Technocrats and Star Trek?

[AkatsukiLeader13]

But conversely, I think it fits the themes of Hubris in Mage to have the Technocracy not be aware of a significant amount of shadowy influence that Vampires (particularly Elders/Methuselahs that keep their schemes very close to the chest) might have acquired over them over centuries. Less "the Union has been comprehensively subverted by Cainites as a whole," but rather "all sorts of bits and pieces of the Union have been subverted by individual Cainites."

True but MtAs has it's own answer for that, the Technopandi, the Nephandi infiltrators in the Technocracy. Which frankly works a lot better, especially with how M20 has been handling the Nephandi.

Like Data said, using the Antes or the Weaver as the secret master of the Technocracy is fine for VtM and WtA respectively but it doesn't work as well with MtAs.

Honestly one of the really wonky parts of early MtAs was how they tried to smash the WtA Cosmology with MtAs, complete with them linking various Mage groups to the Triad when it really didn't make sense with the rest of the line. Like the second book of MtAs was Loom of Fate, a pre-made chronicle that saw the Technocracy attempting to turn a young Orphan mage into a Weaver Spirit to replace a dying one. A truly bizarre thing for the Technocracy to attempt. Doubly so as it was being done by the Progenitors and not the VE, the Convention with access to Spirit.

In fact, I've had some ideas on running that scenario but with the factions reversed, with the Technocracts stopping some crazy Mages from carrying out some insane ritual on a young Orphan because it actually makes more sense that way.

[Ramnesis]

When they were filming the original Star Trek they had a very limited budget. To offset costs they would often borrow the sets for other productions so they didn't have to build their own. That's why there was a roman episode and a mobster episode: they had access to a roman set and a mobster set.

What I'm saying is, it is very Star Trek for Mage to set the occasional episode on the Werewolf set.

[Dataweaver]

Right; but it's still Mage, not Werewolf. And as such, when there's a clash between the metaphysics of the two, Mage trumps Werewolf.

[Ramnesis]

Right; but it's still Mage, not Werewolf. And as such, when there's a clash between the metaphysics of the two, Mage trumps Werewolf.

That would be logical.

[Kharnov]

True but MtAs has it's own answer for that, the Technopandi, the Nephandi infiltrators in the Technocracy. Which frankly works a lot better, especially with how M20 has been handling the Nephandi.

Like Data said, using the Antes or the Weaver as the secret master of the Technocracy is fine for VtM and WtA respectively but it doesn't work as well with MtAs.

Honestly one of the really wonky parts of early MtAs was how they tried to smash the WtA Cosmology with MtAs, complete with them linking various Mage groups to the Triad when it really didn't make sense with the rest of the line. Like the second book of MtAs was Loom of Fate, a pre-made chronicle that saw the Technocracy attempting to turn a young Orphan mage into a Weaver Spirit to replace a dying one. A truly bizarre thing for the Technocracy to attempt. Doubly so as it was being done by the Progenitors and not the VE, the Convention with access to Spirit.

In fact, I've had some ideas on running that scenario but with the factions reversed, with the Technocracts stopping some crazy Mages from carrying out some insane ritual on a young Orphan because it actually makes more sense that way.

I think that's a perfectly reasonable take for a Storyteller to take, and it's fair to point it out especially in a Mage-specific forum. I've just always had more fun throwing all the gamelines in a blender and dealing with the ridiculous mess that comes with it, and most of my posts come from that point of view, while acknowledging that other positions are valid, depending on what kind of game people want to play. My favourite take is to try and humble the assumptions of every gameline in some fashion; the Antediluvians are not the unstoppable Masters of Humanity; the multiverse is bigger and more complicated than the Garou understand; and Mages are just generally guilty of underestimating the other groups, and the Multiverse does not revolve around them as much as they like to think either.

I like that approach better for a game where you're actually bringing all the gamelines together; if you really want your cosmology to be [insert gameline]-centric, then don't bother importing the full content of the other gamelines; go the route of replacing Cainites with "Leeches," Garou with "Lupines," Mages with Sorcerers or what-have-you. It seems wasteful to bother bringing in the mythology of another gameline if you're not going to try and work out the balance between them. But again, that's my personal take, but since we're talking about Antediluvians and the Technocracy, a case where the lore of both gamelines is supposed to be present, I felt my take on it was worth sharing.

