The New World Order (Mage: the Ascension)
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- It is best to do things systematically, since we are only human, and disorder is our worst enemy. - Hesiod
The New World Order is a fictional organisation in the White Wolf role-playing game Mage: The Ascension. It is one of the Technocracy's Conventions. The New World Order serves as the administrative and bureaucratic branch of the Technocracy, but also fulfills tasks of internal policing and developing the Union's paradigm and philosophy.
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[edit] Overview
The members of this Convention are experts in information technology and information warfare, but the New World Order also includes a whole scholarly branch of historians and philosophers. The Convention takes an active role in developing, safeguarding and enforcing the technocratic paradigm, both internally and externally. As an organisation, the New World Order is a combination of academic think tanks, psychologists, investigators and spies. The Convention's influence extends throughout the Technocratic Union, and New World Order personnel can be encountered as part of virtually every Technocracy operation. Because of this apparent ubiquity within the Union, the New World Order has become synomymous with the Technocracy as a whole for most outsiders.
The ultimate vision of the New World Order is a world of clearly regulated information-flow, education and social conditioning, guided by a unified paradigm, to facilitate a global society where everyone knows their place and fulfills their function according to their best potential. In terms of political philosophy, this vision is not unlike the concepts of Confucianism or Legalism, but has often been called totalitarian, and compared with Stalinism and even Fascism by detractors and critics.
[edit] Methodology
The New World Order mostly work by means of collecting, controlling, disseminating and manipulating information. They prefer to do so by subtle means like (mass) psychology, media manipulation, political lobbying and covert operations. Consequently, they try to infiltrate academic circles, the media and political organisations, but also the intelligence community and secret services. Soft skills are valued more in New World Order personnel than the hard technical skills more favoured among Iteration X or the Void Engineers. Other than the Syndicate, however, the New World Order is much more politically motivated and regulated in their approach to the Technocratic agenda. Particularly the support of Communism by the NWO was a source of controversy between those two Conventions. The Void Engineers consider the NWO as being too meddlesome and resent the Convention's aspiration to apply a unified psychological conditioning to all Union personnel. Iteration-X and the Progenitors often view the NWO as being too constrained by ethical and humanistic considerations to sufficiently facilitate scientific progress.
When it comes to enforcing Union paradigm, the New World Order would rather try to convert Tradition mages, than eliminate them. In their view, a converted willworker is a loss to the opposition, and a gain for the Union. In cases where outright assassination is deemed to be the only option, the NWO would aim to create the highest possible psychological impact with their actions, intimidating and deterring other deviants. In most cases their covert operations are not necessarily as destructive and relentless as Iteration-X attacks, or as insidious as a Progenitor operation or a Syndicate hit, but are designed to strike as much fear as possible into the hearts of their enemies, and destabilize their morale. Through careful promotion of urban myths and paranoid notions, the Convention's operatives maintain a state of disinformation which is utilized to both confuse and intimidate any opposition. They are considered to be on par with Nephandi and maybe even the Ahl-i-Batin in the art of misdirection.
Of all the Conventions, the New World Order interacts most broadly with sleeper society as self-appointed "shepherds of the masses". They carefully introduce the concepts of technocratic paradigm into society, eradicate unfavourable ideas, monitor and contain subversive elements, cover up supernatural events and indoctrinate new recruits. The NWO commonly works through various unassuming front organisations and regularly recruits sleepers for their tasks, often without the subject's knowledge. Within the Union, the NWO takes care of politically organising and administrating internal affairs. NWO personnel are tasked with monitoring and enforcing protocol, social conditioning and general education of Union citizens. As a result, the Convention also fulfills the role of internal investigator and "thought-police" for the Union as a whole, and is responsible for reconditioning citizens who have gone astray. This has earned the NWO a reputation for being control freaks who engage in systematic brainwashing, consequently NWO personnel are often viewed with a certain level of paranoid suspicion, even by their peers.
[edit] History
The New World Order is the youngest of the Union's Conventions. Even though the Void Engineers were formed as a unified group no more recent than the 19th century, their predecessor organisations - the Void Seekers and the Celestial Masters - existed in one form or another since the earliest days of civilization. The NWO, however, is a direct result of the Victorian Era restructuring of the Order of Reason into the Technocracy during the 1890s. Prior to the days of Queen Victoria, the High Guild - the predecessor to the Syndicate - had gained more and more control over the ailing Order of Reason under their visionary leader Reginald Proctor. The ascendency of the Guild happened as a direct result of the prior disbanding of the hopelessly outdated Cabal of Pure Thought, an order of religious knights who had kept the Order of Reason under control by dogma and - if necessary - force. Proctor's High Guild was modern, pragmatic and had a solid base in sleeper society. The Guild's single-minded emphasis on commerce, however, made it unsuitable in the eyes of most parties to work as an integrative force keeping the Union as a whole to its task, and so the New World Order was created by fiat of Queen Victoria and her Enlightened advisers.
The newly formed political, philosophical and administrative body of the Union was an amalgamation of several diverse groups already associated with the fledgeling Technocracy: British state bureaucrats were the first administrators of a global power structure, and brought with them the experience necessary to manage such a vast operation. Operative groups, such as Rathbones Skeleton Keys, working covertly within the Scotland Yard or as independent investigators of the occult were recruited wholesale into the new Convention as investigators and enforcers, and the greatest minds from academia were rallied to the Union's cause to be assigned positions in the Ivory Tower - named in reminiscence of the White Tower of Languedoc, the cradle of the old Order of Reason.
This is the officially accepted version of the New World Order's conception, but this view remains disputed, even - and particularly - within the Ivory Tower's Collegium of History.
Several Ivory Tower scholars - most prominently the historian Dr. Donald Richardson - support theories based on the notion of historical precedent for organisations like the New World Order. Some point out the existence of well developed and implemented organisational and political principles in ancient Greece. Other - mostly Asian - scholars refer to Confucianism as a clear template for the modern NWO. The most controversial theories about the Convention's possible predecessors refer to the Knights Templar, Rosicrucians, Freemasons and Illuminati as "spiritual ancestors" of the NWO. To many, this smacks of too much affinity with superstitionist belief and mysticism, not to mention, that it tends to bring up inconvenient discussions about the fate of the Craftmasons who were purged from the Order of Reason centuries before the Technocracy was installed as a successor organisation.
Unknown to all but a preciously small number of people on the whole world, the Order of Reason did indeed include a group of covert enforcers and spies known as the Ksirafai. These masters of deception and guile managed to completely eradicate all records which existed about them, and strike their own name from history. Still, many signs hint at something more than just Victorian fiat having played a role in the creation of the New World Order. All research down this path is subtly discouraged, though, and the ultimate fate of the Ksirafai as well as their role - if any - in the emergence of the NWO remains a mystery.
[edit] Organizational Structure
The New World Order is comprised of three distinct Methodologies or subgroups: The Ivory Tower, the Operatives and the Watchers. Each group employs large numbers of un-Enlightened Sympathizers who are unaware of the fact that they work for a secret global conspiracy. Sympathizers fulfill very diverse functions in their normal life, ranging from simple secretaries or street snitches, to politicians, spies and news-anchors. Depending on their task or the circumstances, they are under either obvious or covert supervision and guidance from un-Enlightened technocratic citizens, or low-level Enlightened personnel. They are themselves not Union citizens and remain free to carry on with their lives, albeit as subjects to subtle manipulation and control by NWO agents. In case a Sympathizer is considered suitable recruiting material, they are isolated from Oldlife – their life as they led it up until this point – reprocessed and conditioned to become citizens. Transition from sleeper society into the Union is done in many different ways. Sometimes it simply involves moving elsewhere and breaking off all social contacts, sometimes it can be as far-reaching and complex as faking someone's death and giving them a new identity. According to their abilities, new citizens are assigned a place in one of the Methodologies when commencing Newlife
[edit] The Ivory Tower
The Ivory Tower is the academic and bureaucratic branch of the New World Order. Contrary to the evocative name of this Methodology they do not literally reside at any specific edifice on the world, but are spread out among the best universities of the world, Technocracy-run educational institutes, psychiatric institutions or Constructs dedicated to academic or administrative work. The hierarchy within the Ivory Tower is less dependent on rank and title than on academic merit, respectively administrative skill. The Ivory Tower academics are further divided between collegia, such as the Collegium of History or the Collegium of Cognitive Sciences. Reassignment of personnel from one task within the Methodology to another is quite common. The un-Enlightened are found at the least important positions, though, as lecturers and paper-pushers.
Both functional branches work on refining protocol, developing timetables, managing administrative logistics and doing psychological and social processing as well as computer security and programming. Enlightened personnel tends to be more specialized. They commonly engage in publishing and research for a collegium or fulfill bureaucratic executive functions and serve as specialized psychologists. The most advanced members of the Methodology develop Mind Procedures, work as Diplomats or work on expanding the technocratic paradigm and how to insinuate it into the consensus.
