The Technocracy is winning.
Look at the world around you. The rise of instant global communication and publication cemented our inevitable victory. Billions of people create and share with each other, thanks to — you guessed it — technology. Not through superstitious foolishness or bullshit technomagic. Honest hard work and Enlightened Science made this new world possible.
All hail the Technocratic Union, shepherds and saviors of mankind.
In the last 10 years, progress has taken interesting turns. Writers, musicians, and other creative producers cultivate fan bases and get their ideas out to the Masses while circumventing traditional gatekeepers. One-stop Internet shops offer people access to a myriad of ridiculous little luxuries at low, low prices. Instant communication turns the common citizen into a force to be reckoned with, whether in politics, commerce, or evangelism. Opinions are no longer isolated islands; look to product reviews and blog comments for evidence.
Technology is not just in the hands of the elite, financially or intellectually. Our grandparents have cell phones. People who were once Luddites use social media accounts to keep up with family and friends. Billions of minds touch one another, and because of that, the world has changed: Extraordinary citizens now far outnumber Enlightened ones. It’s a step in the right direction. The New World Order guides the world toward global Empowerment, and it starts with many minds opening up to the barest of inspiration, the crest of Genius.
The ultimate goal of the Technocratic Union might be achieved in our lifetime. The road ahead will by no means be easy; a number of hypertechnology experiments have been flat-out rejected by the Masses, and this world that’s beginning to touch Genius doesn’t want to be controlled. Even if that’s in its best interest.
It’s a truly interesting time for the New World Order. We have hope for the future, and yet, we worry that we’ve created a monster we cannot control. Chaos is as likely to reign as order. Not every Extraordinary citizen holds noble, ethical character. The wealthy use influence to spread anti-Technocratic messages, using the very tools the NWO’s supported. And as we’re beginning to see, once the Masses have a voice, they’ll use it to fight control and oppression.
But the New World Order will do what it always does: forge order from chaos, and protect humanity from all threats — even if that means protecting it from itself.
[OSSR] Convention Book: New World Order (Revised)
Moderator: Moderators
[OSSR] Convention Book: New World Order (Revised)
OSSR - Convention Book: New World Order
This technically isn't an OSSR, as the book was released in 2012, but meh. This book is a supplement for Mage: the Ascension, Revised Edition dedicated to the key faction of the Technocracy - New World Order. These are the men in black, the troubleshooters, the government agents with whom your average mage character will conflict the most.
This cover sucks. The drawing tells me nothing about what's going on, the metallic grey is ugly. It's just weird. All technocratic convention books got very ugly covers, and that's just unfortunate.
The book has surprisingly sane structure for a WoD book. We immediately get credits on page 2, followed by table of contents with understandable AND fluffly names, followed by the intro fiction.
Apparently this book had 5 authors, 1 developer and 1 editor. However, all but one author have Special Thanks dedicated to them, which makes me think that Ryan Macklin (both author and developer) was the one doing all the work.
This accurately sets the tone for the opening fiction
Our opening fiction is a story of Frank, a Hermetic Master of Forces (yes, this is the in-character acknowledgement that he has 5 dots of Forces) who got captured by the Technocracy. The story is split into three chapters:
First is Day 1. Frank is in the Technocratic prison, being moved to an interrogation room. There he banters with an agent who demands to know who Frank is, before revealing that the agent has infiltrated Frank's chantry and sabotaged them, leading to Frank's capture.
Then we flashback to Day -4. In Rio de Janeiro Frank is hanging out on a roof watching the police and technocrats start the raid on his chantry. Then the chantry suddenly explodes, and Frank has a short magic duel with a technocratic terminator before learning an important life lesson - you can't counterspell bullets.
Finally we move into the future. It is now Day 17 and Frank is still being tortured and asked who he is, all answers being rejected. Frank finally boils over and breaks out of his restraints, killing some technocratic mooks in the process. At which point he looks at himself, realises that he's been turned into a terminator and suffers BSOD.
All in all, this is a decent, if somewhat irrelevant, fiction story. It's four pages long, so it's short enough not to get boring. The action scene is nice, but it doesn't set the mood for your typical NWO game nor is it about normal NWO agents.
This technically isn't an OSSR, as the book was released in 2012, but meh. This book is a supplement for Mage: the Ascension, Revised Edition dedicated to the key faction of the Technocracy - New World Order. These are the men in black, the troubleshooters, the government agents with whom your average mage character will conflict the most.
This cover sucks. The drawing tells me nothing about what's going on, the metallic grey is ugly. It's just weird. All technocratic convention books got very ugly covers, and that's just unfortunate.
The book has surprisingly sane structure for a WoD book. We immediately get credits on page 2, followed by table of contents with understandable AND fluffly names, followed by the intro fiction.
Apparently this book had 5 authors, 1 developer and 1 editor. However, all but one author have Special Thanks dedicated to them, which makes me think that Ryan Macklin (both author and developer) was the one doing all the work.
This accurately sets the tone for the opening fiction
Our opening fiction is a story of Frank, a Hermetic Master of Forces (yes, this is the in-character acknowledgement that he has 5 dots of Forces) who got captured by the Technocracy. The story is split into three chapters:
First is Day 1. Frank is in the Technocratic prison, being moved to an interrogation room. There he banters with an agent who demands to know who Frank is, before revealing that the agent has infiltrated Frank's chantry and sabotaged them, leading to Frank's capture.
Then we flashback to Day -4. In Rio de Janeiro Frank is hanging out on a roof watching the police and technocrats start the raid on his chantry. Then the chantry suddenly explodes, and Frank has a short magic duel with a technocratic terminator before learning an important life lesson - you can't counterspell bullets.
Finally we move into the future. It is now Day 17 and Frank is still being tortured and asked who he is, all answers being rejected. Frank finally boils over and breaks out of his restraints, killing some technocratic mooks in the process. At which point he looks at himself, realises that he's been turned into a terminator and suffers BSOD.
