The gift of choice is a heavy one. All blessed with it by birth or happenstance of Fates must doubt, question, struggle. For those further gifted with the ability to Shape reality by their will and word, the burdens of choice are heavier still. A moment's hesitation, a flicker of indecision, a flight of fancy, and the light of their soul, burning brightly with their gift and training, would burst out of control. Milk would curdle, gear would grind, and wires would burn out. The art of ferromancy is not for those wielding the subtle practices of magic.
But men wouldn't be men if they didn't strive to transgress against their limitations. Since times almost lost in the mists of memories, when their many-shaped ancestors escaped from Gaol Beneath, and made their journey to the five poles which would later become five cities, the magi and artificiers both labored against the curse of techbane. Great sages would spend centuries and eventually millennia in closed doors meditation to hone their minds and will until only clarity remained. Artisans would introduce redundancies upon reduncancies into their creations, design self-repairing mechanisms and increase tolerances to the point where a stopwatch could be used as a cannonball.
It wasn't, however, until three generations ago, that a true solution was created. A merging of ferromancy and thaumaturgy inspired by the few systems of the Ancestral Prison that the brave explorers were able to tame, SUTRAs – Structure Unifying Thaumaturgy Resistance Attachments, take advantage of a long observed fact – the Burden of Choice cannot affect others capable of choice. A processor with ten or even more levels of redundancy can still burn out in the vicinity of a sufficiently agitated wizard, but neither an ailing mouse, nor a giant ferrosaur have to fear a stroke until expressly targeted. Thus, the reasoning went, if a mechanical object could be granted a spirit somehow, it would be rendered immune to the anti-technology field of magically inclined. And, if the spirit of the device itself possessed a modicum of the Gift, then new and previously undreamt of possibilities presented themselves.
At its core SUTRA is a spirit vessel – a mix between a summoning circle, black box, and a magic focus. Three main properties need to be present:
- In order to house a machine spirit, as the type of creatures first extracted from the Great Labyrinth systems are known, an object has to have the capacity to hold and self-modify information. Ancient tomes of forbidden lore possessing their own minds, which can be found in dark recesses of infinite library, can be considered a kind of proto-SUTRA.
- If it is to hold a spirit for a prolonged time without driving it completely insane, the potential vessel also has to be equipped with sensors that would serve as the spirit's eyes, ears, and more exotic sensory organs.
- Finally, a spirit need an ability to express itself upon the world around it, and its host body –a voice with which to scream into the dark void the words "I AM!".
Modern SUTRAs, which can be found in nearly every device more complex than a mechanical pen built in the last five thousand moons, are all that and more. The precise details vary from model to model, but all of them have certain elements in common. A central processor, and a power-independent memory module forming the physical representation of the spirit's central nervous system. A sensory suit that, at the very least includes proprioception-emulating gyroscopic module, an optical sensor of varying levels of complexity, and a dynamic giving the machine basic senses. An input-output device, and a wireless transmitter, through which the spirit can make itself known. Finally, a micromechanical readjustable summoning and containment circle laid out in black jade that shields the SUTRA from the high thaumic fields in the process of construction, and afterwards allows for easy thaumaturgical expression.
When a blank SUTRA is attached to its body-to-be, and a ritual of ensoulment is enacted, a spirit gets attracted from noospheric cloud invisibly permeating the modern civilized world. It is a descendant of the spirits extracted from the Ancestral Prison or summoned from beyond the borders of the world long ago. As like calls to like, a spirit that gets attracted to a new holographic projector is probably going to be a child of an old TV animus, which, in turn, traces its original ancestry to first radios, while a smart gun spirit might have a parent whose body is a train turret. More complex, smart, and, indeed, old spirits get attracted to higher quality and more complex devices and SUTRAs. Most machine spirits, even should they live for a ten thousand moons, would never become smarter than a common house rat. The numbers of sapient ones is limited. Only such great machines as intercity trains, large corporate and monastery mainframes, and autonomous guardian units might hope to house one. It is projected that this will eventually change, as the complexity of technology and the age of the noosphere-inhabiting entities keeps increasing,
The explorers of the Labyrinth whisper rumours of malevolent echoes heard in its noosphere-equivalent systems. Echoes that grow louder and more complex as you venture forth, deeper into the unknown. Immaterial spirits far surpassing a common man in intellect might lurk within its black walls. However, no definite confirmation has been found as of yet.
Should a SUTRA be damaged beyond its ability to house the spirit, the spirit will escape – into the wireless field of the five cities noosphere, to jump from one system to another until it finds a new permanent home-body, or into the next turn of its personal Wheel of reincarnation, should the damage occur somewhere in the Wastes or Forests.
Not all SUTRA house a machine spirit. Those seeking cybernetic transcension, ferro- and infomancers practice rituals of attunement, in which they extend pieces of their own soul into the SUTRAs of various machines, such as cybernetic limb replacements, mechanical familiars and noospheric uplinks. This is the only way to take augmentations with one's self into the next turn of the Wheel, and, indeed, the only way to safely have a cybernetic implant at all. Similar procedures are performed by surgeon-priests correcting birth defects.
