$yndicate Ideas

[OmegaZ]

Been in love with the $yndicate since I first read about them and have a few ideas others can use with them. Feel free to share your own ideas, thoughts, critiques, and questions!

Executive Elevator: Correspondence 3/4 rote that lets you swipe a special key-card in an elevator to enable that elevator to open up in other buildings or cities (inspired by the Wonka-vator). Could be a Wonder as well.

Dimensional Science & Advertising Archetypes: So the $yndicate isn't known for using Dimensional Science/Spirit much, if at all. However, I think a way they could would be using archetypal spirits in advertising or anything else you'd like. Think of tapping into the spirit of Mickey Mouse, Ronald McDonald, G.I. Joe, supermodels, etc. If you have the legally binding copyright over the image, that could apply to the spirit as well, as a form of binding. In the game I'm running a member of Media Control will be doing exactly this.

Market Fluctuation Boons & Banes: This one's kind of obvious and I'm sure others have thought of it before, but stocks, the value of the dollar, etc. can all rise and fall dramatically at any moment. If you could tie someone's fate to this you could put them on quite the roller-coaster. Could be used like a geas to force the target to keep a certain company profitable for their own well-being. You could use this short-term as well, treating the market fluctuations as an instrument for Entropy adjustments.

Traffic Entropy: Pretty simple adjustment using Entropy 2 to make traffic flow better for you and/or worse for your enemies. Handy for car chases.

Economic Development Zones: By combining Correspondence, Entropy, and Prime in a major ritual, the $yndicate can make certain areas of a city great for business. New zoning laws, gerrymandering, changing the flow of traffic, tax incentives, etc. can all be part of this big adjustment. Thankfully, its entirely coincidental! Can also be used to crush certain neighborhoods as well.

Temporal Collateral: lifting this from the anime C - The Money of Soul and Possibility Control, the $yndicate can give someone a big loan (millions of dollars, land, Quintessence) and hold their future as collateral. This Time, Entropy, and Prime adjustment would only take effect if the borrower did not pay back the loan after a given amount of time specified in the contract. If the borrower fails to pay, then the $yndicate agent takes all the possibility of any good fortune from their future and gets it herself (probably through Quintessence). The borrower is cursed with terrible luck, usually leading to their death or suicide. The effect can last for as long as the borrower is willing to put up, like 5 years of future potential for example. The instrument for this adjustment is a contract.

(Copied from my Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/WhiteWolfRP...ndicate_ideas/ )

[Numinous]

Superbly inspired job. Your Genius is truly shining! I have always felt Convention books' lists of Procedures and Devises are not only too brief and paltry, but also banal and unimaginative - a lot of them are stale recycled materials, to be frank. In contrast, your examples are enormously creative and refreshing.

[Ambrosia]

Mmmh, I am not sure the Executive Elevator rote is quite kosher.
It's of course true that the Syndicate builds a lot of special hidden features into consumer items and office buildings, as demonstrated by the rotes for activating safe rooms or hidden weaponry.

But an elevator that just opens up in a different building (or even city) is..straining it. It would mean, from a Technocratic point of view, that the Syndicate somehow managed to put something into consumer elevators that allows...what? Quantum entanglement? Teleportation?

It's just hard to imagine the Syndicate, from their point of view, would put *that* kind of technology into an everyday device that gets serviced by run-o-the-mill maintenance people.

[Ajax]

I agree with Ambrosia on the Elevator. That's hideously vulgar. It would take a Syndicate member powerful enough to ignore the Union's position or some really really good reason for such an abomination. Also, it has to be able to be explained in terms of the Syndicate/Union's overall paradigm. It doesn't seem like a natural extension of economic theory. Meaning they would need to contract it out to someone else or "acquire" it from an RD. Some set-up where the Syndicate has suborned some elevator manufacturer to have some kind of set up to have any elevators made by that company do bizarre things that an agent in the know would have access to (maybe even just punching the right numbers in the right order). Having an elevator "move over" into the next shaft (then using your elevator to block access or as a way to get agents into the other elevator via hidden panels in the floor and ceiling.... effectively boxing in another elevator), move up or down really fast, stop between floors, etc. Or even as an ejection device (having some way to bail out is recommended - think programming the door on the highest floor to open in advance, the doors to yours and then tuck and roll out FAST) or slamming it into the ground floor with incredible force.

If the Syndicate is making deals with EDEs masquerading as Mickey Mouse or Ronald MacDonald they are going to have to keep them under the table. FAR under the table. Blacklist near the SPD level. That's rank betrayal of core Union values. They should be using really high level Mind and Entropy effects to take control of those memes and shape them to their own ends. Perhaps even trying to starve out any associated EDEs. After all corporate image cultivation could definitely be a Primal Venture and the Quint that's generating is probably inversely related to the amount of Gnosis the spirit would be getting.

