehow knew Henry's killing manner. It's plausible to assume that Owens learned about Henry and the other Indigo Numbers after being brought to the lab to "make things better". But I personally believe that there must be a greater reason why he was brought to HNL after S1, I believe Owens was already aware of the clandestine operations that had been happening in the HNL for years (at least some of it) and had known Dr. Brenner since the 1950's. I would even consider the possibility that Owens has been involved in clandestine government operations in the past and that somehow led him to find out about the HNL and Brenner's program.
In this interview by The Wrap, Ross Duffer's words about Brenner and Owens' alliance caught my attention because the way he puts it felt like Owens has known Brenner for longer than we think.

Once that first kill with Chrissy happens, then their fears are realized and that’s what jump starts their whole storyline. I mean, that is why Owens is collaborating with Brenner, a man he also does not like. He respects him, but despises the man, because he also knows he’s the key to stopping One, to stopping Vecna.

By my suspicion, i came up with the theory/fanfic that Owens could have worked with Brenner in the 50's and was aware of what happened in the Creel House in '59. Maybe he even met young Henry and interacted with him after he woke up from his coma. If there's any chance that i'm right about it, i would imagine the Owens and Henry interactions would parallel the scenes with Owens and Will in S2.
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Stinson becomes the new Owens / Her alliance with the adults
Agent Stinson was apparently Owens' right hand in S4 and also the leader among the agents of Owens' faction, being involved in the operations in Nevada, Hawkins and even being responsible for driving Hopper and Joyce to Hawkins. Imo, Stinson has the potential to become the "new Owens"/Main government operative to help our main characters while Owens is MIA. She could also send some agents to investigate what happened to Owens. I have a personal theory that Stinson will join the adults in S5 and help them on a mission to outsmart the military. And i think the "knowing nod" between Hop and Stinson in S4E9 might be a hint of a possible team up for S5.

Something that i am extremely fascinated about in Stranger Things is the government conspiracy angle of the series, and over the seasons, i felt that the writing started to give us less details about how the government agencies work in this universe. Also, many details of the lore are still unresolved, and i fear some of them might not be resolved in S5, so I decided to make an analysis of everything that involves the government in the show to create my own version of the timeline of the events involving the U.S. government and gather information to hypothesize events that may have happened offscreen, the occupations of some characters within the government and what agencies are involved with everything that has happened in the show since S1. I hope you guys enjoy the read!
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PROJECT MKULTRA
- In 1953, The MKUltra program was officially sanctioned by the CIA, a multimillion-dollar initiative intended to develop mind control techniques. the experiments would be conducted in many hospitals, prisons and colleges across the US. Hawkins National Laboratory was one of many facilities in the U.S where MKUltra was being conducted - Dr. Martin Brenner was the director of CIA operations at this laboratory.
- MKUltra is a real CIA-sanctioned research that was officially halted in 1973. And it was the basis for a science-based horror in the show's lore. But the Duffers never wanted to really dive into it, as the story they wanted to tell was mainly inspired by the Montauk Project and would focus in children with super powers and other dimensions.
There is a little talk about it in the official behind the scenes companion Worlds Turned Upside Down:

I wouldn't say we had done necessarily a deep dive into it. It was more a surface glance of seeing what they were up to and then using it as an excuse to have science-based horror in our narrative. — Ross Duffer

- The presence of the MKUltra in the lore is what canonically establishes the CIA as the bad men we see in S1 and briefly in S2. The agency is only mentioned once in the show when Hopper and Powell are investigating documents about the HNL/MKUltra, but we can confirm that the CIA was also responsible for funding Brenner's program as in the Worlds Turned Upside Down book we can see government cards with a "Central Intelligence Agency Clandestine Ops" badge in it.
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PROJECT INDIGO
- Doctor Brenner's program. It's the main government project of Stranger Things, and although never mentioned in the show, the name of the program was supposed to be "INDIGO" which was also the proposed name of the show as stated by the Duffers in their MasterClass:

So we just came up with a bunch of ideas. We had The Keep, we had INDIGO which was gonna be the name of the government program, and amidst that we had Stranger Things. — Ross Duffer