All in all, this is a decent, if somewhat irrelevant, fiction story. It's four pages long, so it's short enough not to get boring. The action scene is nice, but it doesn't set the mood for your typical NWO game nor is it about normal NWO agents.
-
Username17
- Serious Badass
- Posts: 29894
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Who actually made these fucking things? White Wolf was dead and buried two times over when these "books" were finally produced. These never appeared in stores, and there are no reviews on Amazon. Hell, Amazon claims that only copy even exists and it is listed as a "collectible."
There's no company behind these, no product, no market, no game system, no fan base. I'm trying to wrap my brain around the extent to which they exist at all.
-Username17
There's no company behind these, no product, no market, no game system, no fan base. I'm trying to wrap my brain around the extent to which they exist at all.
-Username17
They were published by Onyx Path Publishing and made by Ryan Macklin. All four of the revised convention books were made by Ryan Macklin.FrankTrollman wrote:Who actually made these fucking things? White Wolf was dead and buried two times over when these "books" were finally produced. These never appeared in stores, and there are no reviews on Amazon. Hell, Amazon claims that only copy even exists and it is listed as a "collectible."
There's no company behind these, no product, no market, no game system, no fan base. I'm trying to wrap my brain around the extent to which they exist at all.
-Username17
-
Username17
- Serious Badass
- Posts: 29894
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
So they are made by some rando who was an uplifted fanboy at Evil Hat when White Wolf discorporated?Longes wrote:They were published by Onyx Path Publishing and made by Ryan Macklin. All four of the revised convention books were made by Ryan Macklin.
It's all pretty odd. These things don't seem to be any more official than the fan projects on big purple like Princess or Genius. I suspect even less games have been played incorporating them.
-Username17
Well, yeah, but back in the day all RPGs (Warlock the D&D variant, Arduin) were fanzines. This one actually might be good, so I'm curious about this review of the house rules of some rando.
Chaosium rules are made of unicorn pubic hair and cancer. --AncientH
When you talk, all I can hear is "DunningKruger" over and over again like you were a god damn Pokemon. --Username17
Fuck off with the pony murder shit. --Grek
When you talk, all I can hear is "DunningKruger" over and over again like you were a god damn Pokemon. --Username17
Fuck off with the pony murder shit. --Grek
That explains the terrible art.Longes wrote:They were published by Onyx Path Publishing and made by Ryan Macklin. All four of the revised convention books were made by Ryan Macklin.FrankTrollman wrote:Who actually made these fucking things? White Wolf was dead and buried two times over when these "books" were finally produced. These never appeared in stores, and there are no reviews on Amazon. Hell, Amazon claims that only copy even exists and it is listed as a "collectible."
There's no company behind these, no product, no market, no game system, no fan base. I'm trying to wrap my brain around the extent to which they exist at all.
-Username17
Chapter One: History 2.0
The history in the NWO book is split into two parts. First we get a brief overvie of events between 1999 and 2012.
So, in 1999 there was this thing called the "Avatar Storm"/"Dimensional Anomaly", where anyone trying to enter Umbra got fucked with infinite aggravated damage per turn and all off-world colonies of mages and technocrats were lost, along with their leadership. While loss of high command was apparently a non-event for the Traditions, for Technocrats this lead to a period of upheaval and in-fighting. This important state gets all of three paragraphs dedicated to it. In short - the NWO installed a temporary government named "The Interim Cabal" and no one likes them except for the Progenitors. The fact that Progenitors like them makes NWO very suspicious and paranoid.
A paragraph is dedicated to 9/11. No mages were involved, but NWO is panicking because apparently 9/11 lead to massive but undefined changes in the Consensus.
Explicitly not that
A paragraph is dedicated to social media. Technocracy was not behind the social media boom and is only now picking up its slack. The NWO formed a new division called "The Feed" specifically for monitoring and controlling the social media, but the big wigs upstairs think that everyone in the Feed is a radical thinking loose canon.
Yes, you can play as the Facebook Police
Apparently in the last ten years a number of sorcerers in the world increased 12 times. Technocracy is celebrating and claiming this as a success of their model, Traditions are celebrating and claiming this as a success in their fight against the Technocracy. Void Engineers are claiming that this is all because of the spirit nuke and the Avatar Storm, but they are boring party poopers.
The last part of modern history is about the economic crises. They were caused by the loose canons in the Syndicate doing unsanctioned experiments with hyper-economics (i.e. magic). NWO is unhappy about this because:
a) Syndicate explicitly promised not to ruin world economy with unsanctioned magical experiments.
b) Each crisis is erroding people's belief into global financial system which makes them harder to control and leads to more economical crises due to Consensus changes.
And that's it for modern history of the NWO. It's an okay overview of the big changes in the american life and NWO's opinion on them. Personally, I wouldn't mind if the entire history chapter was just dedicated to modern history of the NWO, but unfortunately the other twenty pages of the chapter start at 1210 and mostly goes through boring magical history.
Next time: boring magical history. As an In-Character academic thesis!
The history in the NWO book is split into two parts. First we get a brief overvie of events between 1999 and 2012.
So, in 1999 there was this thing called the "Avatar Storm"/"Dimensional Anomaly", where anyone trying to enter Umbra got fucked with infinite aggravated damage per turn and all off-world colonies of mages and technocrats were lost, along with their leadership. While loss of high command was apparently a non-event for the Traditions, for Technocrats this lead to a period of upheaval and in-fighting. This important state gets all of three paragraphs dedicated to it. In short - the NWO installed a temporary government named "The Interim Cabal" and no one likes them except for the Progenitors. The fact that Progenitors like them makes NWO very suspicious and paranoid.
A paragraph is dedicated to 9/11. No mages were involved, but NWO is panicking because apparently 9/11 lead to massive but undefined changes in the Consensus.
