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The Art and Science of Spreading Your Reality

I have been thinking about the Technomancers and their grip on reality. How do they do it? How do you change reality on a large scale?

According to the Metaphysics of Magick, reality is defined by what people believe. So, if many people believe in a possible reality it will become strong and reinforce itself among the believers. But not only that, it will also influence people who don't believe in it. This will slowly force them to accept the dominant reality. Thus, control the ideas of people and control how reality works. But this is not enough, since any Tradition worth its salt will also want to control people in general. Controlling reality is a great step in the right direction but not enough. People should also do what you want, to achieve Ascension.

One aspect of the Technocracy that is stressed much in Mage is their control of technology, it has even given them their name. But is this enough? Technology and science have changed the perceptions of reality enormously in the last few centuries — but they are not alone. Politics, economy and culture have also had enormous influence on how people in general perceive reality. They have of course been somewhat changed by the new technology but in my opinion they have also been deliberately changed by the Technocracy to suit its needs.

The art and science of reality engineering has a long tradition among mages but it was probably first consciously formulated by the Technomancers. Earlier mages had tried to influence reality in many ways, mostly on the local scale in response to local problems. The Technomancers realized that it could be used on a global scale. They probably did a few tests of their theories and formulated the guiding principles (it might very possibly have been a technomancer who realized that "Belief = Reality" even among sleepers). Then they went to work on their grand plan towards ascension.

The other Traditions were taken by surprise by the well coordinated effort and before they could react jointly it was too late. While today they understand most of the basics of paradigm engineering, they have not been able to gain the efficiency the Technomancers have achieved. The Technocracy lead will probably remain for the foreseeable future.

Economy for Fun and Profit

For example, let's take a look at European economics during the Middle Ages. The only true capital was land. There was no widespread currency, since a currency implies a king able to back it up on a large scale. Instead, the king gave land as payment for service, creating the feudal system. Barter was the only form of economy used in daily life. This was a perfect system for the dominant Traditions in Europe. Celestial Chorus disliked too much trade and travelling, since it could disturb people from their religious beliefs. Their ideal was a rather rigid social system, where everybody bowed down to the benevolent Church (which they influenced). Order of Hermes generally believed in an elite of enlightened and learned men, who wisely counselled the nobility. The peasants should learn to fear and awe the mighty and benevolent mages, who knew all the secrets of the universe. Verbena didn't care about economy, mostly about the importance of the living land ("The king and the land is one").

This structure was not what the Technocracy wanted. They realized that they had to change society completely to achieve their aims. Thus they began undermining the situation in many ways. The rivalry between Celestial Chorus and Order of Hermes and the formation of the Camarilla were fortuitous events (or were they planned?). They began subtle manipulations of the Dominion and the leylines using the cathedrals. But most important, they needed to spread their ideas to a large number of people quickly. At that time, communications were far too slow and foreign people and ideas were met with distrust. So, they decided to increase trade.

The decline of the Church led to an increased interest in worldly things, encouraged by the Technocracy. They also encouraged the creation of nation states, which greatly simplified commerce. Trading houses gained influence while the feudal nobility declined and often supported the new kings (while they were supported by the Technocracy in turn). The discovery of the New World led to an inflow of new wealth which was used by the nobility (who had already discovered that luxuries were necessary after meeting oriental riches from the crusades). Since luxuries had to be imported, new trade-routes must be opened and merchants began to grow in power and wealth. The trade with the Orient also led to an influx of new ideas (and many Technomancer ideas hidden among them). The old, static feudal society was replaced fairly quickly (in only about 200 years) with a dynamic, evolving society that the Technocracy had shaped.

When the Renaissance came, the Technocracy began to spread its ideas about how reality worked to an interested audience. People had lost their interest in the unworldly ideas of the Church and had found that they could make a profit by learning things about the real world. The Technocracy supplied them with new facts and ideas, which spread quickly using the printing press. A bit of encouragement to Martin Luther, and the Reformation began the final undermining of the dominance of religion over society. Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo demonstrated to the learned world that the universe behaved predictably and thus undermined the belief in the old authorities.

The system of mercantilism used by the early nation states during the 16th and 17th centuries was invented by the Technocracy. The state did its best to control trade inside its borders, trying to unify itself economically as it had done politically. It introduced standard weights and measures, improved roads and canals, removed internal tariffs and imposed uniform regulations in place of the varied local regulations which had been introduced by local guilds or towns. All of this was of course exactly what the Technocracy wanted!