It's unclear if the Duffers kept the name as it was never mentioned in the show, but the name is mentioned in the Suspicious Minds book, which was supervised by one of the show's writers - Paul Dichter.
Project Indigo is basically the Hawkins equivalent of the Montauk Project. While the MKUltra was the Duffers' basis for a science-based horror in the lore, INDIGO is where the most crazy, cutting-edge developments in science come in. The Duffers had the desire to play with the "sandbox" of elements that the Montauk conspiracy could offer. In the conspiracy, there were talks about children with psychic/psionic powers (which became the Numbers 001 to 018), other dimensions (like the Upside Down, Dimension X and the Hellscape), alien contact, monsters being unleashed (Demogorgon/DX entities) and even time travel, which is something that was originally part of the ST mythology as we can see in the document below:
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The Montauk pitch by the Duffer Brothers
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THE PROGRAM STARTS
- As we learned in S4, the beginning of the program happens in 1959, and is a result of Dr. Brenner discovering a boy with extraordinary psychic abilities, Henry, after his mother contacts him in the hopes of sending him to a facility where he would be locked away and fixed. Henry, knowing what his mother was planning, decided to kill his whole family, but would eventually fall into a coma due to not knowing his limits while using his psychic powers.
- Brenner knew what the boy did and also what he was capable of, and wanted to not just study but also control him. After the Creel House murders, Brenner would take Henry to the lab and the CIA would cover up anything that could compromise their operation. Victor Creel, the only survivor of the events in the house was declared legally insane, and the records of what Victor claimed to have occurred in his house were sealed.
- Brenner eventually sold to the CIA a separate program that he planned to start, a program that would study Henry Creel who was presented to the government as a potential weapon against the Soviets as stated by Matt Duffer in this interview by Deadline.

He knew what this kid did and also what he was capable of when he was young. Brenner’s going, how can I mold this character, but not just into a weapon? That’s really how he sold it to the government, but for him as a scientist, it’s like, what other worlds can this kid show me about how our universe works? — Matt Duffer

- As a scientist, Brenner had the desire to not only mold Henry into a weapon but also use him as a means to reach other worlds/dimensions and understand how the universe works. That makes me think that, at the time, Brenner expected Henry to be able to do what he would later discover only Eleven could do, which was the capablity of opening a rift or tear in time-space via psychic energy.

• At some point, I would guess in late 1959 - early 1960s, an unknown event led Brenner to pacify Henry's abilities via Soteria. After that, Brenner would decide to evolve his program, replicating Henry's powers in other kids. This is something Matt Duffer confirmed that S5 will explore:

It’s something we will get into in Season 5. What happened to that program once Henry became involved and how Brenner evolved it into including multiple kids. We’re going to go back and see some of that in Season 5. — Matt Duffer

How Brenner tried to replicate Henry's abilities is unclear, but there's something mentioned in the Montauk bible that caught my attention and could be a brief explanation of how these preternatural abilities arise in some individuals:

ELEVEN was an orphan with telekinesis. her preternatural abilities have been linked to mutations caused by her mothers drug use.

In this version of the Eleven's backstory, the Duffers had not yet conceived El's mother being Terry Ives, the MKUltra involvement in the lore, and El's abilities being the result of experiments on her mother. Instead, we have genetic mutations caused by drug use.
If there's any chance this is an explanation to how some individuals are born with psychic abilities, i suspect that Brenner knew that drugs had the potential to cause such mutations and that via experiments and training, he would unlock these supernatural psychic abilities. Knowing that, Brenner would use the MKUltra (which mainly involved psychedelic drugs) as a means to new supernatural kids to be born, just like it happened to Eleven.
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Virginia Creel's backstory
In episode 7, Henry mentions that his parents did "such awful things." and that he "held up a mirror" to show them who they really were, but we never got to see what Henry used against his mother. Whatever awful thing she did, is still a mystery in the show.
Also, Virginia somehow knew that Henry had supernatural abilities, so i think it's plausible to assume that, perhaps, Virginia knew it because of something dark in her past, something she believed resulted in her son being born with supernatural abilities and becoming a "broken" kid. The drug element that i mentioned before could also play a role in the origin of Henry's powers and whatever these dark memories of Virginia are.
In S4E7 script, we can see that the whole part where Virginia suspects Henry is the responsible for the strange happenings in the house and contacts Brenner to lock her son away is missing. Meaning the writers later decided to add more layers to this backstory that may be explored in S5.
The Duffer Brothers have confirmed in interviews that S5 will explore more of Henry's prequel story, and it was recently revealed in an article from BBC that the 'The First Shadow' stage play influences S5, so i'm hoping this means we'll see more of the Creels, specially Virginia.

