I hate the Technocracy (MAGE WoD)

I can never talk about World of Darkness shit because I'm always afraid I'll get it wrong. It's such an old series of games and books, with multiple changed editions, some with totally different lore. I'm too casual for it. My World of Darkness experience is limited to a few games of vampire, one Hunter, a shitty play-by-post RP Forum game set in the setting but with none of the rules, reading the wikis, and pirated .pdfs. As such, I feel I can never speak with any authority on the subject, as I'm 100% sure my ideas about the setting are either headcanon confused as real stuff, other people's headcanon, or just flat out misremembered stuff I read from years ago. However, that doesn't stop me from really enjoying the implied setting, spitballing new ideas, and seeing what people make of it. No matter how much I read about WoD there always seems to be more.

But time and time again, something about MAGE really bothers me. MAGE in particular I feel like is the weakest and most contentious bit of the WoD, and is widely considered one of the hardest games to both run and play in, despite WRAITH having every player needing to play both their own character and a foil shadow to another character too. The Storyteller is just so loaded down in MAGE. I don't think this is a contentious opinion; I also frequented a roleplaying site for multiple years where a single dedicated GM continually tried recruiting for his WoD Mage game, in a place where people's games would usually fill up quite fast. I admire the dedication. But MAGE in particular bugs me.

I think the main issue with MAGE in terms of its universal appeal is its trying to be too broad and all-encompassing in scope. You're taking this core idea of "reality is what you make of it" or "reality is consensus", which works great for a highly focused piece of work like Unknown Armies, another favorite game/setting of mine, BUT you're also trying to tie it into the mythology and "monster"-fantasy of being a Witch or Wizard. I feel like you're creating an innate problem here. Vampire works great because you get what you say on the tin, you're a vampire. The game encompasses a massive amount of vampire mythology, and even encompasses some creatures that aren't traditional vampires yet all of them can safely fit into its mythology. It's scope is simple enough to understand and becomes a creative tool; restriction breeds creativity and all. But MAGE is basically anything you want as a magic user; no unifying themes other then the core rules of Spheres of power. Lip service to Ars Magica, but none of the actual grounding in Medieval Europe to tie it all together. It's trying to fit the fantasy of being Harry Potter, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the Wizards of Waverly Place, Wizards101, Charmed, Wanted, and all that other shit together in one unified splat. I just think it's flawed. I personally think it would have been much better if it was just trying to be one of those; just let me play a Teenager Wizard trying to keep their powers a secret or else they'll get their powers taken away by the evil wizard police or whatever. Normie opinion? Fine.

But I get why people like MAGE. You can basically create anything you want and fit it into the rules; a conspiracy theorist seeing numerology in the stock market manipulating reality, a Wicca with some punch behind her practices, the kids from Chronicle and that one X-Files episode, and it all kinda just works. For those who like it, I can't OBJECTIVELY say it's bad, I just think it suffers from trying to be too philosophical. But you know what part of MAGE I can say is objectively bad? The Technocracy.

The Technocracy in Lore
I have read two version of MAGE. I don't remember which is which and I don't care to do so, just know I've seen both the oWoD and nWoD versions. To explain my limited knowledge of this topic, I will reiterate my understanding.

In the first (older?) WoD splat, the world is in a fallen state. Achieving enlightenment was once possible, but the ladder to climb to reach it was kicked down by those above; the Supernal world is the philosophical and power end-goal of all Mages in this edition of the splat. The Technocracy is another faction, even one allied with the standard Mages of this edition, using super science and technology as their form of "magic" in this world. They're still breaking the rules, but to the sleepers and unawakened, it's a slightly easier sell. Essentially, they're like those spy gadgets in movies. Nothing overtly supernatural is happening, but they're still working magic, as objective reality doesn't allow what they're doing in the strictest sense. It's an interesting potential faction in a game like this which is very gnostic in its theme (as if I haven't talked about that enough on this blog), but I personally dislike it due to the theme of "magic magic is real" which is supposed to induate the rest of the splat.

