Mage: The Ascension, Technocracy and science

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why is Mage even a thing in WoD? Like, at all?

[Winnah]

Because someone decided to take the 'themes' and cosmology from the Werewolf game and apply it to (presumably unintentional) parodies of various occult and mystical tradtions.

I'm not sure if there is intentional dramatic irony being crafted for the protagonists of the game, who are supposedly responsible for the defense of magic and myth against the oppressive, static and safe paradigm of predictability and control...

They're named the Traditions, for fuck's sake and some circles have been holding onto their respective paradigms since the dawn of antiquity, but whatever; progress is bad, m'kay.

[Username17]

Why is Mage even a thing in WoD? Like, at all?

Vampire started as "Ars Magica: 1999". The idea was that the various groups of mages were underground and involved in conspiracies and shit. That got a major overhaul with the success of Ravenloft into the "Gothic Horror" game we know today. But being all about the mages was the original plan.

With Werewolf, Rein*Hagen got more overtly philosophical and political and Bill Bridges was pretty much allowed to go batshit fucking nuts. With the third piece, Bill Bridges was able to do essentially whatever he wanted and it turns out that what he wants is to go on long anti-intellectual rants.

But the core answer to your question is the White Wolf started as a group of people that did Ars Magica crap and the entire Vampire line was created based off the question "What if some of these mages were vampires?" To go back and make mages who were called mages was literally always the plan. From before Masquerade was even a thing.

And then it's so pretentious and weird because Bill Bridges is pretentious and weird. For fuck's sakes, here's his ending note for nWoD Mage:

And so, once more, we come to the end. A sort of well-deserved sleep after being Awake for a time, perchance to dream anew. As a certain fictional archmaster of Time said, “Nothing ever ends.” This Mage is ending, but your Mage can go on. That’s the wonder of roleplaying games – unfettered imagination to a degree unknown in traditional forms of storytelling. Okay, it sounds silly and pretentious, but roleplaying is a form of will-working. Every participant can change the story, mold what happens, and so shape time. Sure, it’s not too different from what an author does when he sits down to write, but in an rpg, anyone can do it in collaboration with others and on the fly. There’s no time for revisions and second drafts – in the heat of the game, what happens happens. An rpg session is a spontaneous group spell.

While I haven’t personally guided Mage’s line of game books for a while now, I’m damn pleased with the quality and imagination of every book in the line. Every book has made me want to play a new character – even a Seer of the Throne or a Banisher. Mage: the Awakening was launched as a step away from its Ascended predecessor, as a more purposefully occult setting, one that fit better into the murkier and more mysterious World of Darkness of its new siblings. It also aimed to provide a magic system that was less daunting to new players but still retained a wide-open malleability, one that both represented that hoary old trope of the “laws” of magic and the sheer, unbridled creativity of a will-worker. I like to think it succeeded in these goals, these purposes, these teloi. But don’t take my word for it – judging from sales figures, it was quite well received, despite some grumblings about Atlantis.

Ah, Atlantis. I’m pleased that the exegesis on that fabled isle’s legendry throughout history, as presented in Secrets of the Ruined Temple, better established its place in the setting not so much as the literal, historical realm of some New Age crystal gazers, but as a primordial archetype of the Magical City on the Hill, a Supernal idea casting many distorted reflections into the Fallen World. A memory of what was lost. A legend of the Fall.

Excuse me as I get this out of my system: Certain Forces have worked to bring us to this moment, but Mage is Primed to continue in the Minds of its players. While I can’t reveal what Time holds for Mage, I suspect Fate will conspire to revisit the Spaces it chartered. Think of this not as a Death but a new form of Life, in the hands of those who love it most. Its Spirit lives on with its players, and that’s what Matters.

All right, enough with the analogies. I’m supposed to be writing a farewell here, and this is becoming an elegy for something that’s not really going away. The books will still be here, even if in the years to come they’ll be primarily accessible to new players as PDF downloads — digital traces rather than ink on paper. In a sense, Mage is becoming more Supernal. Its truths will continue to emanate from its world of ideas into the games of its players.

I hope you continue to peel back the Veil of the Mysteries.

Stay Awake,
Bill Bridges
August 2009

-Username17

[Occluded Sun]

No.
Mage runs off the idea that belief shapes reality - there is no objective reality

More accurately, Mage runs on the idea that most of the things people consider to be real and absolute, aren't. That doesn't mean that there is no objective reality, it's that it's not what most people think it is.

And yes, the scientific method is as good as any other method of understanding the universe. It's better at coping when the universe behaves in ways you don't expect than some other methods, and worse at making 'reality' conform to expectations than some, too. But overall, there isn't a best way, or even a better one.

The Technocracy doesn't follow the scientific method - at least, not the higher-ups orchestrating everything. They manipulate evidence to control people who do follow the method. It's a strategy with some pretty obvious weaknesses, but it does allow them to benefit from the advantages of science while exploiting some of its limitations.

[Longes]

No.
Mage runs off the idea that belief shapes reality - there is no objective reality

More accurately, Mage runs on the idea that most of the things people consider to be real and absolute, aren't. That doesn't mean that there is no objective reality, it's that it's not what most people think it is.

And yes, the scientific method is as good as any other method of understanding the universe. It's better at coping when the universe behaves in ways you don't expect than some other methods, and worse at making 'reality' conform to expectations than some, too. But overall, there isn't a best way, or even a better one.

The Technocracy doesn't follow the scientific method - at least, not the higher-ups orchestrating everything. They manipulate evidence to control people who do follow the method. It's a strategy with some pretty obvious weaknesses, but it does allow them to benefit from the advantages of science while exploiting some of its limitations.

Things that are clear about Mage universe:
-Everything is made out of Quintessence.
-Avatars are angel corpses that got attached to human souls (yes, really).

Things that are not clear:
-Everything else.

For example, in Sorcerer's Crusade, set during the renaissance, firearms are a Forces effect. They stop working if you go exploring america, because firearms are not a part of the local paradigm yet. From this we can conclude that laws of physics in Mage are made out of delicious jelly and don't actually exist.


I have to disagree with Frank though. World ruled by, say, Order of Hermes is not the world where dickwolfs from the fourth dimension raid your village on tuesdays. No, it's the world where your TV works because the engineer alligned essences of Air and Fire in a special way.

[Occluded Sun]

Things that are clear about Mage universe:
-Everything is made out of Quintessence.
-Avatars are angel corpses that got attached to human souls (yes, really).

Things that are not clear:
-Everything else.

I'm afraid you're quite right. The games that people came up with after reading Mage are far more interesting than the actual game in the text, which is pretty incoherent generally and nonsensical in many specific places.

One of the biggest problems is that while there are rules for resolving generic mundane situations, there are really no mechanical descriptions for paradigms; there aren't even guidelines. People were just expected to come to their own conclusions about all of the important things the game was supposed to be about.

Except for those places where an implied paradigm was written into the descriptions of the Spheres, of course. A big problem was that the rules-writers don't seem to have any solid grasp on either different occult schools or actual science. The quoted game text on the Matter Sphere in the oMage/nMage thread showcases it nicely: Matter 2 can't synthesize radioactive elements (which requires Forces) yet supposedly technomages can turn hydrogen into helium. Which necessarily involves nuclear reactions.

[Longes]

Matter 2 can't synthesize radioactive elements (which requires Forces) yet supposedly technomages can turn hydrogen into helium. Which necessarily involves nuclear reactions.

It doesn't, because magic. When I run Mage, if a player wants to turn something into some specific element, then I ask for Int+Science check for the character to know what "plutonium" is, and get actual plutonium and not a glowing green rock.

[Occluded Sun]

It requires nuclear reactions *in the paradigm of modern science*. Not necessarily in other paradigms, sure. Which is part of the problem with Mage: there's an implied paradigm in the Spheres.

Turning fruit juice or soaked bread into alcoholic beverages was IRL considered a magical event a very long time ago. Now it's entirely mundane, but (in game reasoning) was once a suspension of the natural order. Same thing with turning milk into cheese, actually.

From the perspective of modern chemistry, turning wood into stone would be a fantastically complex task. Even merely rapidly replacing substances in the wood, as in natural petrification, would be rough. But certain mystic paradigms would render it simple, because 'wood' isn't a complex mixture but a basic substance. Of course, those paradigms would have major problems with tasks chemistry considers trivial.

[Occluded Sun]

I think the tragedy of the Technocracy is that all of the low-level inductees believe in and practice science. They've been shown evidence of things that most people could barely imagine, and so they are open to more possibilities than many people who reject things they're not already familiar with as impossible nonsense. But they're not irrational or unreasonable.

The people at the top, however, don't care about science except as a tool to implement their will. When it's convenient, they'll use it. When it's not, they drop it. And ultimately, that's Hubris - believing that you can make something be true if you only have enough will. It's destroying the Technocracy, and will probably destroy the society the Techs manipulated into being. (Although I hate the "reality is doomed" theme and, frankly, ignored it.)

The Syndicate is actually one of the best examples of this in Mage, as they're the Convention with the most solidly developed paradigm.

[TiaC]

It could be hilarious to have a Mage game where the Technocracy succeeded too well. If they reached a critical mass where consensus reality was not part of the consensus reality and therefore ceased to exist.

[schpeelah]

And ultimately, that's Hubris - believing that you can make something be true if you only have enough will.

Hubris is believing in objectively true facts?

It could be hilarious to have a Mage game where the Technocracy succeeded too well. If they reached a critical mass where consensus reality was not part of the consensus reality and therefore ceased to exist.

Consensus reality was never part of the consensus. It's the secret of the mages.

[Occluded Sun]

And ultimately, that's Hubris - believing that you can make something be true if you only have enough will.

Hubris is believing in objectively true facts?

That's fair. Let me restate: 'believing that you can make anything be true if you only have enough will'. That's the real problem.

Look at the Syndicate. Their giant magical project was to implement a symbolic system to represent value (money), and thus make it possible to manipulate and control it. All fine and dandy - but they've convinced themselves that it's universally applicable. However, there are things whose value is derived from the inability to exchange them for a symbolic counter. As is famously noted, loyalty cannot be bought, only sold. For example.