They were able to adjust some of the "things in the play" and said that working on it had given them ideas for the upcoming season five.
Matt Duffer added: "Some of the mythology stuff is a little bit trickier, but like Ross said, it's been fun to have the play influence the show, and the show influenced the play,

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1960's - THE PROGRAM EVOLVES
- The evolution of Brenner's program logically took place during the 1960s, and some of that was already hinted in S2 when we discover that Terry had documents about people she believed were like her daughter. In some of those documents we get to see that Kali was abducted in London, a Cleveland teen girl who was seemingly abducted in Indiana, and a newborn boy was taken from a hospital. The baby was in the care of a nurse who was found dead in her home.
- in 1969, Ray Carroll started working at HNL as an orderly.
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1970's
- At some point in the early 70's, Terry Ives got involved with MKUltra. (In the Suspicious Minds book, we learn that Terry was involved with MKUltra in 1969 but i'm not considering any information from the book due to the huge amount of inconsistencies.)
- After Brenner kidnapped Eleven in 1971, the HNL would face charges and lawsuits from Terry Ives but they were denied due to lack of evidence.
- In 1973, the MKUltra was officially halted.
- In 1974, Terry would try to take Eleven from the laboratory. Brenner ordered Terry to undergo an eletroshock therapy, ordering Ray Carroll to set the voltage up to 450 and then proceeded to electrocute her until her brain was damaged.
- In 1979, One succeeded in having El "free" him by removing the Soteria from him. Regaining his psychic abilities, Henry kills all the Indigo numbers except for Eleven who would eventually banish him out of our dimension. After the attack, El falls into a coma, and Brenner doesn't dare bring another number to the lab. Instead, Brenner focuses the experiments on Eleven, who has repressed not only her memories of the past events but also her powers after waking up from her coma. Brenner knew that Eleven's abilities weren't lost but needed a "spark" to be restored.
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1983
- Brenner believed that One was somewhere out there, "hiding in the darkness", and in 1983, after Eleven's powers were restored, Brenner would eventually use her abilities to find him.
- In one experiment, El hears a strange sound that would get Brenner's attention. Despite El getting scared and the experiment being aborted, Brenner would repeat the experiment with the intention of making "contact".
- On the night of november 6, 1983, El makes psychic contact with the Demogorgon in the Void, inadvertentely creating TUD, opening the mothergate and unleashing the monster. She eventually escaped the HNL that night.
- On the next day, Brenner and the CIA receive a visit from agents that according to the S1E1 script were NSA. CIA and NSA agents would eventually work together to find Eleven and cover up anything that would compromise the secrecy of their clandestine operation.
- Brenner and his team of agents along with MPs would go to the Hawkins Middle School in order to find Eleven after Hopper revealed her location. For their surprise, the Demogorgon appears in the school, distracting the agents and MPs, allowing the kids to run away from the CIA with Eleven. Brenner is brutally attacked by the Demogorgon, but survives the attack.
- After the events in the school, we see hopper entering a black sedan with CIA agents.
- CIA agents go to the Wheelers House searching for Eleven. This is the last time we see Brenner's men in the show. In the next season, the HNL would have a new director and a new staff.
- In a clipping at Hawkins Police Station, there's information on the aftermath of the events in november, 1983, where we learn that Joyce Byers publicy alleged that Will was the subject of a secret government program. Joyce's allegation comes amidst the investigation into the past allegations of the lab's involvement with mind control experiments (MKUltra).
- As to where Brenner and his entire staff were after the events in november, it is unknown, but i suspect Owens knew about what happened to them as in S2 he seems to be certain that Brenner's men were gone.

The point is, mistakes have been made. Yes. Abundant mistakes, but, the men involved with those mistakes, the ones responsible for what happened to your brother and Miss Holland's death, they're gone. They're gone, and for better for worse, i'm the schmuck they brought in to make things better. — Sam Owens

