The Syndicate acts on the principle that money measure of value, is the only valid form of reality the Ma: accept. So what sets us apart from mundane corporations? The answer is simple. We understand that money is only a symbol of a greater thing. Most mundane businessmen believe that the number of zeros after the 1 on the bottom line is an accurate assess- ment of their worth and power.
Pursuit of wealth blinds them to its larger meaning. We know better. The secret is not found in how much money a person makes, but in what that money represents. That god is Man himself, inall his creative and resourceful glory.
He trusts so implicitly in the fruits of his mind and hands that he invests pieces of paper and tiny metal disks with this self-worth. Civilization has trusted in money for millennia, butnever had to. Money is an artificial entity; it holds no value other than that which people invest in it. Dollars and cents, pounds sterling, Eurodollars, yen, Deutschmarks and gold ingots make poor crutches. They get stolen, lost, devalued.
Still, few people realize the truth. The Masses invest so much of themselves in the physicality of money that they forget its true nature. We, however, have not forgotten. Money may be the ultimate reality for the Masses, but even that reality must step aside if the Masses are to reach their full potential. A truly cashless society, in which people can value their potential instead of physical money, stands at the apex of our paradigm.
The Adjustment of Fortune The process of making money —especially in theamounts we do— is subject to the same laws of economics, of supply and demand, that influence the Masses.
Although one would think that it would be easy, given our skills, to influence world trade — perhaps by engineering a quantum leap or plummet in the price of stocks, precious metals, or commodities for example — Fortune does not allow for this.
Grand Financiers have learned over the centuries that massive adjustments of prices and stocks breed disasters. Unlike scientific discoveries or informa- tion processing, money is a concept with one very potent variable: people. The Masses are extraordinarily fickle crea- tures, and their beliefs are like hurricanes. One wind grows, gains momentum and reaches devastating strength. To ride that wind, you must be wise, patient and subtle.
Fadsand trends are fragile things — they break under stress. The laws of economics, of belief and human nature — of Fortune—create their own Paradox. Pushing them too far risks catastrophe. So how do we enter into the picture? Adjust- ment, the process of manipulating Fortune, requires the utmost subtlety.
The world of business is built on luck, trust, reputation and speed. For the Syndicate, consumerism is the key to successful Adjustment. If you get people to want something, or need it, or think they need it, and then provide it for them, you control their spending habits. All it takes is a good computer operator and some creative accounting. Of course, many other variables operate in the under- ground economy. Our street-level people must be prepared for them.
The Special Projects Division researches and develops new trends, works with other Conventions and cutting-edge technology companies to equip our soldiers with all the paraphernalia they may require. Skill is not always the best substitute for a big gun. Fortune and money are fluid. Each follows the path of least resistance in its respective course, like a river to the ocean. What we can do, however, is position ourselves in the center of the flow and force it to move through us or around us.
Either way, we influence its direction. Whatever the flow is and wherever it travels, we stay safely surrounded by its power. Yet the acquisition of money, in and of itself, is not the path to Ascension.
We make money, to be sure — and with the sort of bottom-line figures that would make so-called captains of industry turn the same lime-green as their Sunday slacks.
But Ascension does not come from making money; it comes from controlling the flow of money, and from making the symbiotic connection between money and human happiness. Convine- ing people that technology is the wave of the future isa risky proposition; the most rural areas of the globe remain back- ward even to this day. Information is a powerful force in the world today, but no one is foolish enough to give it away for free. And the Masses can hardly handle the world they live in now, much less a world where perfections become commonplace.
Rather than trying to force the Masses to Ascend, we simply position ourselves at the receiving end. Ac its core, money is, in and of itself, an illusion.
It is a medium of exchange, nothing But the belief in that medium, the implicit trust that a dollar is worth a dollar, gives money and our Syndicate a short and easy road to the Ascension of our reality.
