Origins/Major Influence: Troubleshooters rulebook (this material also appears in Paranoia Service Pack 1 as well), The Iceman Returneth
Description: In the Old Reckoning, this city served as the headquarters of JCN, the software company that developed of the Alpha Complex network ("Alpha Prime") that formed the backbone of the Polity. As a result, it is generally considered the "de facto" capital of the Polity by the Romantics.
When JCN received word that a global die-off was about to occur, they kidnapped all the Computer Programmers that built the Alpha Complex network and froze them in suspended animation. The reason why they did this is unknown; not even the computer programmers know the true reason they were frozen. There have been recent notes however indicating that JCN planned on unfreezing the Computer Programmers once the global die-off ends.
After the global die-off, Alpha Complexes started leaving the Polity network one by one, leaving the Des Moines Complex as the only remaining member. It immediately embarked on a military struggle to reclaim the other complexes and re-form the Polity, with Des Moines again at the head. All the other Complexes viewed Des Moines as a personal threat to its existence and the global headquarters of communism/capitalism/the coming alien invasion/pod people/[Delete As Appropriate]. The entire native population of Des Moines was eliminated by a coordinated strike, and The Computer of Des Moines eventually powered itself into a low-activity state until further notice.
Today, if you walk through Des Moines, you will find an near-empty city, filled with massive buildings and relics of the Old Reckoning, yet no civilized humans. There are however several primitive tribes that live within the city's borders, and they have already seized The Computer and reprogrammed it to act as a mere self-defense system against mutant evangelists (who wishes to "save" the souls of other people before eating them). The city of Des Moines have indeed fallen from its glory days, and would be considered by most people an insignificant, pointless complex.
Yet. The computer programmers of JCN are still alive, buried underneath the vaults of Des Moines, away from the prying eyes of the techno-savages. The Computer of Des Moines still retain at least some semblance of ambition to restore the Polity. But it knows that it cannot engage in an overt war of aggression as it did just after the global die-off. Instead, it began releasing JCN's computer programmers, one by one, with the orders for them to infiltrate the other Complexes and slowly subvert them to follow Des Moines. There is no propaganda needed to convince these Programmers; the apocalypse and the dystopian dictatorships are more than enough motiviation to help bring back the comforting joy of the Polity.
JCN Programmers all have root access to The Computers of the "Polity" network and understand how Legacy code work. This does not mean much though; the post-JCN High Programmers pretty much made a huge mess of the existing Computer code already and it'd be nigh-impossible to apply any changes without instantly getting caught and punished. It's actually a liability, as such skills make the spy instantly appealing to all secret societies, who would want to terminate/recruit/brainwash/blackmail/kidnap/seduce/[Delete as Appropriate] the unlucky fellow.
Spy For Another Alpha Complex: JCN Programmers have one goal: to subvert The Computer and reconnect it back to the Polity network. To do that, they must be willing to blend within the crowd, slowly work his way to UV clearance, and to apply his 'fixes' without getting seen. If a JCN Programmer gets too depressed, he could just "reboot" the entire system and start recoding from scratch, though that could very well lead to a fatal crash that will doom everyone.
There are no real secret society missions given; The Computer of Des Moines is too busy with protecting its actual citizens to micromanage the behavior of the JCN Programmers. Instead, it will try to give "suggestions" to the JCN Programmer as how to advance in security clearance in this Complex. "Secret society degrees" are gained when The Computer of Des Moines believed that you have accomplished some progress on this front, or when you have accomplished major changes in The Computer's code to slowly cause its reintegration into the Polity network.