The Hunt for Frederick Langston's Office

"You know, I was in the Investigations Sector when it was evacuated.

Well, not THERE there.
I was in Executive because they have the best snack machines.
You may think they’re all there because of that plain white packaging,
but there’s a difference.
You know those thick ruffled potato chips?
They're my favorite.
All the machines outside Executive carry those flimsy little thin chips.
They have no texture.
I may as well eat cardboard."

- Frederick Langston, from Control

From his dialogue over the speaker in the Investigations Sector, it is heavily implied that he worked there before Hartman escaped. 

"Anyway, I get back to the elevator and they tell me the sector is being evacuated.

They wouldn't even let me go back in for my stuff!

Can you believe that?

I worked at that desk for years!

I had photos on it, my favorite stapler,

one of those good ones that could staple a 50-page report no problem,

a little cash, and some, uh, personal recordings."

- Frederick Langston, from Control

Among other things left behind, Langston mentions his personal recordings. The two recordings in question are "Langston: Me and You," and "Langston: Freestyle". Both of these mixtapes were found in the Shifted Offices. Featuring Langston himself, he dubbed these as "experimental music slash poetry" pieces.

 

Langston: Me and You

"This piece is called 'Me and You'.

It's summer in New York City.

A boy with a wolf's head eats some ice cream.

The ice cream melts. The wolf head howls.

We howl together.

Me and you.

The mayor stares at a bicycle.

A little girl watches him watch the bike watch him watch the bike

and on and on and on

like the ticking of a thousand clocks.

We listen to the ticking together.

Me and you.

A traffic light decides it doesn't want to be a traffic light anymore.

People call it names and it's hurt.

I take it to see a movie.

We have a good time.

Me and you.

People think we're weird but we ignore them.

We're friends now, connected by a moment.

We'll always share this story, even if people don't understand it.

You and me.

Me and you."

Langston: Freestyle

"Okay, I'm just going to freestyle a bit.

My mother always said never talk to strangers.

Always. Never. Always. Never.

But isn't a stranger just someone you don't know?

What if the only thing stopping a stranger from being a friend is that word?

Stranger.

Strange-

-er.

Strange like the noises you hear at night, 

when there is no light,

and you cannot fight.

Strange like a rubber duck

that follows you around

and makes you drop your coffee every time that it quacks

because the noise scares you

and then you have to clean up

the coffee while the duck stares at you

and continues to quack.

Quack.

Quack.

Quack!"

Video

To no avail, a search of the recording's immediate area yielded no findings of his photos nor his famed stapler. Most likely, his belongings were lost when the sector was shifted.

 

One theory is that Langston relocated to the Executive Sector, specifically a desk overlooking the Mail Room. The only evidence that could possibly support it is the frame of a cat on the desk, but there is nothing else that points to it.

My opinion is that most people misunderstood the first excerpt (topmost one), thinking he worked in Executive rather than going there just for a snack. 

In addition, he mentions how he was taken back to Executive for interrogation after Hartman escaped and was recommended a therapist. Although he stopped going "a few years back", she told him to "find a creative outlet", thus giving birth to his experimental music.

 

See above; Langston with two Rangers at the Panopticon entrance

By now, you must be wondering, "When will you talk about Jesse?". After all, isn't she the main character in this fabricated world that Alan Wake wrote her into to escape the Dark Place?

The answer, quite simply put, is NO.

The other answer is YES! Alan Wake did write Control!

"Wake needed a hero. A hero needed a crisis. For the part in the story about the government agency, Wake needed something special. " - Wake Writes a Beginning; Hotline message

From the same Hotline message, "Something to convey an alien force mimicking human intelligence."

Filled in, it would be:

Hero - Jesse

Crisis - Hiss invasion

Alien force - Hiss

I don't necessarily think he wrote the characters into existence, only because he couldn't according to the Dark Place's rules. But, I do think he sculpted their stories.

"The Dark Place power cannot create, only nudge and twist what has already been made"

He can't create new characters in the Dark Place, but he can change their stories and push them in the direction he desires. 

Tennyson Report

"'So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.'

For years, the Federal Bureau of Control has been wrongfully forcing a philosophy upon itself and its people. This philosophy is known to you all as "science".

We all realize that the concepts we explore here are mystic ones, with arcane-thinking required to understand them. Yet we insist on using words like "paranatural" and "parautilitarian" to create the illusion of a scientific structure; a tidy little system. The Bureau is desperate to stand with the close-minded cult of logic and data that has overrun our society. If a thing cannot be quantified, then we dismiss it outright. We live in an age that is openly hostile to faith in the veiled forces governing our reality.

I must remain anonymous for fear of reprisal from the anti-esoteric bureaucrats watching us from their plush offices. Those same bureaucrats, Trench and Darling among them, have been steering us away from the Bureau's arcane foundations for decades now. It is time we corrected course.

"'If you stand with me, share this message. We are not alone.'"

The quotation at the beginning, "'So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.'" stems from the poem, 'Tears, Idle Tears' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Langston is heavily implied to be the writer of the Tennyson Report.

He mentions that his second and favorite cat, Alfred, was named after the poet, which also happens to be his favorite.

 

Ranger Danger

 

 

See above; the two 'robot' Rangers

"I knew the Investigations Sector was a dead end so

I was always on the lookout for a transfer.

When a spot opened up in the Panopticon, I jumped on it like a cat.

A cat motivated by professional development.

I never looked back.

Except for the things I had to leave at my desk when we evacuated,

I did actually try to pay a Ranger to go back in and get those.

They refused.

They even told Marshall, who chewed me out for like an hour.

There's a good lesson for you, ma'am.

Rangers are tattletales.

Don't trust them.

Yeah, you two heard me.

Oh yeah, keep doing robot voices. 

That's super helpful."

- Frederick Langston, from Control

Rangers at the Panopticon Entrance:

Guard 2: "When are we gonna drop this whole robot act?"

Guard 1: "When it stops being funny. Now shut up, he'll hear you."

The Panopticon

Langston's career at the Federal Bureau of Control in 2004, becoming a junior agent, partly due to the fact a family member had connections there. Shortly after, an accident occurred in the Panopticon, killing the sector's management and presumably the Panopticon Supervisor. As a result, he was promoted, "leaping up several rungs on the career ladder". 

While Emil Hartman was housed in the Investigations Sector, he went to get his copy of the book, 'The Creator's Dilemma' signed. It was confiscated and Langston was interrogated due to attempting to contact a paranatural entity. Emil Hartman had turned into a Taken, which Langston did not know at the time.

At some point, he was promoted to Panopticon Supervisor, a position he still holds.

During the Hiss invasion and the subsequent breaches in the Panopticon, Langston most likely was forced to relocate to the entrance where he could monitor the situation from the control panels. 

His current neighbors in the Archives are a little crazy (astral spikes, if you didn't know). 

Comment your thoughts!