Void Engineers
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The Void Engineers are a fictional group as seen in the game Mage: the Ascension by White Wolf Game Studio.
[edit] History
They are a Convention of Science Mages within the Technocratic Union, Originally called the Void Seekers, this group, like the rest of what was then termed the Order of Reason, was a noble one, seeking to dispel ignorance of unknown places and to light the darkness that made men afraid to travel. They also sought to remove "Bygones" or mythical beasts that again, made travel a problem. Where once it said "Here be dragons" on a map, now a map is just a piece of paper without such fearful mysteries and fanciful warnings.
Of all the Conventions, this has to be the one that is most commonly perceived as the "weakest link", largely in that it fights foes no one really sees and in that its members have wild imaginations and a lust for adventure. It has seen mass defections in the past, such as the Etherdyne Engineers who left and became the Tradition known as the Sons of Ether after their ether theory was thrown out and called "bad science". Many of the entries in the published material speak of possible further defection and of the other conventions coming down hard upon the group in general, with the issue of space station funding withdrawal being used as a constant threat by the Syndicate, to ensure compliance.
[edit] Role
In addition to their duty of patrolling the Umbra, or spirit world, and protecting the citizens of the Earth, the Convention also takes part in patrolling and mapping Cyberspace, or the "Digital Web". Their primary rivals in this are their old colleagues, the Sons of Ether and they maintain a sporting attitude to it all, calling it the "great race", which again causes friction with their fellow technocrats.
In the latter editions of M:tA, the Convention takes the brunt of the strange effects caused by the ending of the world. Contact with the space fleet and the colonies is lost, leaving the group largely irrelevant, except in its role of exterminating alien invaders that have set foot on earth. Unlike the other conventions, this lone group remains heroic, even to the bitter end, with little doubt as to the goodness of their actions.
The favoured Sphere of magic practiced by the Void Engineers is Correspondence, also called "Zero Point Theory". However, there is an equal weight given to the practice of the spirit sphere, which the group terms "Dimensional Science". As the Technocrats want to disprove the spirit world entirely, space has, over time, moved from the glorified ether to being a cold and inhostpitable vacuum.