The Syndicate is slowly losing the ability to acknowledge the things money can't buy as valuable, because they've devoted themselves to the idea that their monetary systems are universal, and if money can't buy it, it therefore can't possess value. Problem is, their ability to persist as an organization depends on some of those things. As they implement more and more of their paradigm in the world, the things beyond price become rarer, and the Syndicate has a harder time doing things. If they were ever completely successful, they would obliterate concepts that their survival depends on, and they would cease to exist. I don't know what such a world would include, but it wouldn't have the Syndicate. They would have made their own continued existence impossible.

They can't believe the paradox in their own beliefs away. That's the objective fist inside the subjective glove.

Just telling people about the mutable nature of everyday reality isn't enough. That doesn't cause people to alter their deep-down models of how things work. If you superficially decide that you can fly and throw yourself off a building, a la Neo, you'll fall. I always appreciated that part of The Matrix. You'd need to demonstrate that fact, repeatedly. And some of the people who observe that will end up clinging to their beliefs rather than to the reality.

If you can really make the rules, you can't escape the consequences of the rules you've made. You can't ignore or disbelieve them away.

[Longes]

Wait, I don't get your Syndicate example. They believe that everything can be bought and sold. How does the disappearance of things that can't be bought ruins their life?

[Occluded Sun]

How does the disappearance of things that can't be bought ruins their life?

They're an organization of people, yes? And money is something that can only be implemented by a society, yes?

What are the concepts that make a social organization possible? What are the traits that social creatures possess which solitary creatures do not? There are quite a few. However, some of them are among those things that cannot be represented by a medium of exchange. Moral and ethical integrity, allegiance to concepts, denial of immediate self-interest in favor of the long view - these are all things that fail if money is all-powerful, and they are all either necessary to a society or necessary to a 'modern' society.

If anything can be purchased with a sufficient amount of money, social organization becomes impossible, and the concept of money will cease to be meaningful.

As even the Mage products note, money was originally perceived as a tool with which to manipulate reality, but the younger and newer members of the Syndicate increasingly view it as an end in itself. And they're doing more and more things like:
* choosing courses of action that result in immediate profit but destroy future profits instead of long-term development that offers greater long-term profits
* abandoning the Mafia-like codes of honor and proper behavior that formerly guided Syndicate behavior
* lapsing back into making 'profits' merely by manipulating abstract financial systems, even though the Syndicate learned the hard way that doing so results in Paradox like the 1929 market crash or the Dutch tulip craze

[Occluded Sun]

I will note that most of 'reality' actually depending on human belief is one of the objective truths that existence is founded upon. It doesn't matter that virtually everyone does not accept that.

Now, if enough people began actively rejecting that idea, deep down, possibly humanity would lose the ability to change reality. So the last gasp of our godlike power would be to renounce that power, forever. Or most of it. Maybe it's not possible for the power to negate itself, it can only some very close to it. And the rare exceptions are Mages. And maybe that's not a good thing, necessarily.

Imagine you've sat down with a friend to play a game of Chess... or Monopoly... or Splinter Cell, or whatever... and you're enjoying your immersion. And then somebody comes up and interferes with the game, moving your pieces around in ways that break the rules or pushing things on your controller. And they say that they're doing this to reveal to you that it's just a game and the rules only exist because you permit them to.

Yeah, but you already know that. And they're ruining your game!

Perhaps in games like Mage: the Ascension, or Unknown Armies, God decided to play a game. And is trying to work out rules for the best system and best setting ever. But some of the entities through which God 'plays the game' keep forgetting the point of the exercise, and try to wreck the process of trying out one set of precepts after another for the sake of 'awakening' the other entities. But the entire point is to 'lose yourself' in the experience. And they're screwing up your attempts to try out different sets of rules by violating those rules, making it that much harder to figure out what works and what doesn't by experiencing the consequences.

Mages are the bits of God that got off-mission and are ruining the game for the rest of God.

[Longes]

http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Technocratic_Union

Their offerings to the Masses were those of free health, peace, security, entertainment and wealth, contrasting to the abstract ideals of the Traditions, like "inner peace" or "freedom". In time, human frailties, like need or pain, would have been eliminated, allowing for the Mass Ascension for all of mankind.

Well, I can't possibly imagine why the Technocracy has been winning the war since the moment it was created.

Also, the key feature of the Order of Hermes is their rigid social structure. So, uh, freedom?

[Dogbert]

Ascension was a game about plurality. The Technocracy's "evil" was in their imposition of "One Vision, One Reality."

...except that their totalitarian regime happened to be the only one who actually bothered in doing something for the masses. The "Mythic Age" sure was a great place to live... if you were a non-muggle, because it was hell for everyone else. Disease, squalor, famine, you name it.

Once all is said and done, the Technocracy happens to be the lesser of two evils, because regardless of whether there's one or many realities, true power still remains in the hands on the 1%, so muggles can care less for an static reality as long as they can live decent lives.