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. Akashic Brotherhood 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: $yndicate So, you're the super-businessmen--Donald Trump crossed with the Godfather crossed with Rockefeller and J. P. Morgan. You buy and trade entire nations and play the global economy like a puppet dancing on strings. And you control the underworld as well. So why haven't you just crushed out the labor unions and established global rule by megacorps? It probably has something to do with us not being omnipotent. We are indeed the greatest businessmen in the planet, and we can buy and sell small towns. But the market is a double-edged sword that often turns in one's grip and slices one's own hands. The Great Depression taught us a lot about how difficult it is to control, or even to influence. Only we truly understand the raw power of the Masses, and how hard it really is to move them. The other Conventions forget that it took six hundred years before our ideas really began to reach the masses, and another two hundred before even the Westernized nations really began to understand them at the truly MASS level. We're not just businessmen, we are, in our own way, educators, teaching people the value of money and what it can do for them. We nudge the masses, and get them to move themselves. We do this in both legal and illegal ways, but it all aims to our ultimate purpose. We will create a society in which everyone is productive, and everyone has a value that can't be stolen from them. We are the creators of the cashless society that is to come, in which crime will cease and all will see the fruits of their labor. But humanity isn't ready for that yet; it's our job to make them people capable of living in such a society. A cashless society? You mean you're communists? I would never have expected to hear the famous Montgomery Burns say something like that. Now, now, Dr. Warwick, I expect better from a historian. But I will answer it anyway. The ideal communist society was based on delusions about human behavior as the NWO's experiment with Russia proved quite well. Human beings are not capable of the infinite altruism which communism requires. No, our goal is to create a society in which physical tokens of money are transcended, in which each person will have a financial value that truly reflects their talents and potential. It would be immune to theft and fraud; everyone would truly get what they were worth. Of course, some people would likely be worthless, but there is nothing we can do about that; it's up to people to improve themselves, but some are too lazy or stupid. But for many, their true value is buried by circumstance. Too many people could be great painters, but end up working as waitresses, could be great financiers, but end up as garbage men, could be great scientists, but end up as burnt out drug addicts. Everyone would be freed to achieve their fullest potential and would recieve the recompense appropriate to that potential. This will not be easy; we're still struggling with the technical and social means to implement such a society, and much of the world still needs to be brought up to the same level of development as the most advanced parts. Not until we own the world will we be able to carry out some measures, we believe. Own the world? As in possessing everything? A bit of an exaggeration. But to fully implement our vision will require enough economic control of the world to exert political control as well. Some recalcitrant elements can't be dealt with any other way. This will likely take at least another century, and possibly longer. We must move subtly, to avoid provoking any further disasters. While the Great Depression was not entirely anyone's fault, our failure to suppress it taught us a lot about the limitations of our power. It also taught us the consequences of the misuse of economic power in a very vivid way. Humanity must learn to use its economic power wisely, just as it is slowly beginning to learn wisdom in the use of military force and scientific power. But why is the Syndicate involved with organized crime? I thought the Technocratic Union was about law and order and helping humanity, not sending thugs to extort protection money. We need to control every sector of the economy, including the illegal ones. One day, we'll shut them down, but if we don't take control of them, the Reality Deviants will. They also form a useful tool for teaching the Masses about the value of money and about personal responsibility. They provide useful training grounds for our Enforcers as well. The important thing to understand about organized crime is that it exists to supply demands. Those who deal with organized crime have generally chosen of their own free will to do so; protection rackets and the like are small potatoes compared to the money raised from gambling, prostitution and drugs, none of which organized crime shoves down people's throats. The only way to teach people to stop playing with fire is to help them burn themselves. They also provide a framework by which we can tame and restrain crime within cities. This has proven most successful in Japan with the Yakuza, but it has had some success elsewhere as well. So what do you think about labor unions? That's a good question. We tend to be somewhat divided. We completely agree with their basic goal of working to ensure they get as much for their labor as they can. On the other hand, they often get in the way of the profits we need to establish ourselves in a position to make the changes that are necessary to bring about a better society. In the nineteenth century, we worked to crush them, but gradually we came to the realization that