Later, when the nation states were unified enough internally, they invented the ideas which led to capitalism. They also began to discredit the mercantile system and introduced new inventions which could be used efficiently only in an industrial, capitalist system with much international trade (or colonialism).

What about mundane power? This may be useful but it is not that essential for enterprising mages. The Technocracy especially found a useful way to gain much mundane power and wealth. "The best way to predict the future is to invent it". If you are planning to change society, you will know what groups will become more important in the future. So, plant some agents, acolytes or friends in these groups, invest in them and wait. When the Technocracy created modern economics, their friends were already in place inside the trading houses. Thus they had an almost unlimited cash supply and could influence the economy (and politics) of whole kingdoms.

The Technocracy has done this the last 300-400 years on a really large scale. Since they are so far ahead, they have amassed a tremendous potential wealth. If they wanted, they could fairly easily liquidate gigantic amounts of capital or political power. However, they prefer to wield it subtly instead of directly, letting their investments flow towards the areas they want to develop and applying political pressure on the areas that they would like to change. They could, if it suited them, crash the whole world economy but fortunately it is against their goals — for the moment.

Note that the Technocracy seems to be originally from Europe (quite possibly they started as a coalition of ex-members of the Order of Hermes). As their power over Europe grew, they wanted more. Thus the Technocracy encouraged colonialism, since the Europeans spread their reality with them. Since they had originally designed the European reality, the Technocracy could give the colonialists almost free rein in their expansion. In the colonies the colonialists enforced European reality, often without even the Technocracy's help. The native mages and the native reality were crushed by the Technocracy as their realities crumbled.

This is the true reason why Western culture dominates the Earth today, and why it has been so expansive. The Technocracy no longer needs colonialism, as their reality is planted almost everywhere. They still control Western culture much better than other cultures and use every means to spread it in the areas where their reality is still weak. The next step is probably to use their new systems (television, movies, papers, telecommunications, easy travel and free trade) to create the Global Village, thus creating one, global culture the Technocracy controls completely.

Freedom of Speech and Thought, and Their Uses

The Technocracy has not only influenced the economy immensely, they created it! The economy and economic history taught today is largely a Technocracy invention. The Technocracy has also been working on philosophy, law and culture. By introducing liberal ideas during the 18th century, they created the foundations of modern democracy. A democracy is much harder to control than a monarchy but the Technocracy had already enough power to control even a democracy, while the Traditions (who had by now recognized their mutual enemy and were trying to stop the Technocracy) had a hard time influencing democratic governments — which of course were partially designed by the Technocracy. The rumor among conspiracy theorists that the Freemasons were behind the Constitution is almost true.

Almost any political, economic and judicial institution has been formed by the Technocracy. Today there are too many organizations to directly control but it doesn't matter. The courts, the laws, the constitution, the democratic system, everything has been formed by them and subtly reinforce each other and static reality. The Technocracy does not need to control everything, since most of the system works by itself like a well designed machine. Only when something unusual or disruptive occurs does the Technocracy interfere.

The conventions behind this are mainly the New World Order and the Syndicate, or rather their predecessors. The Syndicate has evolved from an earlier convention responsible for economy and politics. The Syndicate has much more power than most mages realize. While the other groups wields impressive technology and have spectacular plans, the Syndicate works in silence. They are behind much of the System itself and their most important areas of activity are completely abstract and impossible to influence for most mages (how do you end the recession?).

Since the Syndicate control the flow of money, they can influence anything that money can influence. They can decide whether a certain movie should be a success or a flop (or even become produced in the first place). They can influence multinational corporations by changing the areas where profit can be made (not to mention their agents inside some corporations). They can change whole social structures by changing the economy (introduce the car and it will be possible to live in suburbs.).

By controlling founding, media exposure, agents and public opinion the Technocracy can influence the academic world. A theory they like can be helped while others are subtly discouraged. They introduced Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, History, Philosophy, National Economics and other "soft" sciences. By spreading the idea of psychology, they can make people believe that the human mind is a machine that can be adjusted, repaired and controlled. Sociology creates models (realities) about how society functions (or should function). A sociological model the Technocracy likes is successful, changing society. Anthropologists are studying other cultures, interpreting their customs and societies using their own reality (and thus forcing the studied people into safe reference frames). History is of course written in a Technomancer-friendly perspective, changing the perceptions of everyone about how it was. Thus it is retroactively changed, at least from a practical standpoint.

