Author's Foreword: This is one of a series of posts intended to show what various mage groups believe, how they think, and why they think the Sleepers ought to prefer their vision of reality. It is not intended as a complete picture of each group, or a 'fair' portrait. It's written as propaganda by each group, but honest propaganda. They won't lie, but they won't list their own flaws in detail either :) Naturally, these posts represent my own idiosyncratic views which I believe to be reasonably compatible with canon, but given my memory is at times rather sieve like, I may forget stuff. If you see a contradiction between this or the appropriate Trad/Conv book, it may or may not be deliberate. If you have suggestions for more questions that should be covered, please let me know. NWO and a bunch o' other stuff is all copyright of White Wolf, of course. You can find the ones done so far at: http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/WW/index.html Enjoy! Ascension 2000 Campaign Pamphlets: New World Order So, how does it feel to be part of the Secret Masters of the World? I don't suppose you could tell me who killed Kennedy and where Jimmy Hoffa is buried? Are you all really in cahoots with aliens planning to invade and take over the Earth? Is Scully really a Progenitor? Are you going to zap me with that red light pen thing after this interview? There wouldn't be much point to this if I was going to make you forget it, now would there be? I suppose not. As to your questions, we're hardly the secret masters of the world; our purpose is to free humanity from those secret masters, the 'supernatural' beings who have enslaved humanity with chains of superstition and psychic power. Unfortunately, humanity isn't ready for freedom, so there will be an interim while humanity must be kept in the dark until it is ready for the full light of day. As for Kennedy, the situation was complex. You see, several different factions of our enemies set out to kill him on that day. We blocked every attempt, but much to our embarrassment, Oswald killed him, acting as a lone lunatic. We couldn't stop him precisely because there was no way to predict his actions or for us to even know we needed to bother. We're not all seeing, and random elements are always cropping up. Jimmy Hoffa, on the other hand...so far as we can tell, his death was part of a Paradox Effect from some Adjustments performed by the Syndicate. You'd have to ask them for more detail. And as to the other questions, what you see on television about us is hardly any more accurate than trying to learn to perform heart surgery by watching ER. We are the guardians and teachers of humanity, and the spies the Technocratic Union uses to find the enemies of humanity. Sometimes we act as the policemen of reality as well, although with beings other than magi, we usually turn over the job of arresting or killing Reality Deviants to the other Conventions. We are social scientists, espionage experts, and bureaucrats just like any mundane ones, except that we're better at our jobs. And rather more likely to die horribly, unfortunately. So what exactly does the NWO do? Firstly, we act as the administrators and coordinators of the Conventions, smoothing relations between them and formulating the policies of the Union. Much of this work is done by our sympathizers; it's hardly necessary to be trained in Advanced Procedures in order to see if regulations are being followed, although it can help. Secondly, we act as the intelligence arm of the Union. This is our most famous area of action, spawning legends of black limousines and helicopters, MiBs, the evils of FEMA, and other exaggerated tales. Three branches of our Convention do this work. The Watchers keep tabs on social changes, major events, and the enemies of the Union. The Operatives then take measures to nuetralize those threats, utilizing the special equipment developed by Q Division, our engineering wing. Thirdly, we conduct research in the social sciences; this is the main task of the Ivory Tower. Our historians and archaeologists study the past in order to reconstruct what really happened and to ensure that evidence of the Shadow War is erased from the public record until humanity is ready to deal with that knowledge. Our sociologists, political scientists, psychologists, and economists study how society and individuals work, in order for us to improve both. Their research is crucial to our use of Social and Mental Adjustments to guide society, heal the mentally ill, and rehabilitate former Reality Deviants. While they do not have the glamorous reputation of our espionage wings, they too contribute to building a better tomorrow. Finally, we imprison and rehabilitate Reality Deviants. While our enemies would like to say that we deal with anything we don't understand by killing it (and I must admit that's true of Iteration X), we prefer to convince our enemies to join our Union if we can, and imprison them if that fails. Reality Deviants are sick, after all, and it's better to cure the sick than kill them. Through our reeducation program, we can usually help so-called 'magi' to understand they've been lost in delusions and to see the way to the truth. Remarkably, some of our best agents have been former Reality Deviants; they have a knack for Advanced Procedures, once they've been properly exposed to them. Other 'supernatural' beings such as vampires, werewolves, and the like usually have to be remanded over to the Progenitors or Iteration X for study, as we lack any capability to cure them. Most such beings are difficult to capture alive, however. What gives you the right to label these people Reality Deviants, round them up, and brainwash them? Many of our actions are simple self-defense. If someone walked into your house and started blowing it up, wouldn't you feel justified in taking countermeasures? Yes, but lots of them don't walk into Technocracy bases and just start levelling things. Let us deal with the major categories of Reality Deviants, as our justification varies in each case. Vampires are parasites on humanity. Each and every one of them regularly engages in assault, and many of them kill human beings on a regular basis. They manipulate human institutions to their own benefit and turn entire sections of cities into slums to provide themselves with feeding grounds. They kidnap innocent humans and turn them into vampires without their consent. The law cannot touch them, for their powers let them defy the police with impunity and they often can influence the courts to do their bidding. Without our actions against them, humanity would become simply sheep to be slaughtered as our race often has been in the past. Werewolves wage an illegal war on modern industry and society. They wish to tear down the cities, destroy all business, trade, and industry, and return humanity to the Stone Age. Given there are over five billion humans on the planet, this could only be sustained by genocide on a scale which would make Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot look like children playing in a sandbox. They would destroy everything humanity has worked for. Yet, again, no one can stop them but us. Every Werewolf is guilty of more crimes than the average Lifer, yet, they are beyond the power of mundane institutions to touch. They are a menace to humanity, and we must take whatever actions are necessary to stop them. The so-called 'Magi' fall into three groups. The Marauders and Nephandi are both deranged lunatics who would pour gasoline on humanity and watch it burn. I feel no more guilt in our dealings with them than I would feel in putting a bullet through the head of a rabid dog, for that is what they are. With regard to the 'Traditions', it is more complex. The Traditions mean well, at least by their own definition of well. NOW. For all their talk of mass ascension, they never lifted a finger to bring it about before we began taking measures to clear them out of the way of humanity's march to Enlightenment under the banner of Reason. In the Mythic Age, they exploited the ignorance of the masses to assume power over them, in the name of God, or Goddess, or of their own 'secret knowledge'. They were selfish, and they still are, denying the benefits that Reason has brought to humanity, and seeking to reinstate the Mythic Age, when they ruled and humanity wallowed in ignorance and misery. Perhaps they have learned their lesson, but I doubt it. Selfishness is inherent in their philosophies, which all amount to 'My Will Be Done'. The masses have turned against them, their day is done. Still, with them, we can afford to relax a little. Those who simply sit in their temple and meditate, and do not disturb humanity, we largely leave alone. Few of them, however, are satisfied with that. Instead, they work to undermine humanity's intellect, trying to insinuate their irrational ideas into society, to underdo all the progress of the last eight hundred years, to plunge us into a new Dark Age. Many of them break the law on a regular basis, yet they are beyond the power of the law to touch due to the powers they possess. Those who run wild, we take actions to suppress, making those who do the most damage the top priority. We prefer to observe, then capture and rehabilitate, rather than kill, although in some cases, we have little choice, whether it be self-defense or the impossibility of capturing and holding certain especially dangerous deviants. Our rehabilitation methods have a very high rate of success, although we have yet to refine them to a level where it would be entirely safe to release them to the masses. We are fortunate that our fellow humans remain open to reason, whereas non-human Reality Deviants typically cannot be reformed due to various negative instinctual behaviors which are hard wired into their brains. Ultimately, they are delusional, and we have to remember that. It's better to cure someone's delusions than it is to kill them, although sometimes a rabid beast can only find peace in death. To anticipate your next question: How do we determine that someone has 'deviated from reality'? After all, if these beings exist, they must be part of reality. And some of what we do may seem to 'deviate from reality'. It is very simple. The world can be objectively known through science. It operates according to natural laws which can be deduced through observation and experimentation, laws which are not subject to revision by human will. There is no such thing as magick; magick is simply badly understood science. The powers of Reality Deviants simply draw upon natural processes that are currently poorly understood. Usually, they are psychic in nature, and the various props, spells, and incantations used by 'magi' simply are placebos which convince them they can then accomplish task X, which is actually accomplished by the 'psychic' powers they possess. However, the vast majority of the population does not possess psychic powers. The philosophies of the various groups weilding unusual powers are not capable of empowering ordinary humans, unlike the philosophy of rational science, which because it actually brings a true understanding of the universe, brings benefits which can be enjoyed by all. Their false philosophies deviate from reality and are based on delusion instead of truth. At best, they are training wheels for a tiny elite to develop psychic powers, but typically they simply mire humanity in superstition and discourage the investment of resources in scientific research, which can bring actual benefits to mankind. Thus, we call them 'Reality Deviants', for they willfully reject reality in favor of their own fantasies. Even non-human RDs could learn the ways of science, but they reject it in favor of meandering talk about mystic bloodlines and spirits who tell them what to do, not realizing their condition is viral or genetic and that those 'spirits' are simply alien beings who hardly have humanity's best interest at heart. Our Advanced Science, on the other hand, is simply an extension of the laws of nature. The Masses simply haven't developed it yet. To someone living in the tenth century, a man riding in a hot air baloon would have appeared to be a Reality Deviant, but really, he would have just been ahead of his time. Once we've actually perfected it, everyone will share what is currently Advanced Science, just as what is now Mundane Science, was Advanced Science a few centuries (or decades in some cases) ago. The Traditions say that what you do is Magick, just like them, and that reality is consensual. If enough people believe something, it becomes true. So if enough people accepted the beliefs of the Traditions, then you would be the Reality Deviants. We do not do Magick. Our Advanced Procedures are all grounded in rational, empirically tested theories instead of a priori logic. And they yield results that can be used by anyone, not just a tiny elite, once they have been debugged. I do not chant spells and search out people's true names in order to get power over them. A psych profile is not a spell, and when I read someone's body language to gain insight into what they're thinking, I'm not using mystic sight. Nor will Tinkerbell come back to life if we all clap our hands. If the world could be fixed simply by wishing it so, why would it be so screwed up? You would have to assume the bulk of humanity WANTS to be miserable, wants the laws of nature to sometimes be rigged against them, that humans want to suffer and die. Why don't we just wish ourselves immortal if that's the case? Or will the universe to provide all our wants? They are right in one thing; truth is often socially defined. What constitutes insanity is different in different societies. Witness the way homosexuality used to be defined as a form of insanity in the DSM, but now it isn't because homosexuals gained enough influence in society to have it removed. Or look at the very concept of homosexuality; the ancient Greeks, among whom it was much more prevalent, lacked the very concept of homosexuality vs. heterosexuality. They thought in terms of acts, rather than it having some connection to a state of being. And also importantly, beliefs guide actions, while actions and experiences in turn reshape beliefs. If one doesn't believe it is possible to cure polio, it will never be cured because no one will try. If one believes in an economic theory, it will guide your economic behavior, turning the theory into a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is why we fight the Reality Deviants; they can't really change the OBJECTIVE reality of the universe, but they can strangle the ability of humans to percieve that objective reality. No one developed a cure for smallpox in the middle ages because they believed it both wasn't possible, and that getting it was due to God's will. If the Traditions triumph, science won't cease to work, but people will cease to believe in it, and therefore cease to use it. In which case, it might as well not exist. Each of us lives in our own subjective reality made up of our beliefs, which guide how we interpret the objective data our senses give us. This is why a Vampire looks at me and sees dinner, a Tradition mage shrieks 'MiB!', my colleagues see Mr. Johnson, and my mother sees Bobby. All four have exactly the same sensory input, but their belief system and personal knowledge results in four different interpretations of who and what I am. This is the key to how we rehabilitate Reality Deviants. Their problem is that their subjective reality doesn't match objective reality very well, so we bring their subjective reality into line with objective reality. At which point they become able to function as productive members of society. Many of them are quite smart, really, but they suffer from working from a defective set of assumptions. Fix those assumptions by which they comprehend objective reality, and they will see it like everyone else. But why should they have to? Aren't you basically enforcing conformity to the party line? That goes against the human rights I believe in. Is requiring schools to teach evolution oppressive? Is setting a curriculum so that teachers can't teach that the Vietnam War happened in the twentieth century BCE a way of forcing conformity? Is teaching that Oxygen has eight electrons an act of tyranny? We enforce an OBJECTIVE reality. The Progenitors didn't sit around one day and just decide that Mendelian genetics would work, and Lamarkian genetic theories wouldn't. They tested both theories and determined Lamark was wrong. Are they being oppressive if they refuse to allow discredited theories to be taught? Should phlostigon go back to the schools? And much as the Sons of Ether would like to whine that we somehow 'voted Ether out of existence', it's not true. If we could destroy something that was supposedly all-pervasive out of existence, we'd sit down and pass 'Resolution 6: The Nephandi Do Not Exist' and they would go poof. It's a compliment from them that they think we're omnipotent, but we're not. Requiring that schools teach the truth is not oppressive. We're not talking about schools, though. We're talking about hauling people out of their homes because of what they believe, despite the fact that holding those beliefs is not illegal and that they may not have committed any crimes, and then either killing or brainwashing them into holding YOUR views. They're not our views in any subjective sense. While we're not all-knowing, what we believe is as close to what is true as we can manage to make it within the limits of what can be known at our current level of technology. This isn't a matter of 'We believe X with or without evidence, and we will kill all people who don't believe in X'. We're dealing with people who are delusional. We can prove their views are objectively wrong. And we're not dealing with people who simply sit around their house and think the Earth is flat. We're dealing with people who think science is bad, and therefore our entire civilization must be dismantled now, preferably to the tune of large explosions, and that we all must go live in the Stone Age. It would be nice if we could leave it to the law and to the government to deal with these folk, but the governments CAN'T. If some Euthanatos decides the President is corrupt and has to die, the Secret Service doesn't have a prayer of stopping them. But we do, and we can, and we must. Every Reality Deviant, to a greater or lesser degree, is a threat to innocents because they can back up their delusions with power. They don't really understand how their powers work, but they know what they're doing just enough to unleash catastrophes of every kind. But ultimately, we seek to rehabilitate, not to brainwash. We're enabling them to see Reality as it truly is, not to just turn them into mindless slaves. They have power. They must learn to use it responsibily or they will have to be restrained to protect the masses. Yes, but you're not answerable to any authority. Your techniques have vast potential for abuse to manipulate and control the masses. The masses have been given no choice in the kind of world they will live in because you eliminate everyone who could give them another option. That sounds like totalitarianism to me. If you really want to help the masses, why don't you go public? Why don't you go to the governments of the world and turn over your advanced science? The hundreds of thousands of normal scientists could advance knowledge much faster than a few thousand Technocrats. Because humanity isn't ready for it. There are too many maniacs who would abuse the power of Advanced Science to advance irrational agendas like racism, nationalism, sexism, religion, or ageism. Imagine if the IRA had HIT Marks, or if Pakistan had multidimensional nukes. Humanity would obliterate itself in an orgasm of irrationality. I won't pretend we haven't made mistakes in the past, that some of us haven't abused our power for personal gain, that there hasn't been petty bickering and all of the isms I listed above inside the Union. But we have yet to unleash disasters on the scale that the Masses still inflict upon themselves. And what government could we go to yet? Every government in existence has either done great evil or been too weak to protect itself in the past. All are still guided by too many irrational forces. Humanity is divided against itself, and until we guide it to unity, giving our secrets to humanity would only plunge us into another dark age. Also, keep in mind that much of our Advanced Procedures simply are not ready for public release. Unlike Microsoft, we wait until AFTER we've removed all the major problems to release something. Sure, the Progenitors can cure AIDS. Except when the cure causes your body to suddenly reject all of its own tissues. Or when it gives you Parkinson's. When all the world is one, when humanity is guided by the light of reason and has fully overcome our animal heritage of irrationality, when the Reality Deviants have been suppressed, then we will be able to lay down our burden and hand over each and every one of our secrets, for humanity will be able to bear them. That sounds rather to me like you're waiting for some never- never land to hand over your power. It seems to me that the Twentieth century has pretty much shattered the positivist dream of a perfectly knowable universe and the perfection of human reason. Simply a setback, and only a partial examination of the evidence. Yes, it has been a decade of economic, politicial, and social disasters. We suffered through the Great Depression and two World Wars. It has been the century in which millions of people have been slaughtered pointlessly and cruelly. Humanity now has the potential to annhilate itself. But it has also been the century in which the material and social wellbeing of humanity has advanced in uncountable ways. Dozens of diseases are now extinct, on the endangered list, or at least treatable which could not be stopped before. Men have landed on the Moon, and once we perfect our space ships, humanity will be free to explore the entire universe. We've learned from the Great Depression, and we can ensure its like will never come again. Humanity's control over its world continues to grow every day. People have vastly more options for entertainment, for travel, for education. But this advance can only continue if humanity continues to believe that progress is possible. If we despair, then we will stop trying, and progress will cease. You cannot learn if you refuse to make an effort. And if you abuse what you have learned, it can be far worse than ignorance was. That is why we, the NWO, are important to the Technocracy. It is our job to guide humanity down the path of progress, to overcome all the social problems which Technology can create as well as to cure, to create a world in which technology will be used responsibly. After all, simply inventing new technology is utterly irresponsible if one does not have some idea what effect it would have on society. We could completely mechanize industry today if we wanted to by leaking Iteration X's industrial production technology, but it would throw hundreds of millions of people out of work world wide and trigger utter economic catastrophe that would make the Great Depression look like a pothole in comparison. Instead, we nudge society towards a state where it is ready to absorb new technologies in a responsible manner. Of course, sometimes things get out of hand. The Masses are not stupid, and eventually, normal scientists would duplicate all of our technology even if we ceased to exist. So at times, technologies are unleashed which can have massively disruptive effects, such as nuclear weapons. This is why we sometimes suppress mundane inventions; it is because we know that society is not ready for them, and they would do more havoc than good. There was a time when we were not so aware of this, our predecessors, the Cabal of Pure Thought, allowed the Syndicate to push through the Industrial Revolution faster than was wise, because they failed to really think about possible negative consequences. This failure helped to expose massive problems in their world view, which played a major role in why they were forced to disband in the nineteenth century. They were unable to adapt to the new world of progress and still clung to outmoded ideas. And so they were removed. But what gives you the right to stop the masses from inventing things? Or to decide when inventions will be allowed to go forward? We've tried a more hands off approach, and it has repeatedly led to disasters. Laissez faire is dead, even if the Syndicate periodically tries to revive the corpse. We will not risk more world wars, another Great Depression, or something even more prone to potentially wiping out humanity than nuclear weapons. Or even a lesser disaster like thallomide. If humanity was ready to regulate itself, we would gladly lay down this burden, but it is not. If you need proof, you can simply study history or watch the news for a few days. We are the only organization that can be truly fair and enforce our decisions. I recognize it is often not fair to the inventors, but humanity is far more important than individuals. Humanity has entered its adolescence; more intelligent than children, they still have not reached the level of maturity to be alllowed full freedom and responsibility. But our task is to educate and guide humanity to achieve that maturity, and to protect it until that time. So how do you do your mag...Advanced Procedures? Well, in the case of our specific convention, most of our Advanced Procedures either involve psychology, sociology, history, or economics or they involve the use of Q division technological equipment and espionage techniques. I'll stick to some of the former, since some of my associates in the other conventions will probably talk a lot about the various Procedures that technology makes possible. Let's take a few examples. Let's say I wanted to make you uncomfortable. My knowledge of body language would enable me to read your body language, then to adjust mine until I found some action which would make you uncomfortable. If I possessed a proper psych profile, I could play your emotions like a violin in that manner, and 'control your mind' by pushing the right mental buttons. I could also say things which would influence your behavior because I would know what motivates you and drives you. If I needed to motivate a crowd, I could draw upon my sociological training to deduce the social makeup and tendencies of the group, then apply my knowledge of group dynamics to take actions which would guide it towards the actions I wished it to take. A combination of psychology, sociology, subliminal messages, and writing skills could enable me to do the same in a print or film medium. Combining various disciplines, I could try to predict future events by using the laws of human nature to extrapolate from present conditions, or reverse engineer the equations to see what must have happened in the past. Such work yields only probabilities at present, but one day we will tighten it up to an exact science. At a more abstract level, many of our procedures function by either altering people's belief systems so that they will act in the ways their new beliefs dictate, or by using their current belief systems as a trigger mechanism to produce desired behavior or retard unwanted actions. We also manipulate the flow of information to the senses, both personal and societal. Why kill someone when you can cancel their credit cards, wipe out their bank accounts and social security numbers, and destroy their driver's and voting registration records so that to society, they have ceased to exist? While reality is objective, it is the set of subjective personal beliefs held by each person which guides their actions, and thus the NWO seeks to liberate people by bringing those subjective personal beliefs as close to reality as possible, and which enable us to move the masses by reinforcing, destroying, or altering them. I suppose asking you how you would cure my lung cancer would be a waste of time. Yes. I could make you think you were well, but I'd really recommend you go see a Progenitor or a doctor. Had to ask. So what would your ideal world be like? All of humanity would be united under one government, and all education would be free. It would be a direct democracy, for the technology to facilitate such would exist, and all adults would possess the maturity and education such a system of government requires. Representative democracy is fine for now, but it is only necessary because most people are too stupid and uneducated to directly govern themselves, thus necessitating them hiring a professional to do the work of government for them. It would be federalized, to reflect that while humanity needs unity, each region would be best suited to judge its own needs and desires within the limits dictated by the needs of the whole. Eventually, as humanity spread to other planets, the federal principle would be extended upwards to encompass entire worlds in a galactic league. Rights would be protected by a written code of truly human rights enforced by an impartial judiciary. I'd discuss these rights in detail, but such issues remain highly debated within the Technocracy, so I'll just say everyone would be given as much freedom as was compatible with the needs of society, the rights of others, and known objective truth. Even when objective truth is known, many things remain entirely a matter of personal taste, from clothing styles to one's preferences in food and entertainment to one's political beliefs to whether one desires to have children. Still, personal responsibility for one's actions would remain a keynote as well. One has both rights and duties, and one must earn what one recieves. There is no such thing as a free lunch--just look at the laws of thermodynamics. Everyone would work and carry their own weight. Those who refuse to work would be put to work or left to starve. Currently, this dream remains utopian because humanity lacks the maturity to create and maintain such a society, but that is the goal we are working towards. This is a war, and in times of war, some liberties must be sacrificed, but when peace comes, then all will be as free as is compatible with maintaining civilization and knowledge of objective truth. So what's this business about Queen Victoria founding the NWO? And what relationship did you have to the Cabal of Pure Thought? That is a truly tangled question, and history is not my personal specialty, but I'll give it my best shot. The Cabal of Pure Thought began as a Celestial Chorus faction which was at variance with the methods of operation of the Chorus. The Chorus prefered platitudes to certainty, withdrawal from a corrupt world to engagement with it, allowing the Masses to do whatever they liked politically, as long as the Church's priviledges were maintained. The Cabal thought otherwise. They believed in One God, One World, One Truth. They wanted to restore the Adamite Monarchy, in which all of humanity was ruled by a single government which had a covenant with God that would lay out a clear code of moral behavior and religious duties. They joined the Order of Reason because they were kicked out of the Celestial Chorus for criticizing how it largely left the masses to suffer physically; the COPT was concerned with salvation, but they saw themselves as called to aid the masses both materially and spiritually, rather than to denigrate the material world as the Celestial Chorus did. For several centuries, the Cabal of Pure Thought served as one of the keystones of the Order of Reason, but beginning with the Reformation, the Order began its three century decline. The Cabal had hoped to use the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church as the keystone of its vision of One God, One World, One Truth. The Reformation shattered both, disgracing the Cabal, which never really found a replacement for either. For the next three hundred years, the Cabal of Pure Thought floundered, seizing on a series of expedients, trying to promote first the Spanish Habsburgs, then the French Bourbons, and then the Austrian Habsburgs as the Catholic Kings who would recreate the Adamite Monarchy. Simply put, they failed horribly. The Counter- Reformation failed to turn back the spread of Protestantism or end the fracturing of Christian unity. The Spanish Habsburgs overstretched themselves, despite the Seekers of the Void working in conjunction with the Cabal to prop up the Empire through colonial wealth. The Cabal failed to take the High Guild's advice, and so despite its resources, Bourbon France never achieved its commercial potential. Having destroyed the Craftmasons, the High Guild then turned itself to teaching the Cabal a lesson by demonstrating in England how well its methods could work. The Cabal failed to listen, and bouyed up by the advance of the Austrians against the Turks, changed bases of operation and left the French Monarchy to its own devices. The French Revolution destroyed what power they still possessed there. The Cabal was demoralized, and the Enlightenment had convinced a splinter group within it to experiment with non- religious forms of building global unity. Many of them turned against monarchy and took on republican ideals, though none were really ready to say the masses should rule themselves through democracy. This group was further convinced by the American Revolution of the validity of their ideas (Much as we'd like to claim we caused the American Revolution, the NWO as we know it didn't exist yet, and the Cabal of Pure Thought were not democrats by any stretch of the word. I wouldn't be surprised if the Syndicate played a role, though.) and tried to carry them out in France. The successes and disasters of the French Revolution convinced the rest of the Order of Reason that it was time for a change. That change, however, was slow to come. The Cabal continued to fumble its way through the nineteenth century, but it was becoming more and more out of date, more and more of a liability. Only the lack of agreement within the Order of Reason as to what to replace the COPT with kept it in existence. Not until the 1880s, when Inspector Rathbone of Scotland Yard, who led a 'conspiracy of reason', the Skeleton Keys, who were dedicated to wiping out the supernatural menaces that haunted London, met Reginald Proctor, a major leader of the High Guild, was the groundwork laid out for an organization to replace the COPT, which was quickly purged. Some of the Cabal's military wing, the Templars, escaped, but they quickly dwindled into insignificance without the Order's support. The NWO then provided the plans for the reorganization of the Order of Reason into the Technocratic Union of today. The core of its membership came from England and North America in the early years due to the fact that the Guild and the NWO were both based from London, but has since become far more international. But what about Queen Victoria? I'd have to kill you if you found out. Uhh... Just joking. Queen Victoria remains the 'JFK Assassination' of Technocratic history. Given that the two Conventions which presided over the conversion of the outdated Order of Reason into the modernized Technocratic Union were both heavily based in England, during her reign, under which England became for a time the most heavily modernized nation on Earth and a shining model of what the TU hoped to accomplish, it would seem odd if Victoria didn't have something to do with it, given she was Queen. Every major nation in Europe was ruled by one of her descendants, at least nominally, in 1914. Her reign was largely a time of peace and prosperity for Europe, a time of modernization, a time when the power of Reason was finally truly respected. And yet, she was in many ways a throwback to an earlier age. What is known is that she did support Inspector Rathbone's group, and that her husband, Prince Albert, had supported the Artificers. He may even have been one and that his final disease that killed him was a side-effect from an experiment gone wrong. The early NWO drew much of its membership from the English elites, who followed the ethic of the 'gentlemanly professional', which Victoria did support. It soon was taken over by those it recruited from among the Fabians, who she would have had less liking for. Some conspiracy freaks go so far as to claim she was secretly an Enlightened member of the Order of Reason and that she single-handedly engineered the Order's transformation. I find this rather implausible, but given the damage done to our records when the Virtual Adepts betrayed us, we may never know. Any closing comments you'd like to make? Not going to ask me what we think of everyone else? I think you've made that pretty clear. Then I'll spend a few seconds discussing the other Conventions, who I haven't really discussed, before I make my closing statements. The Void Engineers are the ones we have the most trouble with, simply because the Voids spend too much time out in space, and have forgotten the consequences of allowing progress to run at too high a pace. Thus, they cannot understand why we don't immediately arm every nation with spaceships and high technology, and start a intergalactic space race. It's very simple: humanity would use the technology to spread its petty nationalistic bickerings across the entire universe. The thought of that is almost enough to make me become a Luddite. They have to be reined in; humanity won't be ready to spread beyond its solar system in mass until it first unites itself. There is a faction within our ranks which believes the best way to unite humanity is to go forth and provoke an interstellar war with one of the alien races the Void Engineers have located, pointing to the ways in which humans overcome their petty bickering in times of war. I myself am inclined to think this would lead to abject disaster and that the unity of war would collapse when peace came. Iteration X often suffers the same problem, but can offer humanity more immediate benefits than the Voids. They are also more willing to listen to us than the Void Engineers are. Still, they too are loose cannons quite frequently. I often worry that some of their experiments with cyborging and robotics may get out of hand....they often forget that the human mind is a more powerful tool than any machine, and that by joining themselves with electronics, they make themselves vulnerable to Advanced Procedures that control machines. If I had a dollar for every time I've seen a reality deviant take control of an Iteration Xer's cyberarm and beat him unconscious with it, or reprogram his DEI to believe that the rats, cats, and snakes have formed a conspiracy against mankind, I'd be a Syndicate Chairman by now. The Progenitors, on the other hand, are usually fairly model scientists with much more awareness of the potential social consequences of their discoveries; the massive outcry that surrounded the proposal of the theory of evolution and the fact that as doctors, many of them deal with normal human beings far more regularly than the Voids or Iteration X, has helped them to have a clearer understanding of how science impacts society. They do excellent work. The Syndicate, like us, truly understands how technology impacts the masses. Unfortunately, unlike us, they are sometimes blinded by greed. Many of them become lost in the pursuit of profit and largely forget the objectives of the Technocratic Union. It was by listening to them that the unfortunate side effects of the Industrial Revolution were allowed to last for far too long, and it was their internal squabbling which helped to ignite World War I and the Great Depression. Still, they have cleaned up their act somewhat, and even at their worst, they have done less harm than the Reality Deviants do on a regular basis. In conclusion, I say that we are the guardians, teachers, and guides of humanity. Our purpose is to one day empower the masses to take full control of the universe and themselves through the power of Reason. That day has not yet come, but we will shepherd them until the time comes when all are guided by rationality to a true understanding of objective reality. Every barrier, every foolish belief which holds humanity back from unity, peace, and progress through science, will be broken down by us and our allies in the Technocratic Union. Belief governs action, so it is our duty to instil right belief to produce right action. We do it because it must be done if humanity is to progress instead of regress, and no one else can. Sometimes it is a dirty business, but the good of the many outweighs the good of the few or the one, regardless of what Star Trek and the Traditions may tell you. The day when we are no longer necessary will be our most shining hour, and we work to make ourselves obselete, for one day, all of humanity will be a technocractic union. One world, one humanity, one government, one truth, one hope, is what we offer to the world. Will you open your eyes to the truth, or will you shroud your mind in delusions and darkness?