Officially, they don't exist. Unofficially, they will be encountered by anyone overly-curious who works for or clashes with the government. Their goals and purpose are often a mystery, and when they are revealed, it's usually a sign that something really bad is about to happen. They are the Shadow Government.

In simple terms, a Shadow Government is a highly secret organization or faction within the legal government. They have influence, but the extent of it as well as their purpose varies widely from work to work. Sometimes they will be officially sanctioned by the legitimate government, other times, not so much. Depending on their role, they can overlap with Government Conspiracy. But just as often they may not be a conspiracy at all, but rather a "back-up team" in case of national emergency. This is because Shadow Governments can fall into one or more of three different types, each one having a different role.

• Continuity of Government Plan, or COG. They are not a conspiracy, but instead just a group of trained highly placed individuals whose job it is to assume leadership in the event of a major cataclysm that kills most or all of the official leaders. If this happens, expect them to overlap with Unexpected Successor. In fact, their legitimacy may be called into question by others, since up to this point, no one has even heard of them. However, they will usually have the military or other important institutions on their side, since these groups were usually aware of the plan. They will typically show up in works that deal with some great cataclysm that cripples the official government. They were very popular in nuclear war or Cold War related works. They have seen a return to popularity in recent years due to terrorism-related cases. They are often portrayed as good and benevolent, though sometimes their level of competence can be questionable depending on their qualifications.
• The Conspirators. Unlike COG, they are almost always evil, and will often overlap with Government Conspiracy, even though the legal leaders may not even be aware of their existence. They are made up of individuals that are not in any public position of power, but who nevertheless hold great influence. They will either be plotting to overthrow the government, use their current connections to make their plans, and keep themselves hidden; or, just as often, they are already controlling the official government from behind the scenes, at which point they can be seen as a super trope of The Man Behind the Man. They may have even gotten one of their members elected to the nation's highest office, or are planning to. Expect the heroes to break their backs and go through a torturous experience trying to expose them without getting killed in the process.
• The Bureaucratic State, or BS, is made up of non-elected career civil servants who work in the government agencies that are required for the government to function, but are often employed, not elected to their positions. Equally likely to be as malicious as they are indifferent to the elected officials, but are always obstructive. They worship the status quo as a god and will often invoke Insane Troll Logic to show why a reform is not going to work. They are hard to get rid of because those at the level warranting an elected leader's notice have often been employed by the government for decades and can easily maneuver the system and dance circles around a politician who is a supposed master of the art of Rule-Fu. They aren't so much a coup as they are a vanguard against any change to the government.

The Shadow Government (or as some Americans call it, "The Deep State") can be felt throughout the setting in a number of ways. Arc Symbols associated with them can be found everywhere from street-graffiti to printed money. Field agents are The Men in Black types who make objects, people, even entire areas disappear to keep the conspiracy from escaping to the rest of the population. Shadow Governments rarely ever have a single head at the top and are run by The Omniscient Council of Vagueness, Black Cloaks and all. If you see an Eye of Providence, expect there to be a miniature camera embedded in the eye watching your every move. While it is not unheard of for this trope to be used for a dictatorship, it's much more popular to use them in a democratic society, with the democratic process used to lull the populace into a false sense of control over their lives.

It needs to be stated that in some countries with parliamentary systems, especially the United Kingdom, the term shadow government often refers to the "shadow cabinet" members of the political opposition who are appointed to their posts so that they can instantly take charge of their assigned departments if or when they get elected to office. This trope DOES NOT apply to them.

Also not to be confused with Shadow Dictator, which is when the official leader of a nation simply doesn't show up in public and prefers to operate... um... in the shadows.

Compare and contrast Benevolent Conspiracy, Black Site, The Conspiracy, The Coup, Elite Agents Above the Law, Government Conspiracy, The Illuminati, The Men in Black, Military Coup, Mystery Cult, No Such Agency, Reptilian Conspiracy, Sinister Spy Agency, Skeleton Government, Unexpected Successor and so on.

No Real Life Examples, Please!, except those pertaining to Type I.

Examples: