So, this is going to take some time to write out, and it's partially me staking my own place in the world. Let me first say that I totally respect that Earthscropion's vision of the setting is interesting, and I've come around more than I used to (now that I'm sorta breathing and living the setting) to the more heavily gnostic/Matrix-y/etc/etc aspects of nMage.
But of course, other influences are definitely making themselves felt. One thing I want to do with Mage (and I've achieved it somewhat) is make it weird and maybe even a little gonzo. This is a world where people key their magic so that the only one who can pass a magical barrier is someone who says a silly magical phrase. This is a place where people can imbue items with ironic powers, and so while it's definitely not oWoD's over-the-topness, I want Mages to be weird. And one way to do that, of course, is the paradigm-idea that ES did, but I both don't want to radically change the setting that much, and I don't necessarily think it's necessary. People are fucking weird on their own, and get ideas in their head (and despite my rejection of philosophical knife fights, the Quest so far and my view of Mage has had a lot of philosophy in it) and make stupid jokes and can be morbid. And some of this comes from Changeling: The Lost, I have to admit. I think I didn't do it as much as I wanted to do with my Changeling Quest, in terms of weirdness.
More centrally to this particular point (yes, that was all a digression), is that I like rooting my stuff strongly in the history of the world and in society, because it lets me use my research and my history-mindedness.
So, let's start with Mages and Sleepers. The statement that the latter don't matter as much to the metaphysics of the setting as they did in oMage is one that's impossible to argue against, and I don't really want to. Ultimately, the struggle of Mages isn't about the triumph of capitalism.
But at the same time, Sleepers are more central than it might seem, both as enemies (in a metaphysical sense) and as potential allies/subjects. The Guardians of the Veil want to prevent Sleepers from harming magic, as do (in different ways) Mystagogues. The Free Council, if you have it, is obssessed with Sleepers. And the Silver Ladder's crusade is for their sake, and for the sake of them becoming, in some far off, distant time, Mages, so that everyone has magic and the Exarchs are overthrown by an army of the righteous and the world is set right, etc, etc. And the Seers, of course, use the power over the world to try to reinforce the Lie and lord it over them, for their own good, in the logic of some.
Silver Ladder, meanwhile, is seeking the same power, but in different ways.
So Sleepers matter as an object, and Mages have to keep close to them, and out of their ivory towers, for that reason.
The other is that despite it all, Mages are not transhuman, even when they get transhuman stats after quite some time. Apparently this isn't true in oMage? I dunno.
More importantly, that gets to something that seems like it could almost be a flaw, but isn't. A lot of the Mages depicted in the various setting books have down to earth problems. They get dumped. They do have some financial struggles, or try to get promoted. They live the lives of humans, even though in theory every Mage could just Matter their way to fabulous wealth and Mind their way into 'love.'
Wisdom's obviously some of the answer, but some of it is that the very lack of importance in another sense can be a grounding element. If material wealth doesn't matter that much compared to enlightenment, then sticking with your 9-5 job is fine. If what you want is to be really loved, then why use Mind magic to muddle the field. It's not that Mages refuse to use their powers, it's that many of them (that don't have Occultation, that is) tend to try to have something vaguely like an ordinary life. Often important for their job: the Silver Ladder stockbroker uses their influence to seek out promising Sleeper minds for their cult, while the weird Seer visionary seeks signs of the Exarchs in the ticker-tape readings. Similarly, don't underestimate the fact, very, very important, really, that every Mage was a Sleeper. It's one thing to say, "Now being a Mage matters more" but it's another to expect people to immediately internalize that.
So, where do Seers come in.
The very fact is, as tempting as their ideology can be (and I do think that having them internally think that they're
@EarthScorpion 's example makes sense[1]), there are weaknesses to it. That all Mages were Sleepers, and that the Seers are involved, often, in some nasty business creates this constant pressure among the Seers that makes it difficult for them to truly grasp at the right balance needed.
What do I mean by this?
In my Quest, set in 1920, I had (recounted third-hand) one Silver Ladder in the south state the outside-of-orthodox-SL-opinion idea that "There are no
negroes once they Awakening." (
Negroes=N-word) This is contrary to the beliefs of the Silver Ladder at its ideal, but this sort of special-exceptionism is something that I think would be more common than any of the Orders would like. Where bigots and biased people make Awakening the exception to any racial rules they believe, or have to follow (and the South pre-civil-rights was such that it was HARD to buck the public expectation of bigotry, and if you tried you might get your business burned down) and thus have internalized.
Obviously, in the long run, this kind of attitude is toxic to the Silver Ladder ideal, and really to the mindset of most of the Orders, but that doesn't stop it from occurring. And as part of this, the Seers have a problem. It's not intractable, but it's popped up again and again only to go away:
The very chaos that they sometimes herald also makes it harder to recruit among certain groups. If, in an area of the South where the Seer Pylon reinforces Jim Crow to try to cut off the chance that the oppressed will have as much chance of Awakening, that's all well and good and also horrible, and the Seers might also legitimately hold some pretty racist views, or they might justify it with the Exarchs...or both. Or either.
But then, what do they do when it comes time to recruit blacks? They can obviously offer, "Hey, dont' you want wealth and power and never to be kicked or spat on again?" but then what do they say if someone asks whether it was them that was behind the lynching that killed their older brother. Or etc, etc.
So the Seers constantly have 'bubbles' where it's not that they don't get a particular discriminated (or angry, or elite if they're playing at being the underdogs) group's Mages, but they get less of them than they should. So the very division and hatred they foster has to be carefully managed. They must boil the frog without him noticing, and if they go too far in either direction, well. The tighter they grip, the more systems will slip through their fingers.
And so balancing this is a constant problem with Seers, a way that their own ideology fucks them over, and yet, just like how the Silver Ladder has to struggle with Wisdom, just like how the Guardian's justified paranoia makes it hard for them to interact with the other Orders in a non-hostile way, just as the Adamantine Arrow's very foundation often risks loss and danger, the Seers and their very 'mastery' of the world is a weakness.
I know this was rambling, but in some ways I didn't want to get too much into it, but just wanted to sort of stake myself in the ground of what I'm looking at and looking for with Mage? And in another sense this was a Seer post, because talking about the way history works and the importance of Sleepers is the only way to look at how the Seer's own ideology is both a stretch and yet tempting, the way that it carries its own seeds of destruction. But so do the Orders.
Maybe the next post will talk about the Ministries, I know this whole post is something of a digression in the sense that it's more talking about themes than worldbuilding.
[1] I say internally, because think about those mega-rich mega-church pastors who are so sure that they're granted this wealth by the grace of God, but look like such massive, unsustainable hypocrites from the outside.