Note that the Technocracy doesn't have to control every single intellectual. Most people follow the rules and guidelines the Technocracy created and only invent inside them. As in the case of economic and political institutions, there is seldom any need to interfere. A slight influence here, an agent placed there and a new historical theory is advanced. The intellectuals will do most of the work themselves.

Have You Heard the Latest?

How does one introduce a new idea? The obvious thing, writing books and telling people about it may work sometimes. A rumor can spread surprisingly quickly and a catchy song or a joke may spread far and wide. However, this is not a very effective way to spread an idea into all of society, especially when the real aim is to change society in a large way. You will need to spread lots of ideas in your favor until something happens and you are quite vulnerable. Using magick may work on a limited scale. A Master of Mind may spread an idea into the minds of anybody in a small town. But this is slow, dangerous and ineffective way to change society. Agents may give the right people pushes in the right directions and hinder people with the wrong ideas. Infiltrators may try to change the views of organizations from the inside.

Patience is important. If you spread ideas you like, try to obstruct rival ideas and generally help the groups you have decided to "adopt", long enough, you will succeed. This type of planning may be far too long-term for mortal politicians but not for mages (who are quite driven by their goals and take a broad view) and vampires. A fast change is often quite unstable but when a change in society has been prepared for a long time it will smoothly adopt and no one will notice anything strange (except awakened beings, of course).

The Technocracy has managed to create mass media, which will spread their ideas globally. The first media they spread, mass produced books were used to plant their ideas among the intellectuals and upper classes. As time went on, they found that they needed more efficient means to influence people. Movies and television turned out to be extremely good ways to achieve this. They had the potential to influence the masses quickly, efficiently and most important, coherently. Two persons reading a book or a paper will not interpret it the same way, as much of the information is left to the imagination. But films and television programs will look the same to anybody watching and the interpretation is narrowed.

Industrial Light and Magick

Movies are potent tools, not just for spreading ideas. When someone watches a good movie, he will temporarily believe in it. The collective power of the viewers is impressive and can create lasting changes. By introducing ideas, symbols and points of view that should be reinforced, a successful movie will influence reality on a large scale.

Movies can create clichés in the popular culture. For example, today everyone "knows" that mad scientists live in decrepit castles in Transylvania, gloating with German accents and always trying to create their latest evil invention assisted by their hunchbacked assistants. This has created a "belief field" directed against the Sons of Ether. Not only are Sons of Ether (and other "crank" inventors) easily type-cast into the role of mad scientists by others, they subconsciously do it themselves. The fact that Sons of Ether isolate themselves from society is partially an effect of this, partially a defence.

If a dreaming person will create a temporary realm in the chimerae, what about millions of people watching the same movie? Perhaps there are film-worlds, where the events of a movie are re-enacted. These worlds will exist as long as many people see the movie they are based upon and then they begin to dissolve. Some classics may have become so imprinted in the culture that they persist, maybe in a somewhat mutated form as people will only remember some parts and misremember others ("play it again, Sam").

A possible example: The Void Engineers have some political favors to collect and ask the Syndicate to allow them to get a blockbuster. The Syndicate agrees and the Engineers write the script for "ET" or change an existing script. The Syndicate makes sure that Spielberg reads it and becomes interested. Then the Technocracy waits, perhaps lightly influencing the production at crucial points. When the movie is released, the Syndicate uses their power over media, public opinion and economics to make the film a blockbuster. Lots of people see it and are imprinted with the idea of cute aliens (and the nasty Men in Black who are after them. The New World Order didn't like that part at all.). Perhaps Iteration X asked the Engineers to include them; they needed a realm with the right type of reality to do some cybernetic experiments. If you look carefully in the background of the makeshift lab in the resuscitation scene, you will notice the Iteration X people doing their experiments.

Some time later, the Technocracy has become aware of the possibility of an attack from certain denizens of the Deep Umbra. They decide to spread distrust and fear against aliens (maybe this is the New World Order's revenge on the Void Engineers?). They create "V". People are influenced to regard lizards from outer space as their enemies and their seal (maybe stolen from a hermetic tome or a symbol the umbroods use) is shown as evil. After creating the initial series, which has repelled or discouraged the invaders the Technocracy create the second season to permanently reinforce the Gauntlet (by increasing xenophobia)

We have Air Superiority and Magickal Superiority!

