kaolinandbone

Aisilian offers him a wry smile. "I'm not even a third done yet. This world is incredibly, pardon my French, fucked up."

"On the Traditions side... Well. You may have noticed that the Technocratic spirits had very different goals per organization, insofar as they had goals at all. Without the ability to compromise, the only thing holding them together as a faction is Conditioning, and Control wielding them freely. As it is, there is still quite a bit of fractious infighting.

"The Traditions did not have that advantage. Their Rogue Council is splintered, working entirely at cross-purposes and sabotaging itself at every turn. If you have a clever plan involving them, I will go into further detail, but - you can probably extrapolate from the Traditions on the inside of the Gauntlet, once I get to those.

"Aside from the Mages, there are not very many factions that can easily reach outside of the Anomaly. However, there are an uncountable number of ... entities, that naturally exist beyond the Gauntlet. Some of them self-identify in the Technocratic paradigm as aliens, others as spirits, yet others as both depending on who is watching. The Deep Umbra is a very strange place even by World of Darkness standards.

"At any rate, those are the factions outside the Gauntlet.

"Inside the Gauntlet... We have the Technocracy, of course, and I have already explained their Conventions. Of note, however, are the Progenitors; a recent temporal anomaly retroactively peeled off a fraction of the Convention, and the people who would have become Mages instead became Genii.

"Beyond that... We have the nine Traditions: the Akashic Brotherhood, that specialize in Mind and cast through paradigms of Enlightement -

"Ah. I should explain paradigms. The Truth of the World of Darkness, that there is no reality at all save that determined by the Sleepers and by the Awakened Mages within it, is hard for humans to grok, and so instead Mages unconsciously cast by paradigms. There is a way they believe the world works - the cycle of Dharma, the fundamental nature of physics, the will of a single God, and so on - and somehow they achieve their effects by understanding and manipulating that mechanism. It is generally several decades before a Mage can grow beyond their paradigm at all, though naturally paradigms can change.

"At any rate - the Akashic Brotherhood, Mind, paradigms of enlightenment, karma, and martial arts. The Euthanatoi, Death and Entropy, paradigms of reincarnation and destiny, cutting away the dross of humanity. The Celestial Chorus, Prime and mana and the fundamental existence of reality, paradigms of religion, devotion, and worship. The Dreamspeakers, Spirit, animistic paradigms and spirit invocations. The Order of Hermes, elemental Forces, paradigms of ritual magic and incantations. The Cult of Ecstasy, Time, paradigms of transcendence through euphoria. The Sons of Ether, manipulation of Matter, paradigms of ... well, mad science, really. Defected from the Union when the Technocracy decided that the luminiferous ether was too inelegant to be included in Consensus and wrote it out of existence. The Verbena, Life, paradigms of druidic magic and a living, magical world. And the Virtual Adepts, magic that crosses space and manipulates data, paradigms of "reality hacking," treating all of reality as a simulation to be subverted.

"Due to the fading power of the Technocracy, and the increased demands upon that power caused by Threat Null and the Dimensional Anomaly, there is something of a detente between the Virtual Adepts, who defected more recently, and the Technocracy; a less formal peace exists between the Technocracy and the Sons of Ether. There exists an organized diplomatic attempt to reintegrate both Conventions, focused on the Virtual Adepts.

"The Genii, of course, we have met. They are split into the Peerage, who acknowledge their madness and the limitations of their reality-warping power. Their groups are: the Artificers, mad engineers; the Directors, mad psychologists; the Navigators, mad physicists; the Progenitors, which, yes, would have been Technocrats in another timeline, and are mad biologists; and the Scholastics, mad philosophers.

"If a Genius begins to believe that his chosen paradigm is the way the world actually works, akin to that of a Mage, he becomes Unmada, and reality around him starts to conform to his worldview. The effect is rather similar to that of an insane Mage, a Marauder, for that matter... At any rate, the largest organization of Unmada Genii are the Lemurians, who as a group claim to have ruled the world in a timeline that no longer exists. They are split into five Baramins, depending on the class of their world-view: Atomists, technocratic utopianists; Etherites, who attempt to unify all physics under their pet theory; Mechanists, who impose a deterministic universe; Oracles, classical mystics; and Phenomenologists, who believe in various uncorrelated philosophies.