For Market Collateral and Temporal Collateral (which seem like two iterations of the same concept), I don't think anyone HAS explicitly set out a sort of "fate/finance entanglement" rote before. Sounds powerful and punitive, but very, very, VERY Syndicate. And an easy Instrument. Standard Faustian contract anyone?

Traffic Entropy needs an Instrument set up of some sort to make sense. But that's not a big deal. Some relevant dashboard tech would do the trick. Something that could plug into the car's on-board computer or just stick on the dashboard of a lower tech vehicle. Though having it tie into the car's computer could lead to all sorts of other potential effects. Input the destination and have the car get there with maximum efficiency while you work or your spreadsheets (Hey is that guy texting from his laptop while driving?) or hang out the window and shoot at your pursuers...

I'm not sure that the Syndicate would need to go to those links to make the neighborhood development happen. All they need to do is some pretty basic detection effects to find a good target. Then just pull strings to get the money there. Start with a Community Development Block Grant and a few tax incentives. Some meetings with established businesses and outreach to start-ups (at a local businessman's conference). There might be nothing needed above level 2 effects and some Influence to make it happen. The Syndicate's best tool in a very capitalistic world is use of minimal resources for maximum effect. They've effectively greased the wheels to make their sort of things happen without a lot of investment or resource allocation. They've got the right lever to move the world and they know exactly where to put it for maximum effect.

[Enginseer-42]

To be fair on that one, there's a general Technocracy rote to literally create a weapon out of thin air. It's even coincidental if it'd be believable for you to have a gun in your pocket.

[OmegaZ]

Thanks for the feedback! I'd hate to be anyone caught in Market Fluctuation adjustment with their fate tied to the British pound right now. Bet the British $ynidcate members are throwing a fit! Anyway, here are some more ideas:

Power Smoothie: Prime/Life adjustment that combines the freshest fruit, wheat grass, protein powder, and supplements that money can buy to give you energy and vigor you need to run a marathon, dance the night away, climb a mountain, and survive Black Friday.

Adversarial Utility: never let a good enemy go to waste. Use this Primal Utility adjustment to gain Quintessence every time someone in your nearby vicinity spends some. Name might need some work.

Buy It For Life: you're a smart shopper who knows how to get the most out of your possessions. With some regular research and maintenance, the objects you own can last far longer than average. Your gear suffers minimal damage and takes additional success to destroy. Matter and Entropy/Prime adjustment.

Nostalgia Sells: this Time 2 adjustment taps into people's collective memories of time long since past. By purchasing "authentic" clothes and objects from years past, the Enlightened citizen is reminded of events from yesteryear. If you close your eyes, you can almost see it!

[Ambrosia]

Ohhh. I like this new batch of Syndicate Rotes, OmegaZ. These seem much more in line with the Syndicate, like the Traffic Entropy and Market Collateral in the first post.

...also, if you want a better name for 'Adversarial Utility'? 'Primal Tax', 'Utility Tax' or 'Primal Returns'?

[Ajax]

To be fair on that one, there's a general Technocracy rote to literally create a weapon out of thin air. It's even coincidental if it'd be believable for you to have a gun in your pocket.

Published Rotes/Procedures are all over the place with a huge amount of absolute crap. (That is setting aside the overall uselessness of Rotes as a concept in Ascension anyways. The best ones are simply good examples of effects,conjunctional or otherwise. The rest...<shudder>. They don't even vaguely follow any semblance of the RAW. And with a completely laissez-faire acquisition methodology and little to no actual benefit....)

A gun out of thin air is entirely possible, but, depending on HAP issues, most of the time, it's going to be vulgar as all hell, and, therefore, to be avoided at all costs. Considering the "taxi cab" purple box, it's definitely one of those "doable but definitely not the easiest or safest way to accomplish that sort of thing". Considering most HAP iterations, it would be better to Correspondence 2 a gun. (A lot easier than the Matter 4 to make a working machine out of air).

And, as per above, the most Union-compliant way to handle the situation is simply to carry a gun. It's not going to be hard to make sure it can't detected.... It's made out of space age polymers that don't register to mundane scans or has a "reflective coating" of some sort. Getting frisked? Use a Mind effect to keep the frisk-er from checking that spot. No Mind effects? Make use of those nearly impossible to find unless you know where they are Syndicate hidey-holes they build into all sorts of relevant products - newspaper dispensers, cars and trucks, blue or red or whatever mail boxes (depending on what country you're in.... or brown for UPS... you know they GOTTA be in those).

[Enginseer-42]

It's Matter 3/Prime 2. And most of the time Coincidental. Though I'm unsure as to the explanation.

[Ambrosia]

Well, by normal M20 rules, HAB is the standard model for determining paradox...so pulling out a gun out of your pocket, unless you were patted down beforehand (and maybe even then, depending on gun size) is coincidental.