I've come to suspect that after the events of November '83, when the entire HNL staff was replaced, everything documented/recorded about the CIA's clandestine operations was securely locked away by CIA or DOE operatives, likely in the decommissioned Nevada Silo. (One alternate possibility is that those documents and recordings were stored in the Silo after the HNL was closed in december, 1984)
Something that I find interesting is that both the Silo Lab and Owens' residence are located in Nevada, and in S4E5, when Eleven is taken to the Silo, originally the titles "Ruth, Nevada" appeared on the screen, that was later removed, but it implies that both the Silo and Owens' residence were close. This leads me to suspect that long before Owens and Brenner conceived of the NINA program, Owens already knew about the abandoned Silo in Nevada and decided to used it to store every TOP-SECRET documents/recordings of the CIA operations at HNL:
https://preview.redd.it/xh9e7lxqye3b1.png?width=1334&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=eafda108e43adbb8ff115ac586a13add1f1e8442
One interesting detail is that the idea of ​​the government securely locking away videotapes is something the Duffers planned for their original Montauk conception, which most of it was a prototype for what we've seen in Stranger Things. In The Montauk Experiment, the O.S.S. would securely lock away film cannisters with recordings of everything that happened in Camp Hero after the experiments ended in a blood-soaked event. Details in the document below:
The logline for 'The Montauk Experiment'
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DOCTOR SAM OWENS' POSITION IN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
- Sam Owens is a high-ranking member within U.S. Department of Energy as mentioned in the first official description of his character. Sometime between late 1983 and early 1984 he would be brought to HNL on a ‘clean-up’ assignment, tasked with containing the mess left by the CIA in 1983 and making things better.
- As I previously mentioned, Owens may have been responsible for locking away all the documented CIA experimentation at HNL, and he also may have known the whereabouts of Brenner and other scientists and CIA operatives who worked with him all along. I would even assume that Owens and Brenner may have been in contact all this time.
- During his time as director of the operations at HNL, Owens was involved in Will's treatment and in containing the spread of TUD.
- In November 1984, during the Demodogs invasion, Owens met Eleven, who eventually closed the gate, ending TUD invasion.
- A month later, the operations at HNL were officially shut down and the lab was closed after the release of the tape recording Owens' "confession", and Owens decided to help Eleven have a normal life under Hopper's care, giving him a forged birth certificate, and recommending Hopper to "let things cool off" for a year. This, of course, was done without the knowledge of the U.S. government.
FACTONS WITHIN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
After the events os S2, in addition to the CIA Clandestine Ops and the DOE, other different agencies were introduced in the story:
- US Army/Pentagon that briefly appears at the end of s3 (although we've seen the Military Police in the previous seasons which is a branch of the Army), and would be an antagonist faction in S4.
- FBI agents who are presented as friends of Owens and allied to our main characters in S4.
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SULLIVAN'S FACTION
- At some point after the HNL was closed, Doctor Owens, in addition to his high-ranking position in the DOE, also gained some position within the U.S. Army/Pentagon, probably tasked with monitoring and maintaining security in Hawkins after the lab was closed and the military presence left town. Lieutenant Colonel Jack Sullivan was involved in this, and it's possible he and Owens worked together.
- An interesting detail is that the arm patch on Lt. Colonel Sullivan's uniform confirms that he's an United States Army Criminal Investigation Division operative, hence his associaton with the Pentagon.
- At some point (i assume 1985), rumors about Eleven being alive and receiving help from someone within the U.S. government began to surface within the Pentagon, this would affect Owens' reputation.
- It's also worth mentioning that in S4E6, Sullivan seems to imply that he knew or at least believed Brenner was alive.

Explanation two, Dr. Brenner's special little pet has gone rogue again and he and his lackeys are now seeking to cover it up. Perhaps in the hopes of selling their pet to the Soviets. — Lt. Colonel Sullivan

There's also this interview with Sherman Augustus where the interviewer asks him if Sullivan knows that Brenner is still alive, and Sherman's answer implies that Brenner being alive is something that wouldn't surprise Sullivan, Maybe because it was rumored within the Pentagon too. Basically, there's nothing that Sullivan doesn't know or expect about what's been happening in Hawkins and within the government since the events of S1.

I'm pretty sure he knows that there's certain elements... because he says in the dialogue "there's rumors that she's getting help from someone on the inside". So there is nothing that he is not, you know, equating in that situation, he's not surprised. Whatever it is, you have to be a really strong and dynamic individual to be able to go in and try to kick E.T in the butt. — Sherman Augustus

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- In July 1985, Owens would find out about a foreign government invasion in Hawkins, and would go to Hawkins accompanied by Army/Pentagon forces to deal with the invasion, only to find an empty Soviet bunker.
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OWENS' FACTION
- After the events in July, Owens got fired from his position in the miitary for failing his assignment to monitor security at Hawkins, i believe the previously mentioned rumors about him may also have played a role in his dismissal.
- Owens, knowing that El had lost her powers, feared a further re-emergence of the TUD, which led him to begin developing ways to restore her abilities.
- Owens would ally with Brenner to develop a way to restore Eleven's abilities, and Brenner convinced Owens that the only way to do so was via a process of re-experiencing her repressed memories in a program that they would later call NINA. It's unclear when Brenner and Owens' alliance started, but i personally believe they knew each other for longer than we initially thought, and shortly after the July events, Owens' looked for Brenner's help in order to develop a means to restore El's powers.
- Despite being fired from his position in the military, Owens was still a DOE member and also had connections to the FBI (Ellen Stinson and other agents), and he used his power to clandestinely provide Brenner with the necessary resources to establish the NINA Project. For the program to be sanctioned, he had to compromise his principles, and risk his life and that of his family. Something worth noting is that in the episode 7 script, the dialogue where Owens expresses his disappointment with NINA's progress is a little different:

