Technocratic Visions

By Reverend K.

Iteration X:

There is something in It.x. that speaks to certain people and at times it's not so hard to see. Who among us hasn't wanted to eschew the company of other people in favor of our favored,(and much more reliable) tools. Who among us hasn't wanted to take our emotions and lock them in a box and throw away the key. The quest for love or even lust or even simple recognition can make us do completely irrational things. Life without emotions or moral dilemmas would be so simple and ordered. Wouldn't it be great if the universe operated like clockwork and there weren't any surprises. Wouldn't it be great if things were SIMPLE.What a world to live in. no one would be hungry or afraid or in danger and the will to ascension would be a simple mathematical progression.

Course, it doesn't work that way. Never has. Hopefully it never will.

Each technocrat that has ever met an Iterator has come away with a severe case of the creeps. The Iterators for their part have developed a sort of siege mentality. ("geez.we're only trying to make reality safe damnit...Why is everybody fighting us on this? Even the people on our own side are looking at us like were nuts.") Iterators are the utter extremists of the technocratic world. and as such have the farthest to fall if they ever begin to question. Mecha is perfectly acceptable to them because it works. There are some Iterators walking around out there who would like the whole world to become like an idealized version of the American 1950's

New World Order:

Who was it who said that a man who lies can't believe that anybody else will tell the truth. This is the convention of people who want to build perfect empire. These are the people who want to build a world filled with loyalty and duty to the cause. these are the people who would, if they could, make the world into a socialistic workers paradise. Mecha is shameful,but necessary now. Again, this sort of attitude speaks to some people. Who among us hasn't wished to be able to control our fellow men.Who among us hasn't wished for the raw power to be able to suppress information that offended us, or suppress people who bothered us,or outright destroy lines of thought that were offensive to us, and...(and this is the kicker.) be praised by our higher-ups for doing the right things. Me I'm certainly not casting the first stone... I've wanted to do that to those religious nuts who wanted to ban AD&D.

Most other technocrats come away from meetings with N.W.O. absolutely resentful. Who are these punks that they can tell me how to to do things, how to act and speak and what to think? They run all the stuff that we don't have time or energy for but where do they get off questioning my orthodoxy or withholding important mission data. "Need to know basis", my ass!

"Orwell's Oceania was a blueprint, albeit a bit flawed, and we can make it work if we could just get a little fucking cooperation." is the prevailing attitude. The only problem comes when you realize that controlling your own mind is the hardest thing in the world. Some forms of unorthodoxy are acceptable to a point. N.W.O. is a roosting place for people who dig being in that gray world that is exciting and above the law,it's only when the agent stops being productive and starts being Secret Agent John Courage. Socialism is also an accepted part of the N.W.O.( "Citizen it is disloyal to not contribute your life to the cause.") and while it may not seem to work in this country, China is still a huge stronghold for the N.W.O. If you want to see another form of technocratic ascension, look no further. Actually the mechanisms of Socialism are not the real tool but the thoughts and attitudes are. There is an arrogance to most of the Convention thinking and nowhere is it more prevalent than in the ideas that most people want to be slaves of the state for their own benefit. If they can achieve this expedient by simply saying to the masses, "Don't you want to be a loyal American?" they will do it.

Progenitors:

These fellows are a little hard to take but understandable. Among the Technocrats they have that same sort of monumental arrogance. They have an elitist attitude and they don't bother to disguise it. but behind that is a very real human impulse. We are all subject to the tyranny of the flesh. We all get tired,sleepless,sick,pimples, injured,horny and old...These guys are on their way to freeing us from all that. Wouldn't it be cool to be a true metamorph. Wouldn't it be great to live in a world free of injuries. Wouldn't it be great to live in a world where birth defects and genetically transmitted diseases were simply irrelevant because of eugenics. Wouldn't it be perfect to live in a world where there were no STUPID PEOPLE! You could even photosynthesize your food and stave off death forever. Progenitors see nothing wrong with staying awake for an entire week to solve a problem and they don't see why you shouldn't do the same thing. Quite frankly, many Progenitors are convinced that Ascension could be achieved if 70 percent of the worlds population were exterminated. They don't see this as a step towards Descension. They see it as a natural principle. Survival of the fittest, as it were. Homo Magus takes over for Homo Sapiens and the aberrations are weeded out. Homo Vampiricus and the shapeshifting races become extinct due to their own internal pressures and the rest will be easy to fix.

