History Main / ConvenientlyUnverifiableCoverStory

** In the episode "Twilight of the Gods" has a subtle hint of {{Foreshadowing}} on this; when the League infiltrates Brainiac's base, Martian Manhunter suggests that Brainiac's database may have information on Thanagar, including its location. In retrospect, you realise how desperate Shayera was to direct J'onn away from that line of thinking.

** In the episode "Twilight of the Gods" has a subtle hint of {{Foreshadowing}} on this; when the League infiltrates Brainiac's base, Jon Stewart suggests that Brainiac's database may have information on Thanagar, including its location. In retrospect, you realise how desperate Shayera was to direct Jon away from that line of thinking.

* In ''TheWorldGodOnlyKnows'', Elsie uses her supposed status as illegitimate daughter of Keima's father to convince his mother to let her live with them. Since his father is pretty much never home, there was no way to really confirm the story, though the fact that he couldn't prove it false outright does raise some interesting questions.

* ''TheMeetingPlaceCannotBeChanged'' has one of its heroes, Sharapov, infiltrating the gang that he and the rest of the police are trying to bring down. To win over the gang's highly suspicious leader, one story is not enough, and Sharapov is soon spinning lies that span into an entire (fictional) biography, complete with fictional girlfriend, fictional criminal father, fictional jobs, etc.

* In ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'', Lt. Archie Hicox, British spy undercover in NaziGermany, is forced to pretend [[OohMeAccentsSlipping his strange accent while speaking German]] is because he's from a remote village. To make it seem more convincing, he and the actress he's sitting with (who's also a spy) claim he was in a movie as a child that was filmed at his village. The stork works [[spoiler:at the moment, but doesn't ward off the Gestapo officer's suspicions, finally catching Hicox when he spots him making a foreign gesture.]]

Designing a good cover story is one of the most difficult and crucial parts of going undercover for TheMole. [[NoTrueScotsman Lack]] of [[DidNotDoTheResearch research]] into the details and customs of the identity they're assuming can be a [[CrossCulturalKerfluffle dead giveaway]] in casual dealings, and even the best falsified documents backed up with hacked databases and bribed records keepers can eventually be cracked with enough research and cross referencing. What a lot of moles end up doing is sacrificing authenticity for security by creating a [[ContrivedCoincidence conveniently]] unverifiable cover story. This cover story creates or [[DeadPersonImpersonation assumes]] an identity whose background can't be verified or disproved, by claiming to come from a place or period with no personal records or witnesses. Commonly, it's a [[DoomedHomeTown burned down]] [[ParentalAbandonment orphanage]], though being the "lone survivor" of an accident, or coming from a place that suffered a natural disaster or been in a civil war are also common. Potentially non-tragic unverifiable cover stories are coming from communities that shun modern things like hospitals and birth certificates, or where the hall of records has been destroyed.

* ''{{Durarara}}'': Kazutano, an illegal immigrant living in Japan, once claimed his birth certificate was burned during the WorldWarII firebombings. He's too young for that story to be at all credible, though.

* ''Film/TotalRecall1990'' (1990) has a double-example of this. Arnold's character initially infiltrated the Martian resistance, convincing them to trust him and believe that he was betraying the BigBad. The BigBad then captured him and erased his memory to stop him from revealing all of his secrets to the resistance. It later turns out that this was just an elaborate ruse to help him infiltrate ''deeper'' into the resistance, since they are then convinced he really had a major secret to reveal.

* In LoisMcMasterBujold's ''[[VorkosiganSaga Brothers in Arms]]'', Elli Quinn spots the bad guy partly because his cover identity is from a planet wrecked by a tectonic disaster. Indeed, it's implied that only amateurs use that planet for a cover identity any longer, as every professional intelligence agency in the Nexus considers 'survivor of Frost IV' an automatic red flag requiring double-checking.

* ''TheMeetingPlaceCannotBeChanged'' has one of its heroes, Sharapov, infiltrating the gang that he and the rest of the police are trying to bring down. To win over the gang's highly suspicious leader, one story is not enough, and Sharapov is soon spinning lies that span into an entire (fictional) biography, complete with fictional girlfriend, fictional criminal father, fictional jobs, etc.
* In the "Vicki's Adoption" episode of ''SmallWonder'', Ted and Joan had Vicki write two letters, in different styles of handwriting, claiming that Vicki was born in the Seychelles (hence her being named Victoria), her birth parents had died while traveling (see StereoFibbing), and she was raised in a convent before being brought to the United States.