I've given you all the resources you've asked for, i've given you your people, i've compromised my principles, i've risked my life, my family's life, all because you assured me this would work. That this was the only way. — Sam Owens

By "i've given you your people" we can confirm that Owens gave to Brenner his old HNL staff, who as we saw in S4E8, were loyal to him. And we can also confirm by Sam's words that he had to give Brenner resources, meaning, wherever Brenner was after the events oF S1, he was left with no resources and access to his old staff.
- Owens and Brenner would establish NINA in the same abandoned Silo in Nevada where Owens presumably locked away all the video tapes and documents from HNL.
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THE FACTION CONFLICT
- After Owens' dismissal, Sullivan apparently became the responsible for monitoring Hawkins and maintaining the security in the town.
- In March 1986, a supernatural murder in Hawkins comes to Sullivan's attention, and after an autopsy is performed by Army medical doctors, Sullivan concludes that the murder was done remotely, which tied in with the rumors about Eleven being alive and getting help from someone within the U.S. government who he, and probably other operatives within the Pentagon believed was Sam Owens.
- Upon that conclusion, Sullivan would begin a clandestine military operation in order to investigate Eleven's whereabouts, and this leads him to Owens.
- Something worth noting is that when we are first introduced to Sullivan, he arrives in Indiana in an U.S. Army helicopter to investigate the circumstances of an unusual murder, but when he begins his operation to hunt down Eleven, he goes to Ruth, Nevada in an unmarked black helicopter, alluding to the fact that this is a clandestine military operation:
Sullivan arrives in Indiana
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Sullivan leaves Owens' residence in Ruth, Nevada
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Something interesting about the scene where Sullivan visits Owens that adds some information on what the U.S. government has been up to is the dialogue between Sullivan and Owens from this audition tape which is a bit different from the dialogue in the show,

There were no signs of an attacker. No bruises, no signs of any struggle. It's as if her attacker was a ghost. — Lt. Colonel Sullivan
So what is this, really? I mean, why are you here? all of the sudden you want to help again? — Sam Owens
Dr. Owens, 30 civilians died last year, a foreign government invaded our country all under your watch. There had to be consequences, you've got to understand that — Lt. Colonel Sullivan