In many ways, money is the last great holdover from the Mythic Age, the last superstition that keeps the Masses in place. The Masses could do without money; they did so thou- sands of years ago in the earliest tribal cultures. But civilization has progressed light-years beyond the hunter-gatherer, and that progress has required capital. No human achievement — exploration, conquest, medicine, tools, trade, commerce, even language —is possible without the incentive of profit.
Money, or the potential to get it, keeps the inventor burning the midnight oil. The dream of the good life keeps housewi across the world playing sweepstakes for one shot at the big bucks. Easy credit keeps people opening up new credit-card accounts, proving their worth to the consumer society at large.
With the swipe of apiece of magnetized plastic through a phone line, they can purchase anything they want, and they'll pay for it later, thankyouverymuch.
We know the power of money. We have no reason to waste time with genetic alterations, or intricate technol- ogy, or the search for a better world. Such notions do not bring about a definitive reality. The definitive reality is already here. All that is left is to take it. It is easy. It is safer, and it is guaranteed. Or your money back.
Since so many. Mystic — A Syndicate term for a Tradition mage who Clearinghouse — The general term for a Syndicate pecializesin quasireligious magick,. Dispatch Center. The ventions in return for favorable funding and grants. See Werewolf: the Order of Reason, the forerunner of the Technoeracy. Final Notice— An. Financiers — The division within the Syndicate: oversees the manipulation and direction of world trade, stock markets, commodities brokering, currency interest rates and all other aspects of international finance.
Also used in. Ingersoll Peter — The following transcript is a conver- sation overheard between two Syndicate members Buy? The details of its transcription are not important, save to note that no unaided ear would have understood what the men were discussing. A baffle system muted their words to normal listeners. Once I activated countermea- sures, the conversation returned to clarity see note. CommonWealth As- surance is a collection agency owned and run by Proctor House.
Thanks for coming. Redding: Sure, Brian. You disap- peared for nearly three days. Parnell: In a minute. You need a drink first. Redding: Ok, Brian. Now what's the problem? Redding: I read the report you sent me. The team I sent you fucked up. Parnell: You're goddamn right.
That psycho s. Jesus Christ, Charlie, there was blood everywhere— Redding: Brian, keep your voice down, for Crissakes Parnell: Fuck it. It was bush league, Charlie. Where in hell did you find those idiots?
Redding: They're members of the Double Eagle. Rus- sian gang, runs out of Brighton. They think the only way to make a name quick is to break heads.
Parnell: Well, they sure made a name. All over the front page of The Herald. Redding: Iknow, Brian, know. Believe me, the Chairman called me on the carpet for it yesterday.
I'll fix it. They'll never connect you to anything, and they'll never connect us, just like always. You know how it works. Redding: What do you mean? Parnell: I'mean: the job, I've been doing this for you for Fifteen, 20 years? Redding: Twenty-three years. What's up, Brian? I hate it when people reminisce like this. It usually means something. Parnell: It does.
Read this sound of paper rustling. It explains everything. Redding: pause You're resigning? Parnell: Yes. Youknow that. You're in for life, you know. When you became an Enforcer, you became one for the duration. I want out. If that means you have to send a couple of people, so be it. Redding: Brian, you've been an Enforcer for over two decades. You've been one of our best field operatives.
You're well compensated, and you're well protected. You're ashadow man, Brian. Hell, you've done a lot worse. Now you're telling me that you want to chuck it all? What are you going to do, grow orchids? I can't keep terrifying them anymore. Redding: The people you deal with have already ru- ined their own lives. They got themselves into debt, or receivership, or they got addicted to drugs or gambling or porn or whatever. It was a conscious choice they all made, Brian. No one put a gun to their head at the beginning and made them do lines; no one made them play the slots; no one made them run up huge bills and say the hell with paying them back.
There are consequences to their actions, no matter what they might fool themselves into thinking. No legitimate business runs like this. I never cared about it, because I was just able to threaten most people into paying up.
And those heads I had to break were pimps and dealers and the rest of the gutter scum that deserved it anyway.
