- Location
- Spain
The Syndicate has infected your mind. Precious, pure silver and gold have inherent value.
White Wolf's World of Darkness
The Syndicate has infected your mind. Precious, pure silver and gold have inherent value.
Because bluntly, the Order of Hermes is just as much the Man as the Order of Reason in the Sorcerer's Crusade era - which is when this shit is getting started. Newton, John Dee, the IRL influence of Hermeticism on the Renaissance and the Reformation - as a school of thought, it's fairly influential on the development of aspects of Early Modern Europe. The Order of Hermes is a product of the same Western European economics and paradigms that also birthed the Order of Reason and arguably the Order of Reason is the biggest, largest, roguest Hermetic House ever (suck on that, House Tremere [1]).
I mean, shit, Freemasonry has lots of ties to Hermetic influences on Western occultism. In the conspiracy mythos of the oWoD, the Freemasons are clearly a Hermetic pawn - and in a conspiracy mythos, that means that even today, the Hermetics have tendrils going into the very highest reaches of power. And that means, when cast into an oMage light, that the Hermetics have had notable amounts of power - but haven't used it for paradigm warring (as Hermeticism does have a lot of the traits of a mystery cult - which means that if you believe it, you're not going to spread it) but for their own benefit.
This is exactly what I've mentioned about people whitewashing paradigms - if the Order of Hermes wants to be... you know, hermetics, that means they should own the things hermeticism has ties to. And that means that in the oWoD, Newton was a Hermetic who was not outright antagonistic with the Order of Reason's presence which is something the modern Order would like to brush over - much as they'd also like to brush over their pronounced tendency to come to... ahem, "arrangements" with the Order of Reason and early Technocracy where in return for material wealth and respecting their influence at the top of society, they keep their magical arts behind closed doors and don't spread it among the common sorts.
[1] Badoom tish. Because they're vampires. So they suck. Your blood.
- Location
- United States
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- He/They
There's no reason why the Technocracy couldn't have just done the same thing they did in Europe elsewhere in the world--and given how colonialism usually worked, this is basically what they actually did, just with a much heavier hand and more racism. If the Technocracy really needed to exterminate Africans/Native Americans/Asians/etc. to insert their own consensus, then... why didn't they have to do that in, for instance, all of Africa?
I'll fully admit that the Order of Reason is responsible for the destruction of the Aztecs and general shittiness that happened in the conquest of the Americas, although given that the Traditions were very much still powerful in Europe while this happened they're going to share a pretty notable slice of the blame as well. However, to say that it was responsible for genociding the vast majority of Native American populations is kind of ridiculous, especially since most of those Native Americans died of disease.
Mm. Point, but on the other hand it's not like making Primium doesn't require a ludicrous number of successes to be building up in combat time. I might be okay with someone using Prime for everything, if it takes them twenty successes at five dots of the Sphere...
... Well, it's not really good design space, that's true. In that case where's all the expense going, though? As noted, Primium as-written is just a Prime 3 Device and not really worthy of either its Sphere requirements or its incredible infrastructural cost mechanically.
- Location
- Spain
Fixed.
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Obviously, smallpox wasn't devastating to the Aztecs due to lack of earned resistance. (That's only the technocratic explanation).
So either it was deliberately caused by the invaders, or, more probably, it was a direct result of their own consensus. (Since they believed the end of time was coming, it came).
(Probably both).
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Go Go Plan "Devalue-the-absolute-hell-out-of-diamonds-and-gold".
Marauder: "Yes? I don't get it, why did you feel the need to mention that."
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
ES comes across as arrogant and this raises peoples hackles. Why are you even surprised?
"This is good in concept but poor in execution" is the opposite of dissing an idea. "I like this idea and want it to be well done rather than a mess that is legitimately offensive to at least half the planet." As opposed to, you know, "Burn it to the ground, and pretend it never existed" which was my first instinct RE: Celestial Chorus.
Because as originally written, the only traditions that weren't a horribly offensive mash of cliches, stereotypes, racism, holywood logic, and hilariously insensitive oversimplification of RL belief systems were the hermetics and sons of ether, aka the upper middle class anglo saxon types. Which just make the whole thing feel doubly ethnocentric.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
I'm surprised at the depths of the hate. The only people I hate enough to start going on in an Exalted conversation are the devs.ES comes across as arrogant and this raises peoples hackles. Why are you even surprised?
Quantumboost
Now with 50% more dots in Dimensional Science
- Location
- Ensemble Space
No, it's not really. Primium isn't just countermagick dice; it's also a wonder material. Prime 3 (in SoE Revised) gives it countermagick dice. Matter 5, on the other hand, makes it perfectly hypoallergenic, perfectly superconductive, perfectly nonmagnetic, arbitrarily durable, arbitrarily hard, and whatever other material properties the person forging it might happen to like.