The Ivory Tower tries to come across as liberal and open-minded. Academic freedom of discourse and good human resource management are declared goals. The Methodology also prides itself on maintaining an equal-representation policy of gender and ethnicity among their ranks. In reality, however, subtle but effective peer pressure keeps people toeing the party-line and seemingly innocent counseling sessions could lead right into reconditioning by Psych-Ops. Also the glass ceiling is not quite as non-existent as claimed. Still, many people of color and many women just so happen to end up in less prestigious positions and – while getting he same acknowledgment as all others for their work – do not get promoted quite as easily as others.
[edit] The Operatives
This Methodology is the one symbolizing the NWO for most outsiders who run afoul of them. They work as enforcers, spies, infiltrators and intelligence agents. According to Enlightenment and skill, they are grouped in the following ranks:
- Men in Black: Those seemingly faceless and dispassionate enforcers, are working on the front lines, and are most commonly assigned to direct action operations. The Men in Black include both un-Enlightened and Enlightened agents, and also make use of cloned Constructs. Under the supervision of an Enlightened operative, constructs can be linked into a “Hive Mind” to achieve superior coordination of their actions.
- Grey Men: The undercover agents and spies of the NWO. Grey Men are always Enlightened, and work on high-importance – low-profile operations, or go undercover inside groups of reality criminals and other subversives. Of the field operatives working for the Union, they are the most cunning and subtle ones, often managing to work unexposed for years. They can work independently quite often, and get away with bending the rules easier than other operatives. Unfortunately the risk of those operatives to go rogue, get “lost” on an operation or actually defect from the Union, tends to be high.
- Intelligence Analysts: The supervisors of the field operatives are often former field ops themselves. They direct the operations of several investigators, spies and covert-operation teams. Exclusively Enlightened, the Intelligence Analysts process, evaluate and disseminate the information gathered from their team's activities. It is often a thankless job where one has to walk the line between maintaining the loyalty and cooperation of subordinates, while delivering clear results to superiors. If an Intelligence Analyst loses too many teams, or stages too many failed operations they can easily come under pressure from both sides.
- Men in White: The most advanced operatives work as strategic planners of intelligence- and covert operations. They also double as the Technocracy's internal secret police. Men in White directly answer to Control, and can requisition personnel and operatives from all ranks of the Convention. They rarely venture in the field, except when they have to transfer from one Construct to another on and internal investigation. Despite the rather colloquial reference to gender in their name, both Men in White and Grey Men are just as likely to be female. Recent criticism of terminology has lead to the substitution of the word “suit” for “men” (i.e. White Suits, Grey Suits, Black Suits). Of all NWO agents, the White Suits are viewed with most suspicion by other Conventions. According to Union Protocol, they can gain access to all records and information in the course of an investigation, and being the focus of their attention usually means that censure or worse is going to follow.
[edit] The Watchers
The third Methodology is tasked with information gathering and dissemination. The Watchers operate in media, surveillance and communication, both within and outside the Union. By rank and function, they are organized in the following way:
- Field Observers are gathering information and conduct surveillance operations. They are the ones most commonly assigned to watching promising Sympathizers or track undesirable elements. A large percentage of them are un-Enlightened citizens.
- Reporters supervise the activities of Field Observers and facilitate communication within the Convention and the Union as a whole. They are also often assigned to field work, when missions of intelligence gathering require a more direct and independent approach than the rather passive Field Observers. Reporters are often assigned to Amalgams with Black Suits or personnel from other Conventions. Also among the Reporters, un-Enlightened citizens can still fulfill valuable functions.
- Lensmen work as communication specialists and surveillance coordinators on a similar level as Intelligence Analysts. They process and disseminate the information from field operatives and work closely with the Ivory Tower computer specialists and administrators to keep the flow of information withing the Union efficient and under control. The complexity of their task usually requires Enlightened personnel.
- Gatekeepers are coordinating he communication hubs of the Technocracy and take decisions on the direction and filtering of the flow of information, both within the Convention and the Union as a whole. They are always Enlightened citizens and rarely – if ever – do any work in the field. They often work together with White Suits on internal investigations and coordinate large media-campaigns for the Ivory Tower to manipulate the masses.
- Surveyors are the ultimate surveillance and communication specialists of the Union. Little that is known by the Technocracy has not passed through the networks overseen by them. Despite the apparent meddlesome character of White Suits, the position of the Surveyors is actually a much more sensitive and powerful one. They control the big picture on how knowledge, information and intelligence is distributed both within the Union and sleeper society. Many believe, that the surveyors are part of Control.