"Lastly, there are the Illuminated, which occur when a Genius entirely falls to madness. An illuminated Genius loses all empathy for other beings, and worse can gain power from abuse - exploiting others through, say, murder and torture will grant them Larvae to use in their experimentation. Their selfishness prevents organization, thankfully, and even if they did organize they are a sufficient threat that other factions would unite against them. Unfortunately, they have a well-earned reputation for subterfuge, insinuating themselves into other groups and concealing themselves as their own sleeper agents.

"Then there are the vampires, who call themselves Kindred. There are many many clans and I will not even attempt to summarize them, but there are two major factions: the Camarilla, the major group that seeks to preserve the Masquerade and hide themselves from humanity, and the Sabbat, the minor breakaway group that seeks to ... really, do whatever they want. Both treat humans primarily as kine, unfortunately.

"The werewolves exist, but they are not a major, worldshaking faction like the others. Similarly the changelings, the Prometheans, and the Daemons, and it is not entirely clear if the Exalts ever existed in the first place."

"And that, bar one, are the factions of the World of Darkness."

Edited Date: 2015-06-09 10:54 pm (UTC)

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"'Bar one'? Saving the best for last?"

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Aisilian blinks, and - smiles at him.

It is an utterly peaceful smile.

"I mention these last explicitly because in this World of Darkness they earn the title of being the only group so utterly, obnoxiously evil that every other faction will unite against them: the Nephandi."

Charming, and utterly innocent, even as the edges of his face, the lids of his eyes, the curves of his chins and of his lips and between his teeth become sharper, blacker, more defined.

"Nephandi are rather akin to petty Excrucians: they have a similar goal of wiping out reality and consigning all coherent concepts to Oblivion. "

His smile is childlike, and pure, and utterly at odds with the growing cracks in reality about him, the growing floral patterns in the air and sprouting along the grain of the wooden table. The edges of his pupils are beginning to glow, now, and his words begin to feel choppy, perfectly shaped and absolutely ended.

"They are entirely unsympathetic in their methods for doing so. They glory in cruelty - raping children, sacrificing people before their family, corrupting body and mind from the inside. The initiation rite of becoming a Nephandus is only technically voluntary, but permanently mutilates the local ... soul, though that means something rather different to me."

His voice remains perfectly calm and composed, but the edges that sprout about him are anything but; lashing against their natural banks, the grain of the table starting to spiral inwards towards an endless world within. And something in Miles' hindbrain is starting to tell him, in case it wasn't obvious -

"The result is an inverted Avatar that will henceforth seek descension, destruction, and harm. A Nephandus cannot be turned; the seat of their identity has been irreparably mutilated, barring someone with the skill and desire to painstakingly reconstruct it from scratch. And worse, that soul persists through reincarnation; it is not enough to kill a Nephandus, one must catch them and destroy their soul entirely, or it will birth an equally irredeemable sociopath when next it incarnates, some person doomed from birth."

- this thing before him is fatal.

It is not looking at him. His eyes stare into the middle distance, their focus far away, the air before the entity twisting and writhing as if in agony, as if to part and give up the concept of Nephandus for destruction.

But it is absolutely, utterly fatal, to earn its attention right now.

"It is an utter perversion of life, of choice, of -"

And, finally, as if the world could no longer take it, there is a loud crack! of ceramic.

The lines, the florid fractals, retreat immediately, as if retracted into Aisilian's eyes. He blinks, for a moment, and then stares at the broken teacup spilling tea over the table.

At last, his hand comes up, rubbing the back of his head with a sheepish expression - though his mouth is still fixed in that pure smile. "Ah... my apologies, I lost control for a moment there. The Nephandi... offend me, at a very fundamental level."

He gathers a napkin and begins mopping up his mess.

Edited Date: 2015-06-09 11:19 pm (UTC)

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The spilled tea turns to air, and Cordelia walks up to the table to pick up the broken cup and start fitting the pieces back together. (The long skirt of her very elegant dress swishes dissonantly against her confident stride; she has never quite learned the trick to gowns.)

"You really should be more careful with that," she remarks. "Uncontrolled destructive magical effects are no one's friend."

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"...Hello, Mother."

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Aisilian nods sheepishly. "To be fair, the magical effects are ... effectively illusionary; the teacup broke because I gripped it too tightly. It's always the mundane things. Nevertheless, I apologize for losing control."

The smile is still there, but it's starting to fade as Aisilian gets himself under control. By the time the cup is repaired, it's almost gone.

Edited Date: 2015-06-09 11:41 pm (UTC)

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Cordelia puts the repaired teacup back on the table.

"And what were you having such fun discussing?"

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"The unutterable shitshow that is the World of Darkness, and how we're going to fix it," says Miles. "Now, please don't go all black sorcery on me again, but you mentioned something about soul repair? Just how difficult is it?"

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lurkingkobold

Meanwhile, the kobold has separated herself from whatever she was doing a minute ago and found a sufficiently sheltered spot to lurk nearby - one where she can see Miles' face, which conveniently enough puts her behind Aisilian. She settles in to near-invisibility, but first makes sure that Miles sees her moving into position.

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(Entity kobold (illusionary) !POSSIBLE INTERFERENCE DETECTED! name unspecified height weight date of birth personal history) redirect to /dev/null.

Being behind him doesn't make much of a difference; at the kobold's appearance, Aisilian gives something of a long-suffering sigh.

Returning his attention to Miles, he replies "Soul repair... is extremely difficult. It would like trying to take someone who had been run through a meat grinder, but was somehow magically kept alive, and trying to rebuild a working body from that. Using tweezers. If you were as good at manipulating souls as an experienced angel was at manipulating matter, I would still only give you a fifty-fifty shot at succeeding, at best.

"If I were on my home ground, then with effort, attention, and energy, I could perform such a repair. One at a time. Anywhere else?" He waves his hand expressively; the smile has returned, but only barely, and as promised there is no black sorcery this time. "That is precisely why they disgust me so."

"It is not impossible that we might find a better way someday... but for now, I suspect our best measure will be to restore them from backup, from before they entered the Caul - the artifact that inverts their soul. The ones who were born with an inverted soul..." He shrugs helplessly.

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Miles observes that the kobold is there, observes that Meletiti Entelecheiai has noticed, and spares a moment to smile at her - a good to see you/nothing to worry about smile. He is not, in fact, particularly worried about the black sorcery; it gave him a jolt, but he's seen stranger things.

"You seem to know enough about me that I suspect you can guess my response here," he says when Aisilian is finished speaking, "but just to make it explicit: I am in favour of soul repair. Possibly to be postponed until after the optimism bomb, but definitely to be undertaken at our earliest convenience."

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lurkingkobold

Well, it's nice that Miles isn't alarmed, but the kobold still is; she's going to camp out in this nice convenient bush regardless.

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Aisiliian - gives a pained grimace, but nods.

"If it at all possible - yes. Obviously.

But... the World of Darkness has power. My fear is that we will not have the capability, the leeway, to ... imprison or put into stasis the corrupted souls."

He sighs. "But yes. Even if I have to drag their souls out of the past because all remnant of them has been deleted from the present, yes. We will get them back."

There is a little more steel in his voice by the time he finishes.

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"Naturally," Miles agrees. "In theory the keeper could help us there, although I've been reluctant to direct her attention to the World of Darkness just yet in case she becomes deeply offended by it while it's still a raging clusterfuck. I can't help thinking Esthfora might have something to contribute too."

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Aisilian - stares at the ceiling for a moment. "Esthfora... perhaps. She does speak of herself as 'a part of the concept of a mind,' after all.

"The keeper, absolutely."

"But, ah - pardon me, my minor tantrum appears to have gotten us off track. I did have a general sense of a plan, after all." He smiles a bit at that, self-deprecatingly.

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"By all means, continue," says Miles.

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Cordelia sits down to listen, although she seems inclined to let her son do most of the talking.

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Aisilian nods.

"The ultimate goal is to cause a powerful local caster inside the Gauntlet, a relay for my power outside the Gauntlet, and a Consensus opinion of general optimism to coincide. Under these conditions, it should be possible to write that general optimism into the metacausality of the World of Darkness.