Explicitly not that
A paragraph is dedicated to social media. Technocracy was not behind the social media boom and is only now picking up its slack. The NWO formed a new division called "The Feed" specifically for monitoring and controlling the social media, but the big wigs upstairs think that everyone in the Feed is a radical thinking loose canon.
Yes, you can play as the Facebook Police
Apparently in the last ten years a number of sorcerers in the world increased 12 times. Technocracy is celebrating and claiming this as a success of their model, Traditions are celebrating and claiming this as a success in their fight against the Technocracy. Void Engineers are claiming that this is all because of the spirit nuke and the Avatar Storm, but they are boring party poopers.
The last part of modern history is about the economic crises. They were caused by the loose canons in the Syndicate doing unsanctioned experiments with hyper-economics (i.e. magic). NWO is unhappy about this because:
a) Syndicate explicitly promised not to ruin world economy with unsanctioned magical experiments.
b) Each crisis is erroding people's belief into global financial system which makes them harder to control and leads to more economical crises due to Consensus changes.
And that's it for modern history of the NWO. It's an okay overview of the big changes in the american life and NWO's opinion on them. Personally, I wouldn't mind if the entire history chapter was just dedicated to modern history of the NWO, but unfortunately the other twenty pages of the chapter start at 1210 and mostly goes through boring magical history.
Next time: boring magical history. As an In-Character academic thesis!
All the convention books use chapter header art from Guide to the Technocracy for their cover art. In the same way that all of the tradition books use chapter header art from Mage the Ascension Revised for their cover art. They range from lame to mediocre. The only one that, IMO, stands out as 'good' is the blue-haired chick on the Euthanatos cover.Longes wrote: This cover sucks. The drawing tells me nothing about what's going on, the metallic grey is ugly. It's just weird. All technocratic convention books got very ugly covers, and that's just unfortunate.
Chapter One and a half: Truth in History
This is most of the history chapter and it is presented as a doctorate thesis of a Mind-practicing Technocrat Sophia Pascal, so it is explicitly brainwashing propaganda.
It opens up with a fictional quote by "Terrence Whyte"
Next we are introduced to the idea of there being three main models of technocratic history: elitist, conspiratorial and empowerment.
Elitist theory is basically Great Man Theory and is mostly promoted by Iteration X. Its creator is Professor Tanaka. Followers of this theory claim that all important historical figures were wizards and that unenlightened masses are worthless schlubs.
Empowerment theory was created by the aforementioned Terrence Whyte (who is apparently currently alive) and is the main theory of NWO. It claims that Technocracy is not the secret conspiracy standing above humanity, but a natural product of humanity. Technocracy holds the mandate from the masses and adapts to the changing nature of the world, rather than ruling it with an iron fist. I'm not entirely sure why, but the book claims that this theory leaves no place for the achievements of non-westerners, women, minorities and clones.
Conspiratorial theory is brought to us by Professor Donald Richardson, and claims that history is predetermined. A long time ago wizards with the biggest dicks formed secret conspiracies which set future in motion and everything important that happens now is a calculated product of those (long dead) conspiracies. Pascal doesn't agree with this theory.
Pascal thinks that people who belive in ancient conspiracies are wankers
Now we get to the actual history. Pascal tells us that Technocrats assemble from all walks of life and that the first recorded act of proto Order of Reason (at that time a disparate set of groups loosely dedicated to Christ and modernism) is the siege of Mistridge in 1210. The Hermetic Covenant of Mistridge was expecting a fireball fight and got rekt when Craftmasons brough canons and Daedalans brough soldiers in full plate. Over the course of the century future members of the Order of Reason realised that they can do cool shit by combining their paradox-free science-magics, culminating with foundation of the Order of Reason in 1325 at the Ivory Tower of Yoassmy, France. Declaration is described to be the formative document of the Technocracy and one of the few wizard documents that survived, but we don't get details on what's written in it. The only things we get is that it cemented the mission of the Order to protect Humanity and pledged to be bound by no one but God. Modern Technocracy operates on "don't ask, don't tell" policy towards religion and tolerates it so long as it doesn't create any internal tension.
Then we get a sidebar saying that everything we were just told about the Siege of Mistridge is propaganda with sole exception of the Siege actually happening.
Our next chapter is "Romantic Myths". We are given three examples. Some Men in Black romanticise their past by drawing connections between their black suits and black armor of the soldiers at Mistridge. Some NWO members believe NWO to be a spiritual successor to Knights Templar (who used to be members of the Order of Reason but got kicked out due to their religiousness). Some Technocrats believe Technocracy to be a spiritual successor to King Arthur and his knights. Also Queen Victoria was either unEnlightened monarch who brought great happiness to the Technocracy and inspired the creation of NWO, or was a Templar pawn.
NWO first appeared in Victorian England as the Skeleton Keys, a cabal of magical policemen who hunted vampires with extreme prejudice. This is probably the best part of the whole chapter because I can totally dig playing a fireball-slinging bobby on the dark streets of 19th century London. In 1897 the "extreme" part of extreme prejudice got so extreme that Inspector Rathbone, leader of the Skeleton Keys, got invited to an audience with Queen Victoria and the Skeleton Keys got assimilated into the Technocracy, eventually evolving into the NWO. With Victoria's mandate Rathbone performed a thorough cleansing of the british government of vampires, werewolves and evil wizards.
Next Time: history continues for another twenty pages in "Fog of War" aka World War I
This is most of the history chapter and it is presented as a doctorate thesis of a Mind-practicing Technocrat Sophia Pascal, so it is explicitly brainwashing propaganda.
It opens up with a fictional quote by "Terrence Whyte"
The introduction of Pascal's thesis talks about all the good work NWO is doing and also advocates for scratching out all the negative parts of Technocracy from historical records for the sake of optimism. There's a sidebar mentioning that everything in the NWO is an exercise of Mind magic - from office memos to official press releases. I'm pretty sure this doesn't quite work with Mage mechanics, but still, nice to know that NWO expects you to brainwash quartermaster into getting you the stuff you need and frowns on you failing that.“One can be said to be Enlightened when one realizes the ways in which the Collective Will can change the course of history. Beyond that, there is no supernatural belief within the New World Order.”
Next we are introduced to the idea of there being three main models of technocratic history: elitist, conspiratorial and empowerment.
Elitist theory is basically Great Man Theory and is mostly promoted by Iteration X. Its creator is Professor Tanaka. Followers of this theory claim that all important historical figures were wizards and that unenlightened masses are worthless schlubs.
Empowerment theory was created by the aforementioned Terrence Whyte (who is apparently currently alive) and is the main theory of NWO. It claims that Technocracy is not the secret conspiracy standing above humanity, but a natural product of humanity. Technocracy holds the mandate from the masses and adapts to the changing nature of the world, rather than ruling it with an iron fist. I'm not entirely sure why, but the book claims that this theory leaves no place for the achievements of non-westerners, women, minorities and clones.
Conspiratorial theory is brought to us by Professor Donald Richardson, and claims that history is predetermined. A long time ago wizards with the biggest dicks formed secret conspiracies which set future in motion and everything important that happens now is a calculated product of those (long dead) conspiracies. Pascal doesn't agree with this theory.
Pascal thinks that people who belive in ancient conspiracies are wankers
Now we get to the actual history. Pascal tells us that Technocrats assemble from all walks of life and that the first recorded act of proto Order of Reason (at that time a disparate set of groups loosely dedicated to Christ and modernism) is the siege of Mistridge in 1210. The Hermetic Covenant of Mistridge was expecting a fireball fight and got rekt when Craftmasons brough canons and Daedalans brough soldiers in full plate. Over the course of the century future members of the Order of Reason realised that they can do cool shit by combining their paradox-free science-magics, culminating with foundation of the Order of Reason in 1325 at the Ivory Tower of Yoassmy, France. Declaration is described to be the formative document of the Technocracy and one of the few wizard documents that survived, but we don't get details on what's written in it. The only things we get is that it cemented the mission of the Order to protect Humanity and pledged to be bound by no one but God. Modern Technocracy operates on "don't ask, don't tell" policy towards religion and tolerates it so long as it doesn't create any internal tension.
Then we get a sidebar saying that everything we were just told about the Siege of Mistridge is propaganda with sole exception of the Siege actually happening.
Our next chapter is "Romantic Myths". We are given three examples. Some Men in Black romanticise their past by drawing connections between their black suits and black armor of the soldiers at Mistridge. Some NWO members believe NWO to be a spiritual successor to Knights Templar (who used to be members of the Order of Reason but got kicked out due to their religiousness). Some Technocrats believe Technocracy to be a spiritual successor to King Arthur and his knights. Also Queen Victoria was either unEnlightened monarch who brought great happiness to the Technocracy and inspired the creation of NWO, or was a Templar pawn.
NWO first appeared in Victorian England as the Skeleton Keys, a cabal of magical policemen who hunted vampires with extreme prejudice. This is probably the best part of the whole chapter because I can totally dig playing a fireball-slinging bobby on the dark streets of 19th century London. In 1897 the "extreme" part of extreme prejudice got so extreme that Inspector Rathbone, leader of the Skeleton Keys, got invited to an audience with Queen Victoria and the Skeleton Keys got assimilated into the Technocracy, eventually evolving into the NWO. With Victoria's mandate Rathbone performed a thorough cleansing of the british government of vampires, werewolves and evil wizards.
Next Time: history continues for another twenty pages in "Fog of War" aka World War I
Last edited by Longes on Fri Jun 02, 2017 6:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Chapter One and three quarters: Truth in History continued
So! World War I. At the onset of WWI the current head of NWO killed himself, presumably from being depressed about their failure to safeguard humanity. And then things got crazy. During WWI a member of the Sons of Ether by the name "Czar Vargo, the Zeppelin Emperor" conjured zeppelins full of bombs over every major city in the world and took the planet hostage. This necessitated the transformation of NWO from internal police to external police, and after undefined sequence of events Vargo got retconned out of existence by Paradox. As a result his reign lasted indeterminate amount of time from Vargo's perspective, five minutes from perspective of other wizards, and never happened at all from the perspective of the world in general.
Probably like that
Still, world wars were good to the technocracy. Because in WoD the driving force behind world wars were the Nephandi (big E Evil wizards), Technocracy and Traditions managed to make a temporary truce to combat this threat. Because of that contact technocrats convinced a significant number of traditionalists to switch sides, including then current head of Cult of Ecstasy.
Also apparently Cult of Ecstasy was behind 90% of law breaking during American Prohibition.
Our next subchapter is Cold War. In 1947 the formalized theory of conspiratorial history was presented, forcing technocrats to seriously consider that Templars really are behind everything. Apparently this consideration took forever and the results of research are expected to be presented next year - in 2015.
Actual Cold War period was apparently crazy too. Roswell happened and it was a breach of secrecy by Void Engineers. All the UFO sightings also happened and they were also breaches of secrecy by Void Engineers. To combat this problem NWO teamed up with the Progenitors and made an army of clones armed with neuralizers Mind procedures and sent them to hunt masquerade breaches. So I guess all the men in black conspiracies are also literally true.
It was a team of such clones that made a mess out of arrest of Turing, resulting in Virtual Adepts going rogue.
Here we get a sidebar on the changes in relationships between NWO handlers and their operatives and constructs. During the Cold War the standard practice was for the handler to be ruthlessly distant, mistrust everything and sacrifice his subordinates at the drop of a hat. Nowadays the relationship moves towards camraderie, and handlers are supposed to build bonds with their underlings and trust them. That's a nice piece of advice.
We finally move to modernity, which greets us with a character of Yukio Ishida. Ishida fought for gender equality among the NWO as well as for recognition of Eastern countries and China in the development of humanity. This made her unpopular with the old guard and popular with the young technocrats, and resulted in formation of Collegium of Gender Studies. Unfortunately Ishida vanished without a trace in 1996.
For a game set in modern times this is a bit late, but I suppose for a 1999 game Ishida's disappearance is a good investigation plot hook.
Speaking of 1999, the spirit nuke Technocrats used to blow up Ravnos Antediluvian really backfired, creating the Avatar Storm and cutting off Technocrats from their leadership who lived in Deep Umbra. As a result Henre de Lorris, that former leader of Cult of Ecstasy, became the current leader of NWO, which makes many technocrats paranoid.
Without unified leadership Conventions began drifting apart. Currently NWO is most at odds with Iteration X - NWO wants to convert wizards into technocrats, where as Iteration X believes that bloody purge is the only way to go.
And this is it for the history chapter. As history chapters go - it's pretty decent. It helps that NWO only came into existence in late 19th century, making all of its history recent and somewhat meaningful. There are decent plothooks here and there too.
So! World War I. At the onset of WWI the current head of NWO killed himself, presumably from being depressed about their failure to safeguard humanity. And then things got crazy. During WWI a member of the Sons of Ether by the name "Czar Vargo, the Zeppelin Emperor" conjured zeppelins full of bombs over every major city in the world and took the planet hostage. This necessitated the transformation of NWO from internal police to external police, and after undefined sequence of events Vargo got retconned out of existence by Paradox. As a result his reign lasted indeterminate amount of time from Vargo's perspective, five minutes from perspective of other wizards, and never happened at all from the perspective of the world in general.
Probably like that
Still, world wars were good to the technocracy. Because in WoD the driving force behind world wars were the Nephandi (big E Evil wizards), Technocracy and Traditions managed to make a temporary truce to combat this threat. Because of that contact technocrats convinced a significant number of traditionalists to switch sides, including then current head of Cult of Ecstasy.
Also apparently Cult of Ecstasy was behind 90% of law breaking during American Prohibition.
Our next subchapter is Cold War. In 1947 the formalized theory of conspiratorial history was presented, forcing technocrats to seriously consider that Templars really are behind everything. Apparently this consideration took forever and the results of research are expected to be presented next year - in 2015.
Actual Cold War period was apparently crazy too. Roswell happened and it was a breach of secrecy by Void Engineers. All the UFO sightings also happened and they were also breaches of secrecy by Void Engineers. To combat this problem NWO teamed up with the Progenitors and made an army of clones armed with neuralizers Mind procedures and sent them to hunt masquerade breaches. So I guess all the men in black conspiracies are also literally true.
It was a team of such clones that made a mess out of arrest of Turing, resulting in Virtual Adepts going rogue.
Here we get a sidebar on the changes in relationships between NWO handlers and their operatives and constructs. During the Cold War the standard practice was for the handler to be ruthlessly distant, mistrust everything and sacrifice his subordinates at the drop of a hat. Nowadays the relationship moves towards camraderie, and handlers are supposed to build bonds with their underlings and trust them. That's a nice piece of advice.
We finally move to modernity, which greets us with a character of Yukio Ishida. Ishida fought for gender equality among the NWO as well as for recognition of Eastern countries and China in the development of humanity. This made her unpopular with the old guard and popular with the young technocrats, and resulted in formation of Collegium of Gender Studies. Unfortunately Ishida vanished without a trace in 1996.
For a game set in modern times this is a bit late, but I suppose for a 1999 game Ishida's disappearance is a good investigation plot hook.
Speaking of 1999, the spirit nuke Technocrats used to blow up Ravnos Antediluvian really backfired, creating the Avatar Storm and cutting off Technocrats from their leadership who lived in Deep Umbra. As a result Henre de Lorris, that former leader of Cult of Ecstasy, became the current leader of NWO, which makes many technocrats paranoid.
Without unified leadership Conventions began drifting apart. Currently NWO is most at odds with Iteration X - NWO wants to convert wizards into technocrats, where as Iteration X believes that bloody purge is the only way to go.
And this is it for the history chapter. As history chapters go - it's pretty decent. It helps that NWO only came into existence in late 19th century, making all of its history recent and somewhat meaningful. There are decent plothooks here and there too.
Chapter One and a little bit more: NWO Relationships
This will be a quick overview of what NWO thinks of everyone else.
The Masses. These are all the muggles who are not working for the Technocracy. You should protect them, but also be very careful - because of the advent of the internet vulgar magic became more dangerous than ever.
The Sympathizers. These are the muggles who are working for the technocracy. Most of them don't know that they are actually working for the Technocracy, but nethertheless they form the majority of the organization. They are janitors, maintenance guys, secretaries, and so on. They are a security risk and also form the backbone of the organisation, so you shouldn't shit on them too much.
Extraordinary Citizens. Sorcerers and people who don't provoke Paradox. The propagate technocratic ideas among the masses and serve as support stuff in research facilities. Most of them are not told that they are working for the Technocracy to reduce the risk of Traditions sneaking up on them.
Iteration X. Iteration X is very depressed because their machine-god is now inaccessible. Because of that they've mostly reorganised from being the technocratic war machine into being supporting crafters. NWO doesn't like some of the Iteration's ideas and also suspects that certain factions are prone to go rogue any moment now.
The Progenitors. One of the best buds of NWO, but NWO doesn't like how mercantile the Progenitors are with their drugs. The problem is that Progenitors are the only ones with immortality pills and genemods so all other conventions are forced to fork over the money and watch the world suffer from diabetes and common cold.
The Syndicate. NWO thinks that Syndicate got its head too far up its ass and is being too reckless with the money magic. And also that Syndicate is probably full of vampires and Nephandi.
The Void Engineers. Because of the Avatar Storm Void Engineers lost their jobs and are now mostly doing what NWO tells them.
HK-47 would be pretty good at hunting Tradtion mages
Akashic Brotherhood. This is the Mind tradition which greatly annoys the NWO. Use of hallucinogens and gaslighting is advocated before capture.
