The Technocracy

Technocracy Response Time

By Paul Strack
Oct. 1996

Stimulus and Response: A System for Determining the Reactions of the Technocracy

Some Tradition mages believe that the Technocracy knows all and sees all, that it monitors everything everywhere in the world, and responds as it sees fit. This is an exaggeration, but the Technocracy does check for supernatural activity in many different venues. The following rules are to help determine exactly what the Technocracy does and does not see and how it responds.

Monitoring Priority

Even the Technocracy has limited resources, so it prioritizes what it does and does not monitor. The priority system ranges from 2 to 10, from the most vital Technomancer installations, to completely unknown areas like the Deep Umbra. It is rumored that priority 1 sites exist as well, but no one other than the innermost circle of technomancers knows for certain.

Priority Level

  1. ???
  2. The most fundamental Technomancer installations or people
  3. An important Technomancer installation or leader (Masters)
  4. A typical Technomancer installation, a vitally important mundane person (such as the president of the United States), or advanced (Adept level) Technomancers
  5. A minor Technomancer installation, or very important mundane person or place (corporate research centers, U.S. Senators and governors), low level Technomancers or high level Technocratic servants
  6. Important mundane places (government offices, science labs or a corporate headquarters), low level Technocratic servants
  7. Public areas in major cities
  8. Most cities and towns
  9. Rural areas
  10. Deep wilderness

Note: You may assume that the Penumbra is being observed at a priority level one higher than the nearby physical area. That is, the Umbra nearby a minor Technocracy installation is being monitored by Void Engineer equipment at a priority level of 6.

Activity Level

The amount of supernatural activity is another factor in determining whether or not the Technocracy notices a particular incident. Activity Level is also rated from 1 to 10.

  1. Simple observation
  2. Minor trespassing or conversation
  3. Threatening but non-violent interaction or evidence of sensory magick
  4. Mundane violence, evidence of coincidental magick or slight supernatural activity
  5. Extreme levels of mundane violence, non-threatening vulgar magick, hostile coincidental magick or significant supernatural activity
  6. Multiple castings of vulgar magick, hostile vulgar magick or major supernatural activity
  7. Multiple castings of hostile vulgar magick, a single large vulgar effect (like opening a node) or extreme supernatural activity
  8. Massive and invasive workings of vulgar magick or warpings of reality
  9. Full-fledged reality invasions from the Umbra
  10. Immediate and dire threats to reality itself

Note: Add 1 to 3 to the Activity Level for actions that are repeated.

Technocracy Response Time

To determine whether or not the Technocracy responds to a particular incident, roll a number of dice equal to the Activity Level against a difficulty rating equal to the Priority Level. The number of successes will determine how quickly the Technocracy responds.

Successes

  1. No response
  2. The incident is recorded, but there is no further investigation, unless there are additional related incidents
  3. The incident is noted, but not until several days after the fact
  4. A monitoring flag is thrown, and the event will be noticed within a few hours
  5. The activity is overt enough that there's a response within minutes
  6. Nearly immediate response

For example, if someone tries to steal supplies (Activity Level 3) from minor Technocratic construct (Priority Level 5), roll 3 dice with a difficulty level of 5 to determine whether it was noticed or not.

If a mage mind controls (hostile coincidental magick - Activity Level 5) a banker into giving him money (Priority Level 7), roll 5 dice with a difficulty of 7. If a 3, 4, 6, 8 and 10 are rolled, some servant of the Technocracy will check into the incident within a few days. If the mage tries this trick several times in a row, the Level of Activity will go up (and the Priority Level may go down).

Response Level

To determine how the Technocracy responds to an incident, roll dice equal to the Activity Level again, with the following difficulty:

  1. Nephandi, Marauder or Virtual Adept involvement suspected
  2. The Technocracy itself is the target of the activity
  3. The event threatens Sleepers
  4. The incident involves no mages
  5. The incident is a conflict between supernaturals only, that seems not to threaten Sleepers or the Technocracy
  6. The incident does not involve any supernatural creatures

Add +2 to the difficulty if the event was not noticed until several days later. The number of successes determine how much force the Technocracy will bring to bear on the situation.

Successes

  1. Deemed unthreatening. Monitored only.
  2. Mundane investigators sent
  3. Well armed but otherwise mundane operatives sent
  4. Enhanced operatives (MIB, HIT Marks, etc.) sent
  5. Enhanced operatives accompanied by several technomages or one or more pieces of heavy equipment
  6. Full fledged assault force, including numerous enhanced operatives, multiple Technomancers and large equipment (such as high-tech tanks or helicopters and advanced weapons)

Foiling Technocratic Observation

Many Tradition mages make an effort to cloak their activities from the eyes of the Technocracy. Increase the difficulty for the detection roll by +1 to +3, depending on how effective the mages are at masking their actions. A mage may add half their Arcane rating to the difficulty, in place of (not in addition to) other precautions.

Note that using magick to cloak the activity of an otherwise mundane task can be self-defeating. If a mage wants to steal something (Activity Level 3), he can cloak his actions with invisibility and raise the difficulty of detection by a point or two. However, his level of Activity is raised to 5 for the use of vulgar magick, meaning more dice are rolled to detect him, and any response is likely to be more severe.

Mages may also try to "draw out" Technocratic forces with some sort of diversion prior to any major activity. At the Storyteller's discretion, response teams might be committed to investigate the diversion, and are therefore unavailable to deal with the true assault.

When a botch occurs on any of these rolls the Technocracy completely miss everything or they respond in a completely inappropriate fashion.