Most other technocrats come away from meeting Progenitors feeling flawed and weak. Progenitor for their part hold themselves aloof. The others take care of the ascension war so that we can do our research without interruption. and as for the Iterators. Well, they are fooling themselves. Give them enough rope and they'll hang themselves. they fail to take the need of the flesh into account and that's always going to be their down fall. they're children really. Why a cybernetic arm when you could have a real arm that could become any tool that you want? Basically, the Progenitor vision is: What is good for me is good for everybody.( hmmm.sounds like Bill Gates. )

Void Engineers:

These guys should be on our side. but there's is just a couple of problems. First and foremost is their perception of the Traditions as a bunch of losers.They think that most Tradition Mages are anti-tech and that's just foolery. Humanity can no more go back to being non-technological than we could go back to being a hunter-gatherer society. Besides, tech works. and it works the same way every time.(mostly.) try to do a ritual meant for summer in the winter and see if you don't get whacked with the paradox stick. The next problem is there whole Been there-Mapped that attitude. These guys are convinced that there are too few frontiers on this old globe. And they are right. the other conventions saw to it. The earth has run out of cool possibilities(almost) and the only places worth exploring are in the web and out in space. Anybody who clings to the old ball of mud is a fool. Even the other conventions are fools for putting so much stock in the damn war. it's fucking pointless. The last problem is a little bit larger in scope. They've been out there... They've seen a few things. They have the merest of inklings of the nature of the universe and of the conflicts that the oracles are wrapped up in. Believe it, the Ascension war is small potatoes. Between busting a horizon realm of tradition Mages and tangling with CTHUGA FER CHRISSAKE!...Well who do you think they'll pick. Is it any wonder that most Void engineers have a sort of haunted look to them.

Most other conventions come away from their meeting with Void Engineers with the impression that the Engineer wasn't really listening to them. their whole unspoken subtext seems to scream, " look, you have no fucking idea what's really going on and you never will. Just stay out of my fucking way and we'll be cool with one another" Considering how arrogant most technocrats are this merely generates more animosity. The Void Engineer vision is a bit complicated and many despair that it will never come to pass. They envision the possibilities of a world out in space. stations and colonies and labs. They see worlds free of weather,natural disasters,predator animals, pollution and undesirable supernatural critters. They see these worlds populated by smart strong people out of Heinlein novels who are able to handle the rigors of space. And there are some rigors out here... there are things out here that could catch the Wyrm, crack open it's top,and drain it like a Squeezits juice drink... Of all the Conventions, only the Void Engineers realize that their dreams may not be feasible.

The Syndicate:

I've talked about these fellas before. What everybody fails to grasp about the Syndicate is this: It's not about money. It's about power. Money is just a means to an end. Power, absolute power is the road to Ascension.If the other conventions think that it's all about money, well, who am I to disabuse them of that notion Each syndicate Mage sees his fellow Mages as brothers on the road to the same goal of absolute power. Sure it's a little cut-throat, but that's just the biz. It's not personal. Were only in with the Technocracy because they are winning. People want things and the technology makes it easy to provide. if people were Tradition Mages, then they'd just pull out their damn cauldron or whatever and whip it up, instead of coming to us. Hey somebody's got to bake the bread and somebody's got to put on the circus. it might as well be us. Shit. If the Tradition Mages were winning, I imagine that we'd be in line to join up. We've just got our eye on the main chance that's all. Once the ascension war is over then we'll figure out who we need to get rid of in order to run the technocracy. Were the guys who really get the work done. Society itself can't run without commerce of some sort. And if that means we have to deal with vampires and glass walkers and spirits and tradition Mages and Nephandi...so be it. In fact, we are largest repository of Ex-tradition Mages that there is. We've got Ex-Akashic and Ex-Euthanaotos working as muscle and assassins. We've got Ex-Hermetics running huge corporations. We've got Ex-Choristers running Tele-evangelical ministries. We've got Ex-Dreamspeakers out there networking the Umbra for us. We've got Ex Sons of Ether working on experimental tech and we've got Virtual adepts who never left us... We've even got a few Ex-Verbena on the payroll (heh heh, Know what I mean? Heh heh, Nudge Nudge) If you can buy it or sell it, We want it or at least we want our cut.