Celestial Chorus. NWO advocates engaging in (and winning) teological debates to disturb the chorister's faith and make him doubt his magic powers. Apparently Iteration X is best at this because they are all religious nuts believing in Omnissiah.
Cult of Ecstasy. Are more likely than any other wizard to have friends, which a technocrat should use against them.
Dreamspeakers. Hate Technocracy because of the spirit nuke and shoot on sight.
Euthanatos. NWO thinks that they are a creepy murder cult and doesn't really want to recruit them. The advice is to frame the euthanatoi in front of the other traditionalists and use the pre-existing distrust against them. Because Traditions also think that Euthanatos are a creepy murder cult.
Hollow Ones. Are edgelords and that should be exploited. Become their friend and they'll convert willingly.
Order of Hermes. Are elitists and assholes. Order of Hermes is rigidly hierarchical and those above relentlessly shit on those below. Because of that hermetic apprentices are easy to convert by promising power and academic mobility.
Sons of Ether.
Virtual Adepts. They really don't like Technocracy because Consensus crapped all over their virtual reality Digital Web in favor of keyboard and mouse. They tend to be too rebelious to convert so technocrats usually shoot on sight.
Nephandi. NWO used to think that it's possible to use the Nephandi against traditions, but currently believes that the end doesn't justify the means. Shoot on sight.
Marauders. Are bad enough dudes that Traditions and Technocracy cooperate against them. The standard tactic is to drop clues for the Traditions and let them act as the first wave of assault.
Vampires. Used to panic and flail about the end of the world, but that didn't happen. Current stance of Technocracy is that Vampires keep the Masquerade and police themselves so Technocrats don't need to do anything.
Werewolves. Are still alive and a giant pain in the ass. NWO prefers to avoid direct confrontations with them whenever they can.
Ghosts. Are for Void Engineers to deal with.
Fairies. Are mildly annoying.
Hunters. Are generally tolerated and used if possible.
This will be a quick overview of what NWO thinks of everyone else.
The Masses. These are all the muggles who are not working for the Technocracy. You should protect them, but also be very careful - because of the advent of the internet vulgar magic became more dangerous than ever.
The Sympathizers. These are the muggles who are working for the technocracy. Most of them don't know that they are actually working for the Technocracy, but nethertheless they form the majority of the organization. They are janitors, maintenance guys, secretaries, and so on. They are a security risk and also form the backbone of the organisation, so you shouldn't shit on them too much.
Extraordinary Citizens. Sorcerers and people who don't provoke Paradox. The propagate technocratic ideas among the masses and serve as support stuff in research facilities. Most of them are not told that they are working for the Technocracy to reduce the risk of Traditions sneaking up on them.
Iteration X. Iteration X is very depressed because their machine-god is now inaccessible. Because of that they've mostly reorganised from being the technocratic war machine into being supporting crafters. NWO doesn't like some of the Iteration's ideas and also suspects that certain factions are prone to go rogue any moment now.
The Progenitors. One of the best buds of NWO, but NWO doesn't like how mercantile the Progenitors are with their drugs. The problem is that Progenitors are the only ones with immortality pills and genemods so all other conventions are forced to fork over the money and watch the world suffer from diabetes and common cold.
The Syndicate. NWO thinks that Syndicate got its head too far up its ass and is being too reckless with the money magic. And also that Syndicate is probably full of vampires and Nephandi.
The Void Engineers. Because of the Avatar Storm Void Engineers lost their jobs and are now mostly doing what NWO tells them.
HK-47 would be pretty good at hunting Tradtion mages
Akashic Brotherhood. This is the Mind tradition which greatly annoys the NWO. Use of hallucinogens and gaslighting is advocated before capture.
Celestial Chorus. NWO advocates engaging in (and winning) teological debates to disturb the chorister's faith and make him doubt his magic powers. Apparently Iteration X is best at this because they are all religious nuts believing in Omnissiah.
Cult of Ecstasy. Are more likely than any other wizard to have friends, which a technocrat should use against them.
Dreamspeakers. Hate Technocracy because of the spirit nuke and shoot on sight.
Euthanatos. NWO thinks that they are a creepy murder cult and doesn't really want to recruit them. The advice is to frame the euthanatoi in front of the other traditionalists and use the pre-existing distrust against them. Because Traditions also think that Euthanatos are a creepy murder cult.
Hollow Ones. Are edgelords and that should be exploited. Become their friend and they'll convert willingly.
Order of Hermes. Are elitists and assholes. Order of Hermes is rigidly hierarchical and those above relentlessly shit on those below. Because of that hermetic apprentices are easy to convert by promising power and academic mobility.
Sons of Ether.
Verbena. They don't like Technocracy and are unlikely to convert.There are two sorts of Etherites: those who just glue a few brass gears onto something and call it “science,” and those who genuinely practice science before taking a wrong turn. With the former, point out the mockery the Masses subconsciously make of them, taking their views and turning them into the genre convention fringe fashion called “steampunk.”
As for the latter, they’re not too far away from becoming functional personnel within the Union. One of our boldest moves is to offer tours of certain Union research and development facilities to select Etherites. When possible, the tour is lead by a former Etherite, ideally a former colleague. Demonstrate what vast resources and political influence can do to further Enlightened science, then let them go back home to their dark basement labs, and watch the seed of doubt grow.
Virtual Adepts. They really don't like Technocracy because Consensus crapped all over their virtual reality Digital Web in favor of keyboard and mouse. They tend to be too rebelious to convert so technocrats usually shoot on sight.
Nephandi. NWO used to think that it's possible to use the Nephandi against traditions, but currently believes that the end doesn't justify the means. Shoot on sight.
Marauders. Are bad enough dudes that Traditions and Technocracy cooperate against them. The standard tactic is to drop clues for the Traditions and let them act as the first wave of assault.
Vampires. Used to panic and flail about the end of the world, but that didn't happen. Current stance of Technocracy is that Vampires keep the Masquerade and police themselves so Technocrats don't need to do anything.