such behavior simply provoked needless violence and was pushing the masses to reject the society we sought to create. Socialism was simply another superstitionist movement, this time with a veneer of science shellacked over it. But it was a powerful one, and it looked for a time as if it might succeed in casting us down. Thus, it became necessary to make concessions, and to find ways to work with the unions or work around them in ways they couldn't fight. In the end, it will be a moot issue, since our ideal future won't have any manual labor of the kind which produces labor unions, but that will still be a long time coming. Once we've completely automated manufacture and replaced other forms of manual labor with robots, then humanity will be free to engage in forms of work which don't involve the same capital/worker confrontations which have marred this century and the last one. You want to replace all manual labor with machines? Yes. They're much more efficient, don't complain, and can work under conditions that humans can't tolerate. Human beings should be doing work that requires thought, not work that simply requires picking things up, moving them around, and banging them together. I'm not advocating some sort of neo-aristocracy where we all live lives of torpid luxury taken care of by machines. Everyone needs work to keep them from being worthless. But what point is there in making someone spend eight to twelve hours a day doing repetitive, mind- numbing work once it is no longer necessary? This would free up large numbers of people to become part of the advance of science, art, technology, business, government, and academics. It's going to be decades at best before we can fully implement this, and it'll require Iteration X to work out all the bugs from their products, but it's our dream. That does sound pretty good. But you seem to have to do a lot of nasty stuff to get there, from kicking people out of entire neighborhoods to protection rackets to vice to devastation of the environment. You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs. Yes, we're not entirely proud of some of the things we've done. Some of them were based in ignorance-- when the Industrial Revolution began, we had no understanding of the concept of pollution, nor did we understand the social consequences of our actions. We worked to improve conditions once it became readily apparent that our great work was forcing people to live worse than animals, but that took time; we do not have infinite resources. Most of the rest, I'll simply say that they have been necessary actions. Until we are ready to reorganize society from a position of strength, we cannot eliminate crime. The demand of people for the services it offers would resurrect it. So long as people want drugs, pornography, gambling, prostitution, and other 'vices', we might as well make a profit off it and be in a position to use our influence to restrain the worst excesses. Also, if we didn't take control of the underworld, the Reality Deviants would be in a position to control it and forward their agendas. As it is, in a fair number of cities we have to fight with werewolf controlled gangs or vampire syndicates. Without us, the reality deviants would be able to hold entire cities hostage. And finally, many of our actions are intended to teach responsibility. If you take out a loan, you WILL have to pay it back. If you lose your house because you couldn't meet your obligations, then everyone who knows you gets a lesson in what happens when you overstretch yourself. Money is a great convenience, but it also demands people act responsibly. So how does the Syndicate deal with Reality Deviants? You don't seem like the sort of people who could go toe to toe with a werewolf. Of course not. Violence is the last resort of the civilized man, and we know we'd be slaughtered in droves if we fought them face to face. But there's a million more subtle ways to deal with them. Buy their apartment buildings and evict them. Send spies to get dirt on their businesses, then either blackmail them or reveal it publically so their stock crashes. Find what they make and outcompete them. Find their internal weaknesses and turn them against each other. Indeed, if the vamps and the weres are both present, you can usually get them to go genocidal against each other with a few carefully placed statements and incidents. If violence becomes necessary, that's what our Enforcers are for. They're the best trained fighters on the planet, able to go toe to toe with those ludicrous 'Akashic Brothers' or a vampire. We also arm them with silver bullets to deal with uppity werewolves...or anything else that bleeds. Our SPD has developed some special equipment for dealing with Reality Deviants. And if things really get out of hand, we hit the panic button and let Iteration X run wild in a cyborg frenzy. What's the SPD? They're our 'Special Projects Division'. They're our research wing. We may not be scientists, but we can hire some pretty good engineers. And our toys, unlike Iteration X and the Progenitors' stuff actually works just fine in the field instead of blowing up or mutating on every fifth use. Probably because it wasn't designed by people living in hand-made never never lands. We hire the best engineers working for mundane companies, and sprinkle in a handful of Enlightened personel who are tired of living in fantasy lands. The result is equipment that works without needing to be tested for DECADES. It's pathetic, really. All those great minds, and yet everything they do that goes beyond the limits of what the mundanes know malfunctions at the drop of a hat. Sure armies of cyborgs are great, but when they can't get through