"As currently planned, that local caster will be another shard of myself. It could feasibly be replaced with another, but it would need to be someone with the mental flexibility to pick up an enlightenment-focused, actively-oppositional magic system in a reasonably short amount of time. ... In some ways, Esthfora might be perfect, but I doubt she is human enough to attract an Avatar."

"At any rate - the biggest problem here is that of Consensus. The easiest way to sway opinion on that scale will be through mass media - blockbuster, optimistic films or books released at or around the same time. Ideally, they would simply be mundanely well-written, but I am mildly inclined to tread towards memetic engineering for something this important. Mass media will not, however, meaningfully affect large swaths of, say, Africa; other approaches will be necessary there. I will return to this later.

"Gaining control of mass media outlets is, needless to say, difficult. The nature of the Ascension War ensures that such things are under very tight control by the Syndicate, and for reasons both selfish and altruistic, they will be extremely unlikely to release any of that control to us.

"However - there is another avenue. As the center for so many hopes and dreams, there is another Hollywood, another New York City, another Tokyo. Spirit-shadows, places where the spirits of the characters walk amidst sets brought to life, they nevertheless exert acausal control over their real-world counterparts, and inserting a doctored film in any of these places will have the same effect as showing it directly. And as below, so above - these places are controlled by the Residents, Control's spirit-counterpart to the Syndicate.

"Unlike the Technocracy, the Residents do not have common sense. They cannot have common sense; they must act according to our nature. In theory, if we were willing to pay their price, the Residents must sell the rights to us. Of course, in practice, they can very well name a price we would be unwilling to pay - or worse, one that we might pay only for it to come back to haunt us.

"Nevertheless, Threat Null has its own weak point. I do not mean Control; the codes for Conditioning are likely the single most heavily guarded secret in that entire world. I mean the Transhumans, the ex-Progenitors. The only Convention of Threat Null that still believes themselves benevolent.

"Them, I think, we might negotiate with. They will be using us, of course; they will not and cannot be satisfied with anything we would be able to offer. But, with the right wrangler," and here he nods at Miles, "perhaps it could be done. And then we can use internal influence. Perhaps a minor box office showing, that we then manipulate into being a surprise hit..." He shakes his head. "Something like that."

"That is the plan in space. On the ground, meanwhile, other groundwork will need to be laid. Though I have assumed we will be unable to entirely bring the Technocracy on-side, perhaps we might be able to reach a detente with them; if we are to sneak a surprise blockbuster under the noses of the Residents, who are magically and superhumanly competent at detecting such things, we will absolutely need as little opposition as possible. In that regard, we will need to secure, at least, the non-interference of the Traditions, the Technocracy, and the Peerage, a certain amount of defenses against the Illuminated and the Nephandi, and ideally the total ignorance of the Kindred, though I do not know how likely that may be. We will also need to begin to address the problems of those nations too poor to be effectively influenced by media; for political reasons, it would unfortunately probably be best if we found a way to create an impression of positive change without actually disturbing the fragile peace in those regions, as their lack of affluence is generally due to tensions in the Ascension War in that region."

"In short: the bare minimum crew consists of Leaf and myself outside the Gauntlet, with Leaf influencing Hollywood, Bollywood, New York City, and Tokyo through the Residents through the Transhumans. Leaf's brother and myself inside the Gauntlet, with probably a few months of lead-up getting Africa into shape, with Leaf's brother corralling the various human factions who could control mass media, and myself mastering enough of the local magic to pierce the Gauntlet from the inside and then providing an anchor to convert my incoming metacausal spell into something the local Consensus can accept.

"Obviously, this contingent could do with a little less fragility, and a little less depending on two people, no matter how competent they may be."

Aislian smiles, a little sheepishly. "In honor of bringing light to the Darkness, I propose we name this Operation Genesis."

Edited Date: 2015-06-10 01:46 am (UTC)

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...Miles snrks.

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Cordelia giggles.

Edited Date: 2015-06-10 01:54 am (UTC)

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Aisilian smiles. "And the Magi say: let there be light...'"

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"Well, count me in," says Miles. "And we'll see about refining that strategy."

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"I could lend a hand," Cordelia suggests.

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