Werewolves. Are still alive and a giant pain in the ass. NWO prefers to avoid direct confrontations with them whenever they can.
Ghosts. Are for Void Engineers to deal with.
Fairies. Are mildly annoying.
Hunters. Are generally tolerated and used if possible.
Last edited by Longes on Sat Jun 03, 2017 7:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The book is about playing men in black and it is presented from the Technocracy point of view. It doesn't really go into the morality of either side, the other convention books have more to say on that. For example, Progenitors tend to go into seething rage when they talk about Traditions, because every etherite who peddles homeopathy is literally killing babies by making technocratic medicine less effective.GâtFromKI wrote:Is the book about playing men in black, or does this book try to pretend Technocracy are the bad guys and mages the good guys?
I feel like I forgot to finish something...
Chapter Two: Division of Labor
This chapter is about the inner workings of the New World Order, its organization and what makes it tick. We'll start with the second part.
The NWO believes in three main virtues of its members:
* Devotion. Being a technocrat is a 24/7 job and you can never retire. Dedication to your work, ability to keep secrets, and general discipline all compose Devotion.
* Respect. Respect for the Masses, respect for superiors, peers and inferiors. Mages fall to megalomania easily, and NWO wants you to remember that you are working for the good of humanity, not to stand above it.
* Vision. Be smart, but don't fuck up. An NWO who thinks outside the box and succeeds is a visionary. An NWO who thinks outside the box and fails is cocky, and cocky NWOs can lead to some big problems.
Different subfactions of the NWO value different values. Ivory Tower and the Watchers like their members smart and visionary. Operatives, being the boots on the ground, are all about devotion. The Feed is taming the digital frontier and wants the best members with all the virtues, which is why it gets so few members.
What are all of those? Those are Methodologies. We'll talk about them in a moment. But first, where does the NWO recruit?
Academia. Technocracy having the stranglehold on the Academia is one of the stranger things. The Technocracy was born in the nineties and is rooted in US conspiracy lore. US conspiracy lore is very reactionary and right-wing: evil (Jewish) bankers running the world, evil (Jewish) secret societies running government, evil (Jewish) scientists, evil (Jewish) academics teaching cultural marxism, etc. These are all reified through the various conventions: the Syndicate, the NWO, Iteration X and the Progenitors, and the NWO again. The weird thing about the NWO controlling academia is that academia has a strong tendency towards the left. If you're on the right, the horrible leftist academia and their critical theory cultural marxism is a clear sign of their participation on the Zionist conspiracy... but MtA leans left-wing, and suddenly has to try to paint the NWO's control of leftist academia as actually being a right-wing plot. Because science is evil and killing magic!
Anyway, Academia is the recruiting ground for the Ivory Tower. They scout out promising students, move them to special advanced courses, arrange contacts with the right professors, and turn them towards producing the technocratically-approved science, mostly in the liberal arts. The alleged downside to this is that Ivory Tower gets a lot of sycophants and toadies who are only good at sucking up to their professor. Ivory Tower doesn't care.
Police and Intelligence Communities. This is where Operatives get most of their members. Men in Black are spies and muscles, so recruiting spies and policemen helps them cut down on the training time. The Watchers recruit analysts and signal intelligence for much the same reasons.
The Fourth Estate. The media in general is the Syndicate's stomping ground, but the Watchers recruit from the stock of investigative reporters and paparazzi. Morally upright reporters who strongly believe in truth and personal freedom get corrupted with the promises of having a hand in shaping the world for the better.
Those recruited are the best of the best of the best, but upon joining the Technocracy they go back to the bottom of the pecking order. To get promotions technocratic agents have to go above and beyond their duties and demonstrate excellence outside of mission parameters. Simply doing your job is not enough - that's the baseline expectation Technocracy places on you.
But there's also a way down. Small offenses like mouthing off your boss are solved at interpersonal level. However, while NWO forgives, it never forgets. Every single success and misstep is forever on file, and you will be judged against them when the time comes. Major offenses are destruction of property and personnel, for which you could be demoted or sent to mandatory brainwashing. The worst offense is the treason against the Technocracy, and for it NWO takes out your brain and puts it in a jar for permanent storage.
Now, about them Methodologies
The Ivory Tower
The tweed-jacketed nerds at the heart of the Technocratic Union, the Ivory Tower is dedicated to social sciences and formulates the main policies of the Technocracy. It is organized like a university, and like a university it is full of petty squabbles. Unlike Iteration X, the Ivory Tower is dedicated to philosophy and liberal arts. Their job is to maintain the spirit of the Technocracy and build the organization's global policy. The members of the Ivory Tower are generally more free-minded than the rest of the Union, to allow for different points of view in imagining humanity's future. Their Sympathizers are also more involved than usual, because muggles can think about politics just as well as the wizards do, and there's little obvious magic flying around.
The Operatives
These are everyone's favorite Men in Black and the guys you'll probably be playing as. Where Ivory tower is the brain of the Technocracy and NWO, the Operatives are the NWO's hands. These guys are extremely self-explanatory and are exactly what you think they are. There are three subdivisions of the Operatives. Men in Black run around and punch vampires. Men in Gray are spies and infiltrators. Men in White are the internal police in the Union and are the guys visiting you after you commit a thought crime. Also they are no longer called "Men in X" but "X Suit", because Ivory Tower recently aquired a Collegium of Gender Studies and forced them to change to gender neutral names. Failure to comply summons Men in White White Suits.
The Watchers
The Watchers are the eyes of the NWO and operate all of its surveilance technology. The Watchers put CCTV everywhere, tap your phone line, and, together with the Syndicate, buy your browsing information from Facebook. Honestly, in terms of narrative these guys can and should be folded into the Operatives. The reason they are a separate Methodology is that Men in Black and Government Surveilance represent different parts of the conspiracy lore, rather than any sane reason.