Another important factor is "magickal superiority". When a Tradition dominates an area, reality will be influenced subtly. A town controlled by the Celestial Chorus will become more religious. A Virtual Adept controlled town will become more high tech, high speed and neophilic. This effect is partially the work of the mages, as they try to influence the surroundings (the Adepts will help pro technology candidates, make people more interested in computers and start innovative computer industry nearby). However, it is also partially the fact that the awakened mages are influencing the area simply by being there. Each mage sees the world in his own way, thereby imposing his own reality. When many mages see the world in about the same way, they will begin to exert considerable influence. This will, unless the normal view clashes totally, start to reinforce their reality on others. It will not change reality altogether (the mages are too few for that), but it will exert a great deal of force. The effect is not direct and completely coincidental. The town "just feels right" for the director of a computer industry planning to start a new factory. A group of hackers will decide to hold a meeting there, temporarily attracting many more hackers.

After a few decades of control, an area will be quite dominated by the group of mages. Normally it is not that clear cut, of course. The Technocracy dominate almost everywhere but the local influence of other Traditions can be felt. Vienna has since time immemorial been a centre of the Order of Hermes (and Tremere, with somewhat compatible opinions), creating a town filled with beautiful buildings and statues, libraries with old tomes, museums and old traditions. Silicon Valley has been Virtual Adept territory until recently. A dominated area will of course attract new mages of the dominant tradition, since it is to their liking. Many members of Cult of Ecstasy will like San Francisco and stay, thus enforcing their reality.

This influence can be extremely subtle and is almost never noticed by anyone living there. It will influence almost anything, the way daily living is conducted, the "feel" of a city, the type of business present and the magick of the area. Since the technomancers are dominant almost everywhere, they can exert a tremendous influence even without trying. Things that are against their paradigm will be hindered even without any direct intervention. This may be the true reason the Masquerade works.

Having magickal superiority has another advantage if you want to spread ideas or have things happen that you like. Suppose Andrew the Technomancer is influencing City Hall. The other Technomancers will probably know about this (it won't do if they step on each other's toes). Brigitte is at the same time controlling the media. She notices that some reporters are investigating City Hall. She hinders them subtly and tells Andrew to watch out. The same thing happens when Cyrus discourages a citizens group that would have disturbed Andrew's plans. Technomancer projects will get support from a lot of independent groups and opposition will become fragmented or have trouble, just by pure "coincidences". This is the "coincidental" side of the effect. In practice, the dominant group's policies will start to implement themselves. The mages of the dominant tradition will know of the policies and since they influence reality simply by seeing it, the policies will be subtly enforced.

Ideologies - Your Slaves and Masters

There is an interesting reflexivity here. A Tradition creates an institution or ideology. This ideology spreads, thus reinforcing the mages' view of reality. This will increase their power and perhaps give them magickal superiority. This will enforce the ideology (almost anybody inside the influenced area will realize that the ideology "works" or be persuaded to at least comply) and attract more mages from the Tradition to the area. By now the mages have no direct control over the ideology, since it spreads too fast and is too powerful to control directly. The only thing the mages can do is to try to influence it in the right direction.

The result is that mages control ideologies, institutions and the worldview — and they control the mages. A powerful ideology will influence even the mages who believe themselves in control of it. The symbiosis between mages and ideologies is extremely powerful, as both parts need each other. In fact, the Traditions can be viewed as mage-ideology symbioses. Their goals, ideas and worldviews are their ideologies. Each tradition seeks to enforce their view on everybody else, thus expanding their ideology and strengthening themselves.

When the Celestial Chorus took control over the remains of the Roman Empire, it was not a conscious move (someone deciding "Now we are going to take control over Rome. Marcus, you take care of the emperor..."). Instead they had created the useful religion Christianity (which did the work for their own, non-Christian ideology). Christianity spread and they gained power. They used this power to spread Christianity whenever possible. This was not a completely centralized movement (although the Chorus are the second most centralized Tradition. The most centralized is of course the Technocracy). Cyrillius notices a chance to convert the local king, checks with his superior who agrees and uses his magick and faith to spread Christianity. At the same time, many other choristers are working in other areas. And many priests and monks, unaware of their part in the greater design, spread the word completely independent of the mages. The end result is the supremacy of the Celestial Chorus and its goals.