Most other technocrats come away from their meeting with Syndicate Mages checking to see if they've bargained away any of their fingers or toes or even their soul. And if you think American Syndicate are amoral,venal, and utter ruthless look no further than Tokyo,or Singapore or parts of Europe. the scary thing is that the syndicate has a chance of succeeding in their dreams. as longs as there is a market and consumers. They envision a world where big business and big crime finally completely merge and take over everything. Laws, and unions, and those pesky civil rights still stand in the way, but hey, everything is negotiable.

An overview:

The Technocrats are never going to completely win.Neither are the Traditions.None of the factions with the possible exception of the Nephandi are even close. They simply can't cooperate together as well as they'd like to. Or as well as the Tradition Mages think they can.

1) Their visions of a perfect world are widely disparate: Quite frankly, they think they all agree on the same things, but mention the Technocratic ascension to two separate Mages and they will have very different pictures in mind.

2) Their agendas conflict, as do their personalities: It takes a certain kind of person to become an Iterator and it takes a certain kind of person to become a Void Engineer and so on and so forth. Personality conflicts are common and the result is bureaucratic infighting,politicking,internecine warfare,withheld information, faulty equipment, and outright sabotage and attacks. Heck, if the Tradition Mages new what was best for them they'd leave earth for the Horizons for about 30 or 40 years. I guarantee that they'd destroy themselves.

3) They simply cannot prosecute the Pogrom to their fullest extent: The only ones who are truly gung-ho about the Pogrom are the Iterators and the N.W.O operatives and they can't work together very well. Operatives infiltrate and betray while hit-marks shoot first and...well they shoot. The other Conventions only get involved if they've got a personal axe to grind against some Mage or another. This is more personal warfare and others rarely get involved. Some Progenitor whiles away his off hours hunting Verbena for sport, while a Syndicate Mage vows revenge for some company that was put out of business by some meddling Dreamspeakers.

Frankly most Progenitors,Syndicators and Void Engineers would rather just be left along to pursue their vision. It's just that the vision inevitably bring them into conflict with tradition Mages. I've always seen the Ascension war as a cold war. Because of the lack of unity in the union and the scarcity of simple manpower (or mage-power) needed, the Union can't think in terms of Campaigns and Massive offensives. They have to think in terms covert ops,stable gains,small victories,taking small parts of reality at a time,and acceptable losses. The only thing that keeps Tradition Mages in the War is their ability to make the occasional quantum leap ahead. Technocratic Mages distrust quantum leaps.

This is why low level Mages often escape close scrutiny. Low power Mages aren't considered real threats by the Union. The Union is confident that it can lay it's hands on any low power Mage at any time. and sometimes when iteration X or N.W.O. is looking to justify their budgets, they'll simply go out and capture 10 or 20 Mages they've been covertly watching for years.It is the same kind of thinking prevalent in law enforcement. I.E. "Let this dick-head walk around free and he'll eventually lead us to bigger fish."

Middling level Mages require a bit of finesse, which is why they often get away, although not without some cost. Tackling an enemy that can warp reality presents certain tactical problems that are insoluble. Often the N.W.O and the Iterators solve this problem by throwing huge amounts of force at it. This is called "using a barbell to swat a gnat." and it rarely works. Progenitors, and Syndicators and some N.W.O will infiltrate instead and destroy from inside. But this is time consumptive and far from foolproof.

High power threats require cooperation among the various conventions and this rarely happens unless the danger is incredibly obvious or unless there is heavy pressure from above. A High power Mage can live in a heavily technocratic city as long as he takes reasonable precautions and keeps his nose clean. The idea of acceptable losses is one that the technocracy appreciates.

Of course, you realize that this entire document has been a carefully crafted piece of Disinformation :) Have a nice day citizen...that's an order.

Special thanks to Dave Rahbarri and Corwyn Alambar for inspiring this article.