That's why it's a Prime 3/Matter 5 rote to forge.
On the other hand, you can basically just stuff Prime countermagick in a Device, hope it stays intact physically, and be on your merry way without invoking Primium. Progenitors certainly do so.
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Contemporary sources mention no such thing.
There is some speculation that the Spanish misinterpreted Aztec language as well as Aztec etiquette to come up with that conclusion, but chances are good that it was just good, old-fashioned propaganda mixed in the normal distortion of information that results from time and distance.
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- United States
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- He/They
In the context of Mage I've always assumed that this was the result of a massive paradox backlash caused by the European paradigm intruding into Native American ones, and a perfect illustration of why having non-uniform paradigms is a bad idea.
Because if we assume that the Technocracy caused this, and thus that the Technocracy was capable of killing off hundreds of millions of people in a hostile paradigm region within a century or so back when their power was still very much nascent, then why haven't they already completely won?
We're talking about different things--that documentary discusses the ethnic cleansing campaigns perpetrated by the US government largely during the 18th and 19th centuries, I'm talking about the mass deaths of Native Americans caused by European contact centuries before that. The former is probably something mostly perpetrated by the sleepers with maybe the support of the US Symposium alone given that the wider Technocracy didn't really have any reason why it wouldn't have utilized a policy similar to theirs in, say, Africa against the Native Americans otherwise. As a matter of fact, the latter would have been vastly more efficient.
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ganonso
Compulsive Quest Starter
- Location
- PACA France
I see three reasons
1 This is a sf-forum mostly derived from one named spacebattles. So the esthetic of superscience is popular
2 Consqeuently at least some users have vast knowledge of science and ressent a narrative where they would be wrong
3 Most users are Americans, which I m conviced plays a role : The Technocracy is way more sympathetic in a country where science is attacked by the Religious Right and a powerful anti-vaxx movement
A contrario, if you live in a country where even displays of homophobia are couched in scientific language, where politicians tell you neo-liberalism is a scientific truth and you don t argue with science. The Syndicate and the Technocracy by large become more credible as villains.
- Location
- Spain
if it were paradox, it would have gone against the invaders, not the locals.
Probably, it only worked because the local consensus thought that the end was near, so causing masive damage was coincidental.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Only the Aztecs thought that. The vast majority of native Americans didn't believe the world was ending, and even the Aztec's vassals didn't think it.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
Not necessarily--Paradox works in strange ways. Also, it's entirely possible that said paradox might have been a result of Native Americans rapidly incorporating things like "guns work" into their paradigm after seeing that "holy shit, guns work" without incorporating the wider parts of the European paradigm that explained why guns work. Incoherent paradigms lead to Paradox
This was very specifically an Aztec belief, and even the Aztecs themselves didn't really believe it the way you're describing.
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- She/Her
Edit: I should mention my approach to mage has always been that the traditions, while jerks are less jerks than the technocracy, and that I prefer the ascension war to later fluff. That's what I think we're mostly arguing about here.
Maybe this is just a case of sorcerers crusade being shit.
Like, sorcerer's crusade always gave me the impression that the structure of the Traditions was basically established into the renaissance, and from there you had a smooth transition into the current mage world order.
I'm totally fine to have hermetics be jerks as well, even if the technocracy, as the winners are more jerks. The hermetics would then be the losers of the spat in that era, who joined up with their enemies and are distrusted by everyone else because of it.
That could actually be pretty interesting.
Maybe this is just a case of sorcerers crusade being shit.
Like, sorcerer's crusade always gave me the impression that the structure of the Traditions was basically established into the renaissance, and from there you had a smooth transition into the current mage world order.
I'm totally fine to have hermetics be jerks as well, even if the technocracy, as the winners are more jerks. The hermetics would then be the losers of the spat in that era, who joined up with their enemies and are distrusted by everyone else because of it.
That could actually be pretty interesting.
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notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
Sorcerer's Crusade is legitimately the best part of the gameline.
- Location
- Spain
HERESY.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
What do you guys like about it? I never really thought much of it myself.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/They
Honestly, with the sheer amount of headcannoning we're already doing constantly here, sometimes it feels like SV should just pitch together to write its own, unfucked version of Mage cutting out all the stupid bits entirely.
I mean, it can't be worse than M20.
I mean, it can't be worse than M20.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
It really managed to sell the Renaissance feel and it's OoR was good.
Pentex over those damn furry fascists any day.