I will say, I'm not generally a fan of any take that has one or more gamelines being entirely explained by another. I don't like the idea of the Antediluvians creating the Technocracy, but rather having individual members or small groups that they might have subverted. And conversely, there are probably hidden labs where a handful of Technocrats have a caged Elder that they've been running experiments on for a hundred or so years. If you put them in the world together, contact is almost inevitable, and I just don't favour any approach that seems to amount to "X side always wins." Things just tend to be messier than that, IMO.

It really seems to be one of those personal-preference things. You're bothered by attempts to connect Werewolf and Mage cosmology, while I enjoy it.

But this has also strayed a fair ways from the original topic, haha.

[Dataweaver]

I'd have no problem with a thread in the main World of Darkness forum discussing how to go about doing something like that, preferably with contributors coming from each gameline's fanbase — both in terms of what elements of their favorite gameline must not be compromised and in terms of where they'd be willing to bend in order to achieve a functionally unified setting.

[Kharnov]

As I said, I just felt it was relevant given the discussion of Antediluvians v. Technocracy. Apologies if I was derailing the thread. To get things back on track a bit more, the degree to which comparisons between the Federation in Star Trek and the Technocracy in Mage are reasonable, I think there are probably better examples to draw parallels with out there, the Tau from 40K for instance. Individual or small groups of idealist Technocrats might fit into a USS Enterprise crew, but the organization as a whole is more conservative, as *someone above* put it. But I think their actions around the Time of Reckoning are probably the least relevant criticism, as opposed to their more longstanding policies.

> I agree with the points above that 'Operation: Ragnarok' was a relatively reasonable response to the rising of a reality-warping blood-god from hell
> Even putting aside the other circumstances, premature detonation, etc., my understanding of Xerxes Jones' plan to set off the nuke in the Labyrinth was an experiment, not a villainous scheme
> The consequences of their invasion of the Horizon Realms, from my understanding, had as much to do with the actions of Tradition Masters that were outside their control, and likely their understanding

To the extent that comparisons between the Technocracy and Federation don't hold up, I think it makes sense when you consider the extreme difference between the universes they exist within. The Federation might just be a bit more authoritarian if they lived in a universe where information has the potential to warp reality if it spreads to enough people. The Technocracy would probably have a lot less reason to be a bunch of paranoid control-freaks if they lived in a universe with much more consistent rules, and they weren't genuinely gifted with an insane amount of power over that universe in comparison to 90% of the other people who exist. It's a bit apples-to-oranges.

*will find out who "someone above" is and edit in accordingly; I think it's Dataweaver, not sure

[Ramnesis]

Conceits of Star Trek that fit in very well with the Technocracy:
- It envisions a utopian future
- It envisions a humanist and largely secular society
- It depicts a more perfected people who have "evolved" beyond current human "limitations" such religion, fractiousness, and compromising emotions*
- It depicts a society with new and manufactured ethics (see, the Prime Directive)
- Every seemingly supernatural being is presumed to be an unknown natural being.
- People are driven entirely by their own desire to excel.

*I'm not talking about Vulcans here. When Gene was an active part of the show he insisted that Starfleet members were strong and enlightened enough that they wouldn't show grief or other strong emotions. This made writing for the show quite difficult and was one of the elements that came to be known as The Rodenberry Box.

Conceits of Star Trek that fit in badly with the Technocracy:
- It depicts a society with an inbuilt respect for other cultures, even "primitive" ones.
- Genius is frequently depicted as iconoclastic.
- Anomalies and strange science happen all the time.

Conceits of Star Trek that have little to do with the Technocracy:
- Humans have grown beyond money (the Technocracy is currently driving money pretty hard, but could generally go either way on this)
- The specific forms of technology.
- The existence of aliens.

[Dataweaver]

Two thoughts: first, there are aliens in the World of Darkness. They are by no means the same sort of aliens that are in Star Trek; but they're there. Second, it depends on which version of Star Trek you're dealing with. The current version of Star Trek is considerably more cynical: for better or worse, the Roddenberry Box has been crushed, trampled on, lit aflame and burned to ashes, trampled on some more, and had its ages scattered to the winds. The “we don't use money” thing is gone, too.

[Ramnesis]

Good point. I should say that I was largely using the Original Series and much of Next Generation as my yardstick for Star Trek as I think those are the most idealized and the easiest to connect to the Technocracy. Later Trek series were more about telling a good story than about sticking to utopian ideals.

I listed aliens as orthogonal because I don't think the Technocracy cares whether their utopian future includes aliens or not. If there are aliens willing to join, great. If they are all monsters that need to be fought off, great.

[Dataweaver]

It's worth noting that Star Trek's aliens are largely reflections of humanity.