Because of their function as “glue” of the Technocracy, the New World Order also holds a controlling majority in organizational groups which are shared with personnel from other Conventions:
[edit] Control (Panopticon)
Nobody except its members know who Control is. It usually acts through communiques and orders spread throughout the Union. The leading personnel of every Construct answer to Control, and Control in turn directs the actions of citizens throughout the Union by proxy. Effectively, Control is the executive and voice of the Inner Circle, the all-seeing eye on top of the Pyramid. Occasionally, representatives and spokespeople of Control appear in person when there is special need for it. It is unclear, however, if those representatives are actually members of Control or just speaking for it. In latter days, Control has been renamed and reorganized into Panopticon.
[edit] Psych-Ops
Staffed and regulated mostly by the Ivory Tower, this group also includes Void-Engineer psychiatrists and Progenitor Pharmacopeists. They are responsible for the psychological evaluation and therapy of Union personnel. Difficult cases of reality criminals are also submitted to Psych-Ops for reconditioning or psychological dissection. As operators of the dreaded room 101, Psych-Ops personnel are even more unsettling than the White Suits for many Union citizens. Psych-Ops themselves try to come across as helpful and concerned with the mental health of operatives, but can be as relentlessly inhuman as a HIT-Mark when it comes to processing deviants. Mind-wipes, false-memory implants, mindscaping, psychological torture and complete reforging of subject's minds are procedures Psych-Ops is infamous for.
[edit] Q-Division
This group is an adjunct of the Operative Methodology, and works closely with Iteration-X technicians and Void-Engineer R&E to provide field agents of the Union with equipment. They close the gap between Iteration-X's mass produced and heavy equipment, and the high-level technology of the Void Engineers. Most of their devices are favoring subtlety and covert operation profiles, and tend to be very specialized for certain missions. Q-Division also provides some rather standard fare like modified mirror shades with integrated display and camera functions, or suits made from special ballistic cloth. Q-Division gadgets are almost exclusively crafted to appear as standard everyday items but may have all kinds of special properties and functions.
[edit] The World Advisory Council
This conspiracy group is assigned the task of infiltrating and manipulating world governments. As a small body of roughly 60 people, sixteen of which are Enlightened, the WAC includes members of Iteration-X, the Syndicate and the Progenitors, but is dominated by the Ivory Tower. Currently, they have one or two Enlightened citizens together with a small group of un-Enlightened ones assigned to infiltration roles in twelve nations around the world. All advisers hold high positions in government-related institutions, but never act openly on the political stage. Countries are chosen for their role in the geopolitical power structure and their potential for technological development. The Technocracy does not control either one of the infiltrated governments directly through the WAC, but subtly steers the political course in desirable directions through lobbying an manipulation.
[edit] Failings and Criticism
All is not well with the New World Order. Their investigators are everywhere, their control of the flow of information almost ubiquitous, and their desire to maintain order and protocol can lead to suppression and prosecution wherever dissident thought or opposition crops up. Many members of other Conventions have ventured to say, that the NWO is overstepping its boundaries regularly. They should serve the Union, but – it is argued – they essentially serve themselves. Research is ordered to be discontinued, funds are cut, information withheld and censorship occurs regularly when the NWO is convinced that certain thoughts or actions do not fit in with the Union's paradigm. They claim, that they only do this to serve the Technocracy and its ideals, and protect the masses from harm. In fact, critics say, they hinder progress by being too conservative, and often the masses could benefit more from a little knowledge rather than being herded like sheep. The restrictive attitude of the NWO is cited often as the main cause for the defection of the Sons of Ether and the Virtual Adepts. Many say, that it would have been better to reform those groups while they were still within the fold, rather than making new enemies out of them, and therefore indirectly help the Traditions. Finally, the human resource policies of the NWO have come under fire from critics within the Union. The majority of Operatives are still white males, and the Ivory Tower is considered far too anglocentric in philosophy and personnel. Many critics point to that as a cause for the continued isolation of Asian technocratic organizations like The Five Elemental Dragons, which they consider a stopping block on the road to global ascendancy of the technocratic paradigm
The way how the NWO treats sleeper society is even worse. Witnesses to supernatural events are abducted and mind wiped if not killed. Unassuming sleepers are often put into harms way to be used as bait for luring out supernatural threats, and if things go wrong, they are written off as collateral damage. The NWO's use of sympathizers is also criticized. While they claim, that Sympathizers and other un-Enlightened personnel are treated with all due respect, they are often just dupes and pawns in the schemes of the NWO. In certain ways, they have become the all-powerful manipulators which the Union always accused mages and other supernaturals to be. Arguably, it's more likely these days to end up being a pawn in an NWO plot than in the schemes of a Vampire.