But this last assignment really opened my eyes. Maybe too late, but now I see what the Syndicate really is. Redding: sound of clapping Author, author, Brian. How many have you had before I got here? Redding: Let me tell yousomething, Mister Parnell. Iwill not accept your resignation, because if I do, then it is my duty to report it to the Chairman.
She will consider you a Default, and soon after you will be Hollowed Out. I know that this last job traumatized you, and I understand how you feel.
Being an Enforcer is the dirtier side of the Syndicate ina lot of ways. You doa lot of unenviable work: foreclosures, evictions, shakedowns Parnell: Tell me about it. Redding: Actually, I will. And think it'll put everything into perspective.
They're the modern-day incarnation of a group that goes back centuries. The Enforcers are a part of history, Brian. Maybe if you hear what that history is, you'll be able to understand why the Syndicate thinks and acts as it does.
Parnell: Is this going to be one of your classic long stories? Redding: Incredibly long. Parnell: How deep? Redding: All the way back to ancient civilizations. Think about it, Brian. Civilization, everything humanity has created, everything humanity has accomplished, has been tied to money in some way.
The Egyptians, the Phoenicians, all those early civilizations developed from trade and com- merce. Parnell: And the Syndicate ran the trading routes? Redding: Hardly. But by the time of the Greeks and Romans, when people had established advanced science, architecture and government, trade guilds appeared.
Not like the medieval guilds, but associations of builders and architects that formed in Athens and Sparta and Rome. These associations were brotherhoods of workingmen, the men who built the temples and streets and aqueducts. The earliest association the Syn- dicate has records of, old scrolls in some archive somewhere, is the Brotherhood of the Rule.
Parnell: And that was the Syndicate, ancient Roman version? These groups thought labor was sacred. They thought the ability of man to take the raw materials of the Earth and use his hands and his mind to create something that was useful or essential or luxurious was a divine gift.
So they banded together to preserve their knowledge and pass it on for future generations of workingmen. Parnell: And the Brotherhood of the Rule was one of these associations? Redding: One of the first. It was founded in B. It helped build the infrastructure of the Roman Empire — the roads, aqueducts, forums and marketplaces Parnell: The Brotherhood built everything? The Appian Way, the Coliseum, everything? Reddin, builders were some of the best architects in the ancient world.
And they had some fantastic negotiators in the Brotherhood. There was one Brother, called Cassius Ulixes, who worked out contracts with the Roman Senate for the construction of the aqueducts throughout the city.
The aqueducts are standing today. Hell, they're still in use in some spots. Not everything, but a good deal of it.
The Parnell: So what does that have to do with making money? The point of the Brotherhood of the Rule cate — was to bring together these talented men, these builders and architects, encourage them, protect them, get them to use their tools and talent to better humanity. Progress only happens when people use their potential to make life better, more efficient, easier for everybody.
Man the point of the entire Syndi- is never as noble as he is when he makes something useful and gives it to his fellows. That is what pulls him forward, what pushes him toward higher things. The Dark Ages Parnell: That'll look great on a greeting card, Charlie, but how does this Brotherhood get to be you and me? Redding: Well, when Rome fell, most of the tignarii died out. They kept in contact with each other, still forwarding innovations and information on architecture around the Mediterranean.
The problem was the Dark Ages itself. Parnell: That Europe was ignorant and all that? When Rome fell, the protection of the garrisons disappeared in the remote parts of the former empire.
The system of feudalism came about in order to provide that protection, but that took centuries to develop. Trade with the Middle East continued, but the prices were so high that only the rich people could afford the goods exchanged. At the top of that food chain sat Superstitionists, church clerics, high priests, members of Hermetic Orders, and they spread out all over Europe.
If the common folks farmed the land, the priests and magicians would provide protection from the other supernaturals, the vampires and werewolves, that roamed the wilderness after Rome fell.
Parnell: But it worked. Science and knowledge stopped practically dead in their tracks all during the Dark Ages. Redding: Precisely. And the people were miserable.
These Superstitionists were so self-absorbed in their own little worlds and experiments that they ignored those whom they were supposed to protect, whom they had made deals with to protect.
