Mage: The Ascension/YMMV


 * Alternate Character Interpretation: Are the Technocrats authoritarian bastards out to crush imagination, or are they trying to make the world safe for humanity the best way they know how?
 * Yes.
 * Both: the former is required to achieve the latter. The world is just that crappy.
 * It's World Of Darkness. What did you expect?
 * In the cosmology of the World of Darkness a stagnant world will fester. The Technocracy doesn't know it, but they are setting the stage for things much worse than them.
 * 'The Technology wants to enforce total stasis' hasn't been canon since the first Revised chapter book. Remember that the Technocracy are the same people who were behind the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, and the Industrial Revolution.
 * And a world of unfettered creation is ultimately a world of chaos, not that such a thing could ever happen under the wise and fractured leadership of the various mage factions. After all, the pre-modern world was an awesome place for normal humans!
 * Complete Monster: The Technocracy, the Traditions, and the Marauders all have examples of this; the Nephandi define this trope.
 * Crazy Awesome: The Taftani, a craft of mages hailing from the Middle East, uses the ancient Arabian legends of genies, magic carpets, magic lamps and myriad other fantastic things pulled straight out of the Arabian Nights as the basis for their magic. They see Paradox as a badge of honor for imposing their will on the universe and practice magic as blatantly as possible to change the Consensus. And they live lives of opulence and luxury, lavishing feasts and gifts on honored guests while regaling them with tales of bottling djinn or retrieving their assorted Wonders. At least until Paradox blows them up.
 * All mages have a bit of this; they basically live reality by their own rules.
 * Designated Villain: Sure, the Technocrats are greedy, amoral bastards who want to bend the world to their will by erasing all magic and spirit... and they do this because the (guys who would become the) Traditions were megalomaniac sociopath assholes during the Dark Ages. Ultimately, while their version of reality may be bad, good things have come of it: Medicines, education for many instead of few, science not being considered a tool of the Devil, toilet paper...
 * Mage runs as much on Your Mileage May Vary as it does on Clap Your Hands If You Believe. From the Technocracy's point of view, the Traditions (read: Order of Hermes) are still megalomaniac sociopaths who will bring back the Dark Ages if they win. From the Traditions' point of view, the Technocracy is a group of conmen who convinced humanity to sign a contract with reality while hiding the consequences in the fine print. It all depends on whether or not you believe the world is better off not having dragons, spells, trolls, demons, angels and wuxia... and not knowing about the vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and things-that-defy-explanation who don't give a damn about Paradox.
 * Actually, not letting you know about the monsters is a way of helping you defend yourself. You know, tightening Paradox and all that. That demon can't rampage into the crowd if being spotted makes him explode on the spot...
 * The problem being that, much to the Technocracy's frustration, some Reality Deviants are immune to Paradox. I forget the reasoning behind vampires being immune, but werewolves were explicitly stated to have the backing/protection of Gaia to not give two shits.
 * Because Vampire: The Masquerade was far too successful to be nerfed in such a way?
 * I think 'Curse from God' may just trump paradox.
 * Two reasons: powers not considered "true magic" have clear rules and do not alter reality in a dynamic way. Werewolf shapeshifting and vampire Disciplines always work the same way, but similar mage powers have infinite variation. The other reason is that vampires, werewolves, and other creatures have been a part of humanity's collective unconscious for millenia. The Technocracy has not been as successful at suppressing our primal fears as our conscious understanding of the world.
 * Misaimed Fandom: The Technocracy have been portrayed as pure evil, hunting magical creatures to extinction and ruining lives, having procedure and propaganda lifted straight from 1984 and Stalin, wanting to destroy the very concept of "creativity" and there are still a significant number of people (such as the actual authors of the gameline) who celebrate them as the unsung heroes of the World of Darkness.