Owens' question implies that Sullivan has been helping him at some point, probably in monitoring Hawkins like a mentioned before, which would explain how he knew so much about what has happened there all this years.
And Sullivan's response implies that after Owens got fired, it became his responsability to maintain security in Hawkins, which is why he was there, asking Owens Eleven's whereabouts.
- Owens refuses to tell Sullivan Eleven's whereabouts, and Jack decides to do things "the hard way", taking multiple items from Owens' house in order to investigate everything Sam has done and everyone he has spoken to in 1985 and luckily, be able to find where Eleven is.
- Owens knew that the former Indigo test subject One was back, and via a DOE intranet, he requests the immediate acceleration of NINA. He makes it clear that their secret program and facility were compromised and that the Pentagon was involved. And for the security of their program, Owens implements a communication lockdown.
- Owens uses his FBI connections to have agents help him find Eleven, maintain the secrecy of the operation and protect people closely associated with Eleven who could be found by Sullivan. Some of those agents are Ellen Stinson, who seems to be Owens' right hand, Agent Harmon, and Agent Wallace.
- In the meantime, Sullivan/the Pentagon was able to find out that Owens moved Eleven to Lenora Hills, CA, and would eventually send a group of agents/soldiers to find her.
- After finding Eleven with a group of agents and convicing her to go with him in order to get her powers back, Owens takes El to the Silo Lab while Agents Harmon and Wallace would stay with Mike, Jonathan and Will to protect them, and Agent Stinson would be closely monitoring Hawkins with 2 more agents.
- Sullivan, after a shootout in the Byers' house takes Agent Wallace to a black site to torture him in order to find out where Eleven was, and after a long time of torture, Wallace gave away Eleven's location.
- After NINA succeeded in restoring Eleven's abilities, Owens, believing she was ready, would call Stinson to have her prepare the transit from Nevada to Hawkins, Indiana through her connections at Nellis.
- Brenner would eventually betray Owens and considered killing him in order to stop Eleven from leaving the Silo Lab. After the conflict between Owens and Brenner, the Pentagon finally arrives at the location revealed by Agent Wallace and a conflict between the U.S army and the MP soldiers resulted in the death of Brenner, his men and all the scientists in the Silo Lab, except Owens.
- Eleven escapes the Pentagon with her friends, and we see Sullivan and some of his soldiers for the last time in S4, in the Nevada desert.
Episodes 8 and 9 made it clear that El still needs to hide and Sullivan's faction is still after her. It's worth mentioning that Sullivan was the only villain in ST4 not to be killed or at least injured, so it's almost certain that this guy will be back in ST5 to kick E.T's ass. Specially know that a full-scale TUD invasion is about the happen in Hawkins.
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POSSIBILITIES FOR S5:
Sullivan investigates the video tapes in the silo lab
S4 ended without us knowing what happened to Owens and Sullivan after eleven escaped, but we do know that both characters are in the Silo Lab and that Sullivan now has access to a vast amount of video tapes that he would certainly investigate and this would create several different possibilities for the Pentagon's role in S5.
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Sullivan's Mission in Hawkins
Sullivan is still responsible for monitoring Hawkins, and he will likely learn about what is happening in the town (which is also where El is hiding now), possibly through the military presence in Hawkins that we saw in the ST4 epilogue.
Something that caught my attention was the presence of a Research Lab vehicle on the set of down town hawkins, this vehicle never appeared in the show, and it was not mentioned in the script of episode 9. But it makes me think that at the end of S4, the Military is not just trying to help Hawkins citizen after this "federal disaster", but also researching into TUD, which perhaps is an operation led by Sullivan? let me know what you guys think.
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S1 parallels
If we have Sullivan in Hawkins in S5, we most certainly will get more Government vs Eleven scenes, which would parallel Brenner and the CIA in S1. I particularly believe that S5 will have many parallels with what the Duffers planned for the first season of Montauk:

ACT THREE (episodes 7-8) will climax with characters working together to outsmart the military, venture into this alternate dimension, save Will, and, hopefully, close this "tear" once and for all.

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Doctor Owens in 1959 flashbacks
Something I found extremely suspicious is that in S4, Owens seemed to know more than we initially thought...

He's claimed three victims so far, and when i saw the eyes, i knew... i knew that was him. He was him. He was sending us a message, letting us know he's back.

This sentence from Owens confirms that he somehow knew Henry's killing manner. It's plausible to assume that Owens learned about Henry and the other Indigo Numbers after being brought to the lab to "make things better". But I personally believe that there must be a greater reason why he was brought to HNL after S1, I believe Owens was already aware of the clandestine operations that had been happening in the HNL for years (at least some of it) and had known Dr. Brenner since the 1950's. I would even consider the possibility that Owens has been involved in clandestine government operations in the past and that somehow led him to find out about the HNL and Brenner's program.
In this interview by The Wrap, Ross Duffer's words about Brenner and Owens' alliance caught my attention because the way he puts it felt like Owens has known Brenner for much longer than we think.

Once that first kill with Chrissy happens, then their fears are realized and that’s what jump starts their whole storyline. I mean, that is why Owens is collaborating with Brenner, a man he also does not like. He respects him, but despises the man, because he also knows he’s the key to stopping One, to stopping Vecna. — Ross Duffer

By my suspicion, i came up with the theory/fanfic that Owens could have worked with Brenner in the 50's and was aware of what happened in the Creel House in '59. Maybe he even met young Henry and interacted with him after he woke up from his coma. If there's any chance that i'm right about it, i would imagine the Owens and Henry interactions would parallel the scenes with Owens and Will in S2.
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Stinson becomes the new Owens / Her alliance with the adults
Agent Stinson was apparently Owens' right hand in S4 and also the leader among the agents of Owens' faction, being involved in the operations in Nevada, Hawkins and even being responsible for driving Hopper and Joyce to Hawkins. Imo, Stinson has the potential to become the "new Owens"/Main government operative to help our main characters while Owens is MIA. She could also send some agents to investigate what happened to Owens. I have a personal theory that Stinson will join the adults in S5 and help them on a mission to outsmart the military. And i think the "knowing nod" between Hop and Stinson in S4E9 might be a hint of a possible team up for S5.