* Interesting variation in ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia''. Early in the game, the party meets a girl named Ria, who wants them to help her get revenge on a guy named Demitel for killing her family. When the party finally meets Demitel, he reveals that he killed the entire family, including Ria. After you beat Demitel, the whole truth comes out - Ria was [[spoiler:borrowing the body of her friend Arche, whose name was dropped earlier, to avenge her family, after which she passes on and Arche becomes the party's BlackMagicianGirl.]]
* ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' has the Denton brothers, whose parents were killed in some sort of vague accident or terrorist attack. Turns out [[spoiler: their parents were either actors employed by the AncientConspiracy or they were artificially aged clones with fake memories, depending on how the player interprets certain dialog and messages]].
* In ''VisualNovel/AceAttorney'' Melissa Foster claims that she has no identity papers because she recently fled an unnamed country that had exploded into civil war. [[spoiler:Of course by now you already know she's Dahlia Hawthorne so the lie is revealed quickly.]]

!!Examples

* In TheWorldGodOnlyKnows, Elsie uses her supposed status as illegitimate daughter of Keima's father to convince his mother to let her live with them. Since his father is pretty much never home, there was no way to really confirm the story, though the fact that he couldn't prove it false outright does raise some interesting questions.

* One CaptainFuture novel featured the Captain trying to pass off as a pirate from a ship which was destroyed. There is a minor problem when he meets with a guy who really served on that ship, but he manages to convince those around him that it's because the real pirate was a gunner - and he was a mechanic, so they had no interaction.

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Earthquake San Francisco Earthquake of 1906]] was used by numerous Chinese immigrants to get into the USA despite the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act_(United_States) Chinese Exclusion Act]].

* In ''{{Film/Salt}}'', a Russian operative claims that Evelyn Salt was a deep cover agent who was planted in America at the age of 12. They faked a car crash to kill an American family living in Russia and replaced the daughter's corpse with their agent. Because her supposed family is dead (and her other relatives haven't seen her in years) there's no one to dispute her identity.

* Done in RobertAHeinlein's ''{{Literature/Friday}}'' by the protagonist and many other "artificial persons" who need cover stories. Her "birthplace" is Seattle (destroyed in an earthquake) and Friday cynically comments that the recent destruction of Acapulco in a corporate war means that a lot of artificial persons will end up being "born" there as well.

* In the ExpandedUniverse of ''StarTrekVoyager'', it's explained that Tuvok is able to infiltrate the Maquis by making a false cover story of how his family was killed by Cardassians on a border planet. He further endears himself to them by giving up a Starfleet Intelligence operative and putting a big hole in the ''Hood'' (but not killing anyone) when all was said and done.

* ''TotalRecall'' has a double-example of this. Arnold's character initially infiltrated the Martian resistance, convincing them to trust him and believe that he was betraying the BigBad. The BigBad then captured him and erased his memory to stop him from revealing all of his secrets to the resistance. It later turns out that this was just an elaborate ruse to help him infiltrate ''deeper'' into the resistance, since they are then convinced he really had a major secret to reveal.

* [[spoiler:Trent, the offspring of the [[BigBad sorcerer Vade]]]] in Ursula Vernon's ''Literature/BlackDogs'' purportedly escaped from an evil magic user [[spoiler:AKA his father]]. In the time this character was in captivity, he/she claimed to have his/her [[BreakTheCutie innocence destroyed]] by all the cruelly calculated murder and remains inconsolably guilty for things that were not really his/her fault. This character pretty much becomes TheWoobie to some of the other characters for these reasons. However, it is later revealed that this person's [[spoiler:kind and compassionate]] persona is just a [[spoiler:suppressed and memory-wiped]] part of his/her personality [[spoiler:as part of his father's XanatosGambit]], later on it's revealed that [[spoiler:his new, crueler personality is also a fabrication of his father, and]] this character's TrueSelf is somewhere between these two extremes.