one fight without malfunctioning and announcing 'General Protection Fault' and melting to a puddle of goo...what use are they? Or Iteration X's pride and joy. They built that thing A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, and they still can't duplicate it! How pathetic can you get? I've never seen a properly used and cared for SPD product malfunction, although I've seen a few abused ones go haywire. Nor do our products end up unduplicatible. But do we get any respect for our care and expertise? No. Do we get any respect for the fact that we don't hide in horizon constructs, living in a wonderland of our own creation, but instead go out and actually DO the work of the Technocratic Union? No. Instead we are insulted because we don't have Ph.Ds and don't hide from reality in a laboratory. You sound rather disgruntled, Mr. Burns. I am rather disgruntled. Even the NWO looks down on us, and they aren't scientists any more than we are. Without our activities, the entire Technocratic Union would grind to a halt, but yet we get no respect for it. Instead, everyone hates us for not funding their mindless pet projects. The Progenitors want to recreate the Dodo. It died for a reason! It was useless! The NWO all think they're James Bond or John Courage and want an endless stream of exploding watches, laser cigars, and Lotuses. This isn't a movie! Iteration X worships a machine god of their own making...not that they know how to make another one. Frankly, I suspect the whole thing is a big hand puppet the Virtual Adepts are using to make fun of them. And the Void Engineers want all of the Technocratic Union's funding so they can go on joyrides through the Andromeda Galaxy and so they can stick their noses into more hornets' nests so we can all be stung to death by alien insects. Would you like to know the real reason they've been reined back in recent years, Dr. Warwick? Sure. This has to do with the Challenger disaster, right? If one more person blames the Challenger disaster on us when it was clearly the result of shoddy Void Engineer workmanship, I may go berserk and bash them to death with my desk. They brought that on themselves by failing to keep an eye on their unenlightened associates. Indeed, all of the various disasters that have struck at space exploration on the part of the Masses in the last twenty years are the result of their shoddy workmanship and insufficient attention to safety precautions. I refer rather to the reduction of their funding within the Union. They are utterly irresponsible cowboys, who would rather be out riding the range than thinking about the consequences of their action upon the Earth. In the last twenty years, we've had to fight four space wars with powerful alien races, and two of those wars continue, having only died down to a skirmishing level. Twelve Void Engines, whose value would enable me to buy some towns, have been lost completely on exploration missions. Five of those were found as pitted, burnt out hulks. Three later showed up in a Nephandic fleet. One of them apparently defected to the Sons of Ether. And three are still completely missing. This leaves out the continuing war for control of the solar system itself. Instead of concentrating their resources and driving the Nephandi and the renegade conventions out of the Solar system, they've left large numbers of moons under the control of those groups while they go out gallivanting around the galaxy. Indeed, there's some evidence that seems to indicate they're laying plans to abandon this world entirely; note that their main base is in another solar system while they leave this one vulnerable to Nephandic assault. We are not amused at all. I'll have to ask them about that. I suggest you do that. So how do you go about...umm...your Advanced Procedures? We prefer to call them 'Adjustments'. Like the NWO, our strength flows from the social sciences, especially Economics and Psychology. Each of our various divisions has different duties and uses a slightly different set of Adjustments. Disbursements has little need for Adjustments, as their chief duty is to act as the payroll and funding office of the Technocratic Union. They direct and redirect financial and other resources among the various Conventions. The Enforcers train heavily in martial arts, weapons, and firearms. They use advanced targetting equipment, body armor, and a keen knowledge of the human body to deal with their foes. The average Enforcer could go toe to toe with the action movie hero of your choice and win. The best Enforcers could actually beat a werewolf in hand-to-hand combat. The Financiers do the most crucial work of our Convention, managing the businesses that bring in 95% of the Technocratic Union's income and steering the global economy. Much of our Adjustments consist of the application of Advanced Economics and Psychology to determine the future of the market and how best to tweak it in the direction we wish it to go. Media Control is also crucial to our work. They provide advertising services for the Financiers, and they do the work of watching over the entertainment industries. Education molds you in your youth, but Media Control has the job of molding minds from the cradle to the grave. And finally, the SPD produces the finest products in the world. Unlike the notoriously bug riddled products of the other Conventions, you can use an SPD product and know that it won't suddenly explode or turn into a bat or start sending signals to alien beings to come and try to eat your brain. Unlike the other Conventions, we respect the minds of unenlightened personel, and as a result, we can reap the benefits of their work, instead of creating a work of art that breaks as soon