The Technocratic Union

The State of the Technocracy

If the stereotypes are to be believed, the Technocratic Union is a vast, unified, terrifyingly omnipresent organization, its members emotionless automatons hell-bent on eliminating any spark of inspiration and individuality from the world. As with any broadly drawn archetype, the truth is rather more complex than that.

For all its attempts at unification, the Technocracy is still made up of people: human beings capable of both rational thought and deep emotion. Some of them fall to their darker urges. Some of them choose to use their skills and resources to make the world a genuinely better place. Just as it is within the Traditions, opinions will differ on precisely what the best method is for achieving their goals. There may be less obvious infighting (due in large part to the Union’s structure and ideology,) but they aren’t the hive-mind the Traditions often imagine them to be. And just as the Traditions are not solely Dynamic in nature, neither is the Technocracy completely Static. The world has changed over the last 20 years, and the Technocratic Union is changing right along with it.

Is this an age of a “kinder, gentler Technocracy?” In a way, yes. Certainly if you’re comparing their actions now to the horrifying ethical crimes they committed during the heyday of the Ascension War. On the other hand, you’ve got the Syndicate inflicting serious damage to the world economy (and that’s not even touching on the whole Pentex thing,) and the NWO trying to maintain total control over the spread of global information. The fact that they commit fewer war crimes doesn’t mean they aren’t still dangerous. Particularly if you happen to be a Reality Deviant.

Still, whatever the Traditions might think, the Technocracy does perform some vital services. They keep people safe from the more dangerous elements of the supernatural world, they maintain stability, and they help to codify advanced discoveries into consensual reality.

So are they the bad guys? It depends on who you ask.

Where our game expands on the books:

The Technocracy is currently on the verge of an ideological schism. In the years since the Friends of Courage movement began, its focus has broadened to encompass a critique of the Technocracy’s ethical standards as a whole (and how their ends-justify-means approach can leave them vulnerable to corruption.) The Friends of Courage would see the Technocracy become the shepherd of humanity – not its prison warden. And there are a lot more people who feel this way than even the Ivory Tower knows about. Change is inevitable, even for a behemoth like the Technocratic Union. Trying to stamp it out is like trying to cure a virus, and this particular virus has spread to include even some of the most high-ranking echelon.

What does this mean for the future of the Technocracy? It could mean a lot of things. Perhaps the Union will fall to infighting. Perhaps the dissident movements will succeed in changing the organization for the better. Perhaps the old guard within the Union will purge this movement once and for all. The most likely result will probably be a combination of these. Change, after all, is a messy business. It takes time, even under the best conditions – and the conditions within the Union are hardly optimal.

The Technocracy in Denver

The Technocratic presence in Denver is primarily research-based, focused around a large Progenitor lab which is geared toward health and medical advances.

Amaranthine Labs:

The Primary Investigator at Amaranthine is a Progenitor named Casey Hall. Formerly a doctor and surgeon with the Applied Science division, she earned extensive experience in the medical field before turning her focus to research. Under her supervision, the scientists at Amaranthine work both within and just outside the rules of consensual reality to try to push forward advances in medical technology that can be safely used and reproduced by the unenlightened world. They are not a cloning facility or a bastion for wild genetic experiments. Instead, their focus is on improving the overall health and longevity of the human species. Amaranthine hosts numerous departments in fields ranging from drug research to disease pathology to advanced surgical and healing procedures to study of the human genome. Incorporating Iteration-X scientists, the two Conventions bridge their respective fields in biotechnology. If it can help people live longer, Amaranthine studies it.