* In {{film/Salt}}, a Russian operative claims that Evelyn Salt was a deep cover agent who was planted in America at the age of 12. They faked a car crash to kill an American family living in Russia and replaced the daughter's corpse with their agent. Because her supposed family is dead (and her other relatives haven't seen her in years) there's no one to dispute her identity.

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* ''DarkAngel'' - when Alec poses as Simon Lehane, he claims to have been tragically orphaned.
* In ''KyleXY'', the eponymous hero is given a plausible backstory for his lack of memories, intelligence and absence of a navel. His female counterpart Jessi, however, is given false memories because an agent for a CorruptCorporateExecutive finds her first.

* ''{{Wiseguy}}''. Averted as the protagonist uses his own identity, including an eighteen-month prison sentence to establish his credentials as a criminal. Unfortunately this alienates him from his own mother, who doesn't know he's a federal agent.
* ''TheMeetingPlaceCannotBeChanged'' has one of its protagonists, Sharapov, infiltrating the gang that he and the rest of the police are trying to bring down. To win over the gang's highly suspicious leader, one story is not enough, and Sharapov is soon spinning lies that span into an entire (fictional) biography, complete with fictional girlfriend, fictional criminal father, fictional jobs, etc.

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* During WW2 the Red Army had units claiming to be Polish so as to avoid the fact that they really wanted to take over Poland. The Russians pretending to be Polish would claim to be from Polish villages that had been wiped out by the Germans.

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Earthquake San Francisco Earthquake of 1906]] was used by numerous Chinese immigrants to get in the USA despite the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act_(United_States) Chinese Exclusion Act]].
* Today, many agencies that require documentation will make allowances for anyone from New Orleans or Haiti. So, y'know, if you needed a fake background...

* In ''AceAttorney'' Melissa Foster claims that she has no identity papers because she recently fled an unnamed country that had exploded into civil war. [[spoiler:Of course by now you already know she's Dahlia Hawthorne so the lie is revealed quickly.]]

* Averted in ''[[TenchiMuyo Tenchi in Tokyo]]''. [[spoiler:Sakuya Kumashiro is a "shadow" created by Yugi, and inserted into Tenchi's class -- all of her classmates are given FakeMemories of her being the most popular girl in school, but she herself has ''no'' memories at all of any period before she met Tenchi. She doesn't even realize this until Tenchi starts inquiring into her background late in the series.]]

-->-- ''BattlestarGalactica'', "Flesh and Bone"

* Inverted in the ''MassEffect'' self-insert ''TroperWorks/MassVexations''. AuthorAvatar Art arrives in the ''ME'' universe, and knows that nobody will believe him if he tells them he literally teleported into the Citadel from an alternate dimension where everything that Art now sees around him was part of a video game. Thus, he makes up a cover story about having taken a ton of stims before smuggling himself onto a ship headed to the Citadel to avoid suspicion. He's not actually a mole for anyone, fortunately.

* [[{{WITCH}} W.I.T.C.H.]] - the sob story that Miranda gives Elyon.

* In ''SS-GB'' the hero finds a fake ID on a member of LaResistance. The town listed as his birthplace had its records office destroyed in the war. The hero notes that lots of fake [=IDs=] use that town.

* ''BattlestarGalactica'' is the former TropeNamer via [[TomatoInTheMirror Sharon "Boomer" Valerii]], whose "family" perished in the (formerly) eponymous mining accident on Troy. She believed it, and even kept pictures of it [[BrokenMasquerade post tomato]] for a while.

* Interesting variation in ''TalesOfPhantasia''. Early in the game, the party meets a girl named Ria, who wants them to help her get revenge on a guy named Demitel for killing her family. When the party finally meets Demitel, he reveals that he killed the entire family, including Ria. After you beat Demitel, the whole truth comes out - Ria was [[spoiler:borrowing the body of her friend Arche, whose name was dropped earlier, to avenge her family, after which she passes on and Arche becomes the party's BlackMagicianGirl.]]

* ''BattlestarGalactica'' is the former TropeNamer via [[TomatoInTheMirror Sharon "Boomer" Valerii]], whose "family" perished in the eponymous MiningAccidentOnTroy. She believed it, and even kept pictures of it [[BrokenMasquerade post tomato]] for a while.