as it leaves the laboratory. So why don't other Conventions make more use of unenlightened personel? They're a bunch of foolish prima donnas. Okay, that's an overstatement. There are a lot of things that unenlightened personel cannot do. We'd never put them in charge of any of our divisions, and they never make the sort of radical breakthroughs that enlightened personel can. However, the Syndicate doesn't need radical breakthroughs that don't work. We need reliable products we can sell to the masses without laying waste to our customers. We do make use of a variety of items developed by the other Conventions, even the Void Engineers. But they have a tendency to forget that even we, the Syndicate, are too small to meet all the worlds' needs, and that everything needs to be perfected to the point where it can be mass produced before they rush off to their next new cool thing. I think the Progenitors are starting to learn this, but the Voids and Iteration X has a way to go. Also, we've noticed that unenlightened personel are often better at figuring out the subtle applications of current knowledge, while enlightened personel can achieve the large scale breakthroughs denied lesser souls. SPD needs the former more than the latter, and thus they are quite valuable to us. So what do you think about the Apocalypse Forecast? Utterly worthless. Any economist will tell you that trying to predict anything more than a year in advance is utterly impossible, even with Advanced Economics. You can make some very vague and fuzzy predictions based on past experience, such as which months have more construction, or what crop yields to expect barring weather disasters, but... Just to take an example. Let's say you can predict the future up to a year with a 95% accuracy rate. You can then use that prediction to predict another year ahead, and so on. Your prediction for ten years from now is 59.87% likely to be correct. Doesn't sound too bad, does it? No, that sounds pretty good. Except that nothing we have is 95% accurate. If we're lucky, we have a 60% accuracy rate for some methods. Which in ten years gives you a .6% chance of being correct. Even a 80% accuracy rate only gives you an 11% chance of being correct in a ten year prediction. And it gets worse if you're trying to engage in such a complexly multi-variable prediction as the fate of the entire world. Now, maybe Iteration X has found ways to guarantee miraculously high levels of accuracy and has the processing power to cover every possible variable and accurately predict the future of the entire world over the next ten years. But given these are the same people who can't even duplicate their AI in a HUNDRED YEARS OF TRYING, I somehow doubt the accuracy of their forecast. They can't even tell us HOW humanity is supposed to destroy itself. Given we have the technology to override every nuke on earth and to cure any sort of plague, unless the Void Engineers bring down an alien invasion on us, I don't see HOW the masses could destroy themselves in ten years. So you're not doing anything about it. Doing what about it? We don't know how this will allegedly take place, and well...we're businessmen. Unless this apocalypse is another Great Depression, there's not a lot we can personally do about it. So, we're keeping an eye out for economic danger signs, but what else can we do? So what do you think about your fellow Conventions? I rather get the idea you don't like any of them. That's a bit of an exaggeration. We have reasons to be less than pleased with all of them, but if we really hated them, we'd leave the Technocratic Union and watch them all collapse for lack of funding. The Voids are highest on our irritation list. I've already explained why they're idiots, so now I'll briefly explain why we put up with them. With all their flaws, they're doing a very useful task. Humanity can't live on Earth forever; sooner or later, we're going to have to expand to other planets, and the Voids are doing the valuable task of pioneering so that others can follow in their wake later. Iteration X is also high on our list of people who need to wake up and smell the coffee. No one hides from reality better than Iteration X with their stupid Central Computer, their Horizon Construct, Autocthonia, which is just one big metal womb for them to hide in, and their stupid obsession with grafting metal to their bodies. I happen to like flesh, and I don't want to be a robot. Still, they make good soldiers, and their work with computers has kept the Virtual Adepts from taking control of the electronic communications that are increasingly vital to the world's economic health. The Progenitors are starting to clean up their act. We've been working pretty fruitfully with them in the last few decades. They still hide in their labs too much at times, but they're getting better about putting their knowledge to work at a reasonable rate of speed. The NWO has always been our closest allies; like us, they have to learn how to deal with ordinary people, and we're both social scientists. They tend to be a bit more theoretical, while we're more applied, but in general, we get along. They need to learn to be a little less paranoid, though. In conclusion, I'll say that anyone reading this already works for us, whether they realize it or not. The computer you're using may have been designed by Iteration X, but we and the ones we've Adjusted made it, sold it to you, and maintain it. The car you drive, the house you live in, the job you hold, the money you spend, all of that is part of the market, and we made the market. Just keep on buying and selling and paying your debts, and we'll keep on working to see that you get exactly what you deserve.