 * See: Guide to the Technocracy, a Sourcebook made to both support and subtly parody them. The Technocratic Union wasn't an evil organization, it's a well-meaning one gone horribly wrong. Their actions do monstrous things, but they have also done good: They lifted mankind from the Dark Ages, and while the WoD is certainly a Crapsack World, they can be credited with stopping it from being even worse. White Wolf themselves said that the majority of Mage books were written from a Tradition viewpoint and were thus biased against the Technocracy, while the Technocracy's own books portrayed them as heroes. The real answer, says a sidebar, is somewhere in between. The question: Is it better to be a relatively safe but controlled drone, or to be free in a world of monsters? Furthermore, the Technocracy wants imagination, creativity, and breakthroughs; they just want it to be completely within their own paradigm. While the Traditions certainly want everyone to Awaken, it's almost always with the implicit idea that "Once the Sleepers Awaken, they'll follow the paradigm of my Tradition because it's the right one." In the end, the two views (and factions) aren't all that different.
 * It might also have something to do with the fact that, this being the World of Darkness, just about every other supernatural group is either inherently and horrendously evil (the vampires), inefficient (the hunters), too busy bickering among themselves to ever be of much use to anyone... that is, being hunted down and exterminated by the Technocracy (the Traditions), or genuinely committed to fighting the forces of evil but seeing humanity as part of those forces (the werewolves). The Technocracy is pretty much the only faction that's determined, organized, competent, and interested in making sure that you, puny mortal though you are, don't get eaten by a monster (or worse). Essentially, the Technocrats aren't good guys by any stretch of the word, but in the World of Darkness they're the Closest Thing We Got. And they look awesome while doing it.
 * Pity the Technocracy is determined to not let you know about those monsters, making it virtually impossible to defend yourself. Plus, you know, Room 101. It's called Room 101, for crying out loud.
 * In the real world, professions that involve regular exposure to horrible or disturbing sights (soldiers, homicide detectives, paramedics, etc.) are infamous for developing a really high level of Black Humor. Sarcasm is one of the primary methods by which you induce psychological desensitization, which is necessary in those kinds of jobs to keep from going completely batshit insane from all the shit you keep seeing. I'm entirely unsurprised they named it Room 101, or their main social engineering branch the New World Order, or any of the rest of it.
 * That's not true at all. They will let you know all about the monsters, just as soon as they have a plausible explanation for them that fits within the grander scheme of their dominant paradigm. Once they can precisely explain that strange genetic mutation that afflicted that poor man, they will quite happily publish that work for all the world to see. And the truly wonderful thing of it all is, once enough people have read and understood their explanation...it will be true, whether it originally was or not. A Technocracy-dominated world isn't a world where monsters don't exist, it's a world where monsters can be explained, categorized, and dealt with. And if that means stripping the world of its infinite possibility, so be it.
 * Yes, because knowing about the existence of whatever elder horror was about to gnaw your legs off totally let peasants do a great job defending themselves against such things back in the Age of Myth. At least the ignorance has a point; it helps strengthen the Gauntlet!
 * What if the peasants knew of a plant that was toxic to the elder horror?
 * Then at some point the Technocracy would notice it, analyze it, maybe run some tests on smaller, bottled elder horrors, and eventually release it as a fairly-affordable solution to a logically-approached problem along with an explanation as to why it even works in the first place. And, as pointed out, once it started circulating it would be the answer whether or not it was to start with. Now everyone gets to use this solution, not just the peasants in a certain area, and you don't have to worry about inciting a panic (or Paradox) that might make the problem worse. If you live near Elder Lake, don't forget to take your Viridia Aerosol Insect-Repellent! It repels Elder Horrors, but it's better if you don't try to explain that to a public who flips out over spiders in their bedrooms and Mad Cow Disease.
 * You have now experienced the average Mage-Technocrat conversation. Unfortunately.
 * Moment of Awesome: "We have another way to bring sunlight to Bangladesh." Say what you will about their ethics, but the Technocracy got one against Zapathasura (aka 'Ravnos') in the Week Of Nightmares. A vampire of godlike power, so mighty that his rise from torpor was felt by every supernatural being on Earth, classified as a potentially world-ending threat... And what do they do? They nuke him and the Boddhisatvas blocking the Bengal sky with clouds from orbit, and shine on him with sattelite-sized orbital mirrors, that's what they do. Because man-made sunlight is the best way to deal with vampires!
 * It's the only way to be sure.
 * Somewhat undercut when said action created revenge seeking zombies, maddened radioactive fae ghosts and awakened sleeping horrors. Still, beats having Ravnos devour the souls of all humanity that afternoon.