What I've been saying isn't that the Technocracy only uses modern engineering. What I've been saying is that the Technocratic paradigm must accept modern science (not engineering limitations, science) as part of that paradigm, even if its acceptance is basically the same as what Newtonian physics is to quantum/relativistic physics-a good approximation on the scales and typical situations which normal people get into. But they still believe it's essentially true-just not the most perfect truth.
And the funniest thing is that my interpretation-the Technocracy are totally dominant in science-makes them, in fact, a lot weaker and more hubris-filled than the one you advance. The Technocracy have done exactly what the Order of Hermes did back in the Dark Ages. They've recreated the system of grogs and consors and lay magicians isolated in their own bubble against the world at large, created barrier after barrier to their knowledge to the point where even though they have an effective veto over what a major part of society believes-they keep finding it difficult to actually leverage that to achieve their goals. Because they've repeated the mistakes of the old Hermetics and the Mystery Cults and the Initiations, they just call their mystery cults and initiations and arcane symbols different things. They've stuck themselves in a rut and they're too afraid to change that because changing that necessarily requires them to open up their paradigm more-a huge risk because of exactly what I said-if you can insert a Trojan Horse into someone else's paradigm you basically win.
They've driven away two powerful groups (the Etherites and VAs) because of it. They're still in a strong position, but they aren't making any gains anymore. They're stuck. And they're afraid of changing it because it might doom them.
I disagree. The Technocracy are interesting antagonists. But if you want them to be villains, the Technocracy have always been bad villains in Mage, as demonstrated by the history of the entire line where they have had problems being the villains, from how 1E basically made the Technocracy baby killing eeeeeevil because it was the only way they could think of to make 'the guys who made the modern world' villains, to how a regular refrain in 2E/Revised discussions was "wait, the Technocracy were supposed to be the bad guys?!" When people keep missing the idea that they're villains, you have made what might be a good antagonist if you want a game with a good degree of moral ambiguity, but you haven't made villains. And to carry on that theme-the things you give as antithetical to mages-hubris and stasis-the Technocracy represents poorly, and is pidgeonholed into. The Technocracy represents 'Stasis' because Stasis is defined as "what the Technocracy is" in Mage. If you use the real life definition of stasis, the Technocracy is anti-stasis.
The Technocracy doesn't represent hubris either in canon, because there is nothing about its plan which is impossible. The one thing common to all three editions of oMage is that the Technocracy can win. In Revised, there's a scenario where it wins. In 2E, the Technocracy is presented as one of the possible victors of the final battle of the Ascension War, which is coming soon. In 1E, the Technocracy is the favored frontrunner for the winner. The Technocracy has been ambitious-but it is an ambition it very much can carry out. The Technocracy are good antagonists because they're the complex paternalistic hand of modernity, in all its good and bad. But that also makes them bad villains.
The changes you ask for-making the Technocracy actually represent stasis and hubris-makes them far more Seer-like. That's why I say you might as well replace the Union with the Seers-you're changing them again and again into something that's far closer to the Seers than the canonical Technocracy.