Then? The second splat. This one has the technocracy being its own faction, one of several compared to the Order of Hermes (the good guys), Marauders (crazy mages) and Nephandi (the actual bad guys). Here the technocracy are like the Agent Smith's of this splat, helping to keep down the reality threats in a world that should, in most cases, side with them. Reality is built on consensus and in the modern world, with religion all but dead and science and rationality being so strongly held in belief with normal people that the technocracy are all but indomitable. Then, they have Extraordinary Citizens who are basically the magictek science-driven form of Sorcerers. Both editions of MAGE mention this Extraordinary Citizen concept by this name.

And it is some of the worst, most tone-deaf shit I have ever read in my life.

The Core Problem
The entire point of World of Darkness is that the world is dark. Not necessarily grimdark, but depressing and always a bit sad, always a bit degraded. Every single splat of WoD, no matter what it is, has a very strong theme of loss and slow decay or degradation over time.

Vampires slowly lose their humanity. Werewolves gain too much rage and become animals. Changelings gain banality and eventually forget they were ever fairies- their enchanted existence becomes mundane and boring. This last one is really important. Mage has its own morality/essence mechanic in the form of Quiet. This isn't the issue to me, the issue here is tone and theme.

The entire concept behind Mage is that the world is what we make of it. Human belief and superstition changes what is objective and real. Magic in the WoD is rare and precious because... most people don't believe in magic. Mages are constantly fighting an uphill battle to create magic because they're fighting their own version of banality, but in this case, it's objective scientific fact. Education, capitalism, and communication have eliminated so much of the folk traditions and beliefs that magic is becoming almost impossible to achieve- at least effects that look especially unreal and impossible. This is true even though belief is supposed to be localized and fluid; even in the middle of the woods around none of the sleepers making something levitate by itself is difficult because the stink of "what comes up must come down" is so strong that it even happens even when no-one is looking. This is supposed to be the aspect of MAGE that is sad, that is dark, that is your uphill battle. That human achievement is limited by what we think is possible, that people accused of crimes can't actually be innocent because nobody gets accused without a good reason, or that "everyone is out for themselves" being a belief so ingrained that it becomes part of reality. This concept is even directly stated in the Nephandi book, for fallen sorcerers, who are actively trying to make the world a worse place by spreading these ideas and misery into the world. So what is the Technocracy doing with special divisions, intentional conspiracies nobody can breach into, and extraordinary citizens? I hate this concept. 

The Technocracy doesn't need any of this shit, because the Technocracy already won. In the battle for reality, the boring, safe, practical minds already infected themselves into every single person on Earth, crushing down the once beautiful systems of belief and being and magic that was once possible in every human soul, now most of which are asleep, going through the motions of what is expected of them. They only care about contributing to society; making money and living in a family, because the thought they could be out having epic adventures or exploring realms beyond Earth or slaying dragons and creatures of the night is childish, impossible, and out of their comfort zone of reality. This is supposed to be what MAGE is about, but the entire concept is completely ruined by the Technocracy as some entity.

So for me; the Technocracy still exists in MAGE, but it is faceless. There are no extraordinary citizens. There are no secret gadgets or conspiracy. Those who teach and learn the scientific method, and who crush the human soul out of the real world by asking you to point it out on their anatomy chart, are just as dangerous and diabolical as the Marauders; not asking for consent as they change the reality around you to their own twisted song. But for the Technocrats, it's worse. They are the middle managers of the gray eternity, perhaps even destined to turn humans into nothing but the intelligent primates they evolved from. How do you know we evolved from primates? Because they dug up a skeleton and all the DNA they discovered pointed to it. Why are there fossils? Why is there DNA? Why did humans evolve at all? Because they believe it so, and every time they're being proven right. "That is true" is the most common, endlessly repeated, and all-powerful magic spell. And that is why they are winning; not just today, but in the past too. Retroactively changing the mythical past of humanity into just myths and dreams and revisions of history, because those things "just aren't possible".

This, to me, is what makes the Technocracy scary; not a neat little list of special "divisions" that are basically just the orders of Mages but with different names. I have always imagined this to be the true enemy of the awakened ones in the WoD; something faceless and impossible to reason with, something infecting every corner of the globe and every human mind with the crushing endless repetition of "TRUTH", unassailable in all ways, as impossible to snuff out as knowledge and as eternal as the concept of a state. It's the one world order of the reasonable, the cautious, spreading by industry and information itself. That is what the Technocracy should be.