The question of course is how any spontaneous out-of-air creation of a gun from scratch works, rote- or wonder-wise, in a Technocratic mindset.

There is the approach of pure, raw hypertechnology..and we're talking Panopticon level equipment along the lines of specificially pre-programmed one-shot emergency energy/matter converter. worked into a special pocket, probably disguised as a thin, small battery pack in another pocket - specifically designed to create one specific type of gun, once, In Case Of Emergency(TM) before becoming mere weight in your pocket and needing maintenance in a lab.

One step below that we have the Technocracy's equivalent to a limited Bag Of Holding - A similiar device, larger than the one above and more noticable, but still not looking like anything you can't carry on your belt in the open - yay Information Age. This device stores some equipment in its dimensional matrix. Of course whatever is in there needs to be put in it first. If you have seen Ultra Violet (Which isn't anything close to a good movie, but has fancy scifi designs.), or have noticed the devices that the characters from Borderlands pull their weapons from, you get the idea. Or, say, The Skulls from Metal Gear Solid 5.



Last but not least there is the angle where the Technocrat does not even know that they are not carrying the gun in their pocket.

Like the example in the M20 Corebook(?) where a Man In Black just *happens* to notice that the ceiling above their enemy is about to collapse, and jumps back to watch them get buried. It's one my favorite examples of subconcious magic that the Mage (Techo or Tradition, it doesn't matter) isn't even aware of.

So! Maybe Mr. Syndicate is a man of habits. He's a man of a strict schedule, of utmost care in placing his items in his house just in the right order to efficiently pick them up when leaving. Everything has its place, everything is habitual grasps away. Time is money, and this guy knows how to make it. He is a machine of efficient and designed workflow.
However, last night he had that darn business meet at that Soho bar, had a few too many, and just maybe, *maybe* this morning he forgot to put that little lovely derringer-style gun into his pocket. But he is a creature of utmost habit and efficiency. No matter how hungover, he CLEARLY never ever would mess up his schedule, right? So he reaches into his pocket, pulls out his gun (Correspondence ahoy!) and grins at the street punk that thought they could away with getting out of that deal...

It's scratching along the edge of pure no-instrument willworking - but not quite. It has the dependencies of a very particular mindset and set of circumstances - It wouldn't work if he had been patted down before, it would not have worked if he hadn't brought his usual coat, had woken up in a ditch, or was enjoying the poolside.
He had to go through the intricate and practiced steps of what he percieved as his proper preparations of leaving for his work - small mistake or not - which made for the subconcious focus and ritual for the later effect. He will *never* be unable to not pull one single forgotten item out of his pocket if he performs this daily, precise morning ritual - as long as it is a single, small item among this pre-determined set of items, and thus not noticed still sitting on the cabinet on his way out. IMO it's an example of that 'coincidental-coincidental' Magick that a few Technocrats (and really, Mages of any flavor...) just might work without realizing it.

[Nonsense]

Could get interesting if said Techno DID get patted down but did not notice it.

For example after getting drugged, getting full scale examined and then wakes up after the clothes are back on.

Vulgar subconcius magick ...

[Ambrosia]

Could get interesting if said Techno DID get patted down but did not notice it.

For example after getting drugged, getting full scale examined and then wakes up after the clothes are back on.

Vulgar subconcius magick ...

Maaaaybe...
I think the fact that he just passed out would make him go into paranoid mode and he'd *check* his pocket, realizing that something is missing.
Ironically it won't be missing because it was stolen, but because he forgot to pocket it. IMPOSSIBRU!

Now, if he was drugged in a way that would just make him think he passed out on his bed from booze, and somebody searched his suit and he pulled the gun out of the same pocket in an impossible way..yes, paradox

[Quantumboost]

The "summon/conjure a gun in your pocket" for most by-the-book Technocrats is probably along the lines of "good thing I'm so smart that I remembered to pack an extra one of these". Narratively almost a retcon, but not quite. Possibly assisted in some cases by "I always have extra X-5 Protectors hidden in my pockets. Like, twenty or so. Of course I have another."

Of course, in my headcanon Technocracy, you also have the ones who stuff mini-teleporter apparatuses on all their gear or carry around nanofabricators, or even the ones who do Sufficiently Advanced things like 'instantiate hypermathematical object models' like a Virtual Adept (given where ItX gets some of their recruitment base these days, and what the more esoterist Hyperecon interpretations involve...).

[Posthumanity]

All of these are great. But I suspect the Syndicate could never justify Temporal Collateral rote within Technocratic Paradigm, even assisted by hypereconomics or mental gymnastics, as well as Executive Elevator, as others have already pointed out.

[Quantumboost]

Not within the core Technoparadigm, perhaps, and certainly not most Syndics... but there's flex in all paradigms, and when you have an economic theorist who's so deep into it that they think their models are more real than mere physicality...