Mystery with a capital "D"

[2ptTakrill]

That's "D" for Disruption.

It is a commonly held theory among the Awakened that there have in fact been more than one first Awakened city (Atlantis) but that each was ret conned out of existence with only the bits and pieces that slipped through the cracks left to testify to that city's existence.
Now the Awakened community has discovered evidence that one of those cities was successful in slipping more than just bits and pieces past the Exarchs, up to and including survivors sealed away in Time. Now one of those survivors has been freed. On the surface this would seem great, a treasure trove greater than even the first Athenaeums along with a living guide to answer questions and even volunteer information modern mages haven't yet considered.
All is great, all is wonderful only...this Awakened city and its survivor aren't human.
Maybe they're lizard people or descended from Neanderthals but they aren't Homo Sapien Erectus, human.
The question is how do the Orders, or their respective members, react to this discovery?

I think that for the Seers at least the reaction would be over the top violence, not only would this throw their entire belief structure out of the window it would bring into question the very nature of the Exarchs who might not have been human as well.

[KaiserAfini]

There is one more problem to consider: the Invisible Masters. An average Athlantean mage would be a multiple degree master (I imagine 4+ Arcana at least). More educated ones were archmasters. Which means publicly revealing the secrets of this timeline is a breach of the Pax Arcana.

So this person would either take measures to fly under the watch of other archmage or be strongarmed to uphold the Pax.

[Epimetheus]

There is one more problem to consider: the Invisible Masters. An average Athlantean mage would be a multiple degree master (I imagine 4+ Arcana at least). More educated ones were archmasters. Which means publicly revealing the secrets of this timeline is a breach of the Pax Arcana.

So this person would either take measures to fly under the watch of other archmage or be strongarmed to uphold the Pax.

As with everything else. Nothing in the setting is completely omnipotent, not even the exarches are presented as such. Also, no one knows how atlantis worked or even if it was different then what came before or after. It could have been that not ever one was a mage because not everyone has the soul for it. It's possible that the abyss always existed even if much less minimally. It's also possible that the exarches have never been and were never mages and just represent supernal concepts that grew too much in power. Such answers are for an ST to answer and they can affect people in any number of ways.

Seers probably wouldn't care that something used to exist as they only care about what currently exists. That another race came before them doesn't matter because the part that entices most seers is the material and supernal wealth they get out of the deal. A lot of seers at least in the 1e seer book didn't have mysterious commands. The pyramid is formed because the seers get a lot out of keep the world as a cage. Most seers probably wouldn't change. Their might be a minority of true believers but not even tetriarches seem to care much about the exarches other than what they can provide them, at least that was the idea I got from the tetriarch write up in imperial mysteries.

[Michael]

I'd think the Silver Ladder would be the ones to really care, them having a human-centric ideology. Though I've never really worked out why they hold that belief.

That said, an issue with Atlantean survivals, at least in 1e, was that the reality they knew has been radically altered (or at least it seems to have been). They remember stuff but it's confused and makes little sense.

[Kleptomania]

I'd think the Silver Ladder would be the ones to really care, them having a human-centric ideology. Though I've never really worked out why they hold that belief.

That said, an issue with Atlantean survivals, at least in 1e, was that the reality they knew has been radically altered (or at least it seems to have been). They remember stuff but it's confused and makes little sense.

Because, as far as the Silver Ladder is aware, all mages are human and only humans can become mages. That's the main reason.

If there were some kind of Awakened non-human, then the Silver Ladder would probably be divided between "This creature is human in all ways that matter and the fact that it's Awakened is proof", "This creature isn't human, but the fact that it's Awakened proves that it shares in our birthright" and "This creature clearly isn't human and does not share in our birthright - the fact that it seems to be Awakened is irrelevant."
That last faction might see the existence of the creature as somehow profane, like it's stealing humanity's birthright. Or, they might just see it as an oddity - after all, regardless of how things were in the Time Before, humanity currently has the strongest claim to the Supernal.

I imagine the majority would see this creature as a mystery to investigate and would likely react to it depending upon the answers to various-... Questions. For example, does this creature have a connection to the Temenos? If it does, then that lends some support to the first faction, while if it doesn't that could lend support to either of the other two.