They were so worried about protecting their own little pieces of real estate that society became a living hell. Disease, crop failure, inefficiency were all the norm. You've read about this sort of thing. Serfs toiling 14 hours on end, barely enough to feed their families, everyone dying at 30 — all the product of fear and fantasies. Parnell: So where were these Brothers?
Just hiding out for centuries! A lot of the old Roman associations had been absorbed by monasteries and nunneries during the Dark Ages.
Monks and nuns availed themselves of secrets that surfaced after these asso- ciations disbanded, and used the secrets to advance their own ends. Ever wonder why the churches and cathedrals were so much more ornate, so much better constructed, than the common dwellings? They stole the secrets from us. And then there were the purges. A couple of Superstitionist covenants took it upon themselvesto sp read out across Europe and hunt down the last few associations. They sent out shock troops, groups of mercenaries and bullies, to ransack old tignarii holdings and grab as much information as they could.
Parnell: And keep it under wraps. Redding: More like use it for their own purposes. It was too risky to their personal covenant holdings. So they enlisted help from Sleepers — brute squads, informers, influential archbishops and cardinals —and began to purge France and Italy of the old tignarii. The Inquisition got involved, too, after they were told that the associations were really just practicing Satanism and other heresies. Parnell: How bad did it get? Redding: Pretty bad.
They burned meetinghouses, banished members and even executed a few housemasters as heretics and apostates. A lot of the original Brotherhood members were wiped out this way. Those who weren't took what little knowledge they had left and fled to Moorish Spain, where they shared and augmented their secrets with the Arabic civilizations living there. A few members of the Brotherhood remained in Europe, but they had burrowed so far underground by this point that there was little commu- nication among the individual members.
Parnell: And the Brotherhood itself died out officially. Redding: I'm getting to that. At the end of the millen- nium, secret invitations were sent out across Europe and Byzantium. They were sent by the sole-surviving Brother in the Holy Roman Empire, Wolfgang von Reisman, Von Reisman had been watching the developments through- out Europe, and decided that the time had come to take action against the Superstitionist covenants.
In , the remnants of the old Brotherhood convened in the Gather- ing of the Square, in the city of Frankfurt in the Holy Roman Empire. Redding: The Gathering of the Square was a secret meeting by the descendants of the Brotherhood, called to discuss what they were going to do about these neglectful covenants.
The new millennium was just around the corner, and von Reisman wanted to start it by deposing the Superstitionists. It was a common practice — a lot of Brothers who had holdings found themselves forcibly removed from their lands. Parnell: So what happened with von Reisman?
Redding: He had disappeared for a long time. He learned the alchemical secrets of longevity from some colleagues in another guild — one that eventually became the Progenitors — and altered his appearance. He was still the same fire- brand, though. The Masses were being treated like shit, kept in fear and igno- rance by Superstitionists. Forget science and progress; most people barely had enough to feed their families. Von Reisman and the assembly banded together into a new order called La Compagnia — better known as the Craftmasons.
You see, Brian, the Syndicate has always been con- cerned with enabling humanity to rise above its fears. They believed that man had the ability to better himself and society without the Arts of the old Hermetic Orders. But in order for man to get to that point, the playing field had to be leveled. Parnell: Makes sense. Redding: And here is where the Enforcers start. The problem was, he ran into trouble with the local lords, a few of which were Superstitionists.
Jump to ratings and reviews. Want to Read. Buy on Amazon. Rate this book. Mage: the Ascension Technocracy: Assembled Volume 2. Judith A. Control Today The Technocracy strives for its own brand of Ascension. Technocracy Assembled combines out-of-print Mage: The Ascension supplements under one cover.
Volume 2 includes the valuable players guides Technocracy: Syndicate and Technocracy: Void Engineers. The Technocracy is ascendant. Do you rise or fall? Log In. New Account or Log In. Hide my password. Get the newsletter. Subscribe to get the free product of the week! One-click unsubscribe later if you don't enjoy the newsletter.
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