The Feed
Our last and newest Methodology is all about the Internet. The Internet is getting way out of hand from the NWO's point of view, and the Feed is supposed to reign it in. They range from trend analysts to bot network operators, to deck cowboys who venture into the Digital Web and shoot Virtual Adepts with their trusty revolvers. The rest of the NWO pre-emptively assumes that they are a bunch of freethinking traitors leeching off the valuable budget, so the Feed is fighting an uphill battle for recognition.
Chapter Two: Division of Labor
This chapter is about the inner workings of the New World Order, its organization and what makes it tick. We'll start with the second part.
The NWO believes in three main virtues of its members:
* Devotion. Being a technocrat is a 24/7 job and you can never retire. Dedication to your work, ability to keep secrets, and general discipline all compose Devotion.
* Respect. Respect for the Masses, respect for superiors, peers and inferiors. Mages fall to megalomania easily, and NWO wants you to remember that you are working for the good of humanity, not to stand above it.
* Vision. Be smart, but don't fuck up. An NWO who thinks outside the box and succeeds is a visionary. An NWO who thinks outside the box and fails is cocky, and cocky NWOs can lead to some big problems.
Different subfactions of the NWO value different values. Ivory Tower and the Watchers like their members smart and visionary. Operatives, being the boots on the ground, are all about devotion. The Feed is taming the digital frontier and wants the best members with all the virtues, which is why it gets so few members.
What are all of those? Those are Methodologies. We'll talk about them in a moment. But first, where does the NWO recruit?
Academia. Technocracy having the stranglehold on the Academia is one of the stranger things. The Technocracy was born in the nineties and is rooted in US conspiracy lore. US conspiracy lore is very reactionary and right-wing: evil (Jewish) bankers running the world, evil (Jewish) secret societies running government, evil (Jewish) scientists, evil (Jewish) academics teaching cultural marxism, etc. These are all reified through the various conventions: the Syndicate, the NWO, Iteration X and the Progenitors, and the NWO again. The weird thing about the NWO controlling academia is that academia has a strong tendency towards the left. If you're on the right, the horrible leftist academia and their critical theory cultural marxism is a clear sign of their participation on the Zionist conspiracy... but MtA leans left-wing, and suddenly has to try to paint the NWO's control of leftist academia as actually being a right-wing plot. Because science is evil and killing magic!
Anyway, Academia is the recruiting ground for the Ivory Tower. They scout out promising students, move them to special advanced courses, arrange contacts with the right professors, and turn them towards producing the technocratically-approved science, mostly in the liberal arts. The alleged downside to this is that Ivory Tower gets a lot of sycophants and toadies who are only good at sucking up to their professor. Ivory Tower doesn't care.
Police and Intelligence Communities. This is where Operatives get most of their members. Men in Black are spies and muscles, so recruiting spies and policemen helps them cut down on the training time. The Watchers recruit analysts and signal intelligence for much the same reasons.
The Fourth Estate. The media in general is the Syndicate's stomping ground, but the Watchers recruit from the stock of investigative reporters and paparazzi. Morally upright reporters who strongly believe in truth and personal freedom get corrupted with the promises of having a hand in shaping the world for the better.
Those recruited are the best of the best of the best, but upon joining the Technocracy they go back to the bottom of the pecking order. To get promotions technocratic agents have to go above and beyond their duties and demonstrate excellence outside of mission parameters. Simply doing your job is not enough - that's the baseline expectation Technocracy places on you.
But there's also a way down. Small offenses like mouthing off your boss are solved at interpersonal level. However, while NWO forgives, it never forgets. Every single success and misstep is forever on file, and you will be judged against them when the time comes. Major offenses are destruction of property and personnel, for which you could be demoted or sent to mandatory brainwashing. The worst offense is the treason against the Technocracy, and for it NWO takes out your brain and puts it in a jar for permanent storage.
Now, about them Methodologies
The Ivory Tower
The tweed-jacketed nerds at the heart of the Technocratic Union, the Ivory Tower is dedicated to social sciences and formulates the main policies of the Technocracy. It is organized like a university, and like a university it is full of petty squabbles. Unlike Iteration X, the Ivory Tower is dedicated to philosophy and liberal arts. Their job is to maintain the spirit of the Technocracy and build the organization's global policy. The members of the Ivory Tower are generally more free-minded than the rest of the Union, to allow for different points of view in imagining humanity's future. Their Sympathizers are also more involved than usual, because muggles can think about politics just as well as the wizards do, and there's little obvious magic flying around.
The Operatives
These are everyone's favorite Men in Black and the guys you'll probably be playing as. Where Ivory tower is the brain of the Technocracy and NWO, the Operatives are the NWO's hands. These guys are extremely self-explanatory and are exactly what you think they are. There are three subdivisions of the Operatives. Men in Black run around and punch vampires. Men in Gray are spies and infiltrators. Men in White are the internal police in the Union and are the guys visiting you after you commit a thought crime. Also they are no longer called "Men in X" but "X Suit", because Ivory Tower recently aquired a Collegium of Gender Studies and forced them to change to gender neutral names. Failure to comply summons Men in White White Suits.
The Watchers
The Watchers are the eyes of the NWO and operate all of its surveilance technology. The Watchers put CCTV everywhere, tap your phone line, and, together with the Syndicate, buy your browsing information from Facebook. Honestly, in terms of narrative these guys can and should be folded into the Operatives. The reason they are a separate Methodology is that Men in Black and Government Surveilance represent different parts of the conspiracy lore, rather than any sane reason.
The Feed
Our last and newest Methodology is all about the Internet. The Internet is getting way out of hand from the NWO's point of view, and the Feed is supposed to reign it in. They range from trend analysts to bot network operators, to deck cowboys who venture into the Digital Web and shoot Virtual Adepts with their trusty revolvers. The rest of the NWO pre-emptively assumes that they are a bunch of freethinking traitors leeching off the valuable budget, so the Feed is fighting an uphill battle for recognition.
Last edited by Longes on Fri Jul 14, 2017 6:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.