The Founding of the Technocracy

The Technocracy was founded as a solution to the instability which had been created when the outlying Shadows belonging to the Pattern Realm of Sable and the Logrus Realm of Aurellis began to interact after the realms were brought together to form the Sable-Aurellis ‘Inside’ system. After careful research, King Robert of Sable (and, independently, Herzog Rupert Delatz of the Reich) realised that the only cure for the problem was the inscribing of a Neutral Power on the border of Sable Shadow and Aurellis Shadow and, with the agreement of Roland, Pater Deorum Aurellis, invited his eldest son, Prince Andrew, to write the Power.Once the decision was made to build, Robert and Andrew decided that this would also be a good opportunity to properly integrate the more technological Shadows that had gravitated towards the edges of both the Sable and Aurellis system (and hence were most affected by the instability between them) due to the high inherent magical levels closer to the two poles of existence in the Sable-Aurellis system. That is not to say that the Neutral Power was to be completely magic-free – but the intention was that magic and technology in that place would be more compatible.

The Technocracy was founded on 1st January, SY120. The creation of the Power proved less straightforward than anticipated – due to a combination of an attack on Andrew as he wrote, and a delay in the manifestation of his counterpart until close to the end of the inscription process. However, the Power itself was successfully completed, and took the form of a positronic computer core, thus encompassing the technological requirements of the Power. As Andrew – now the Prime Interface – completed the design, he was joined by the one calling himself Andreas Delatz. An alliance was immediately formed between Andreas and Rupert Delatz, King Robert’s counterpart, who was also present at the creation, and they departed together.

In the months that followed, Andrew set up the basic systems and interactions that formed the Technocracy. He decided that the populations of his worlds could choose either to be Interfaces, who would interact directly with the Nexus (and the Central Data Repository at its heart), mages, or Citizens, who would be responsible for the day to day running of the worlds – the average man or woman on the street. Interfaces would be dedicated to knowledge and magic; Citizens to the practicalities of life. Of course, not everyone had the potential to become an Interface – much in the same way that in Sable, not everyone is Talented – and for those that did, the degree of that potential varied.

With the help of the Council of Twenty, a group of Mage-Technicians he created for the purpose, the Prime Interface defined how magic would interact with the Nexus, established schools where the magical techniques required to communicate with the power – as well as more general magic – would be taught, and created the Central Data Repository which was to become the heart of the Technocracy. In addition, he built and enhanced the elements necessary for the technological life of his creation, and smoothly integrated the structure he envisaged such that magical connection to the data repository was possible. Of course, candidates wishing to become Interfaces could not do so overnight: as with any magical discipline, it took some time – in this case three years – to learn the techniques involved in manipulating magic and ultimately communicating with the Nexus.

Early Years

These early years were relatively peaceful, as the Nexus and its two reflections – the Secondary and Tertiary Nodes – settled and the interactions between them were defined. However, reports did occasionally come in of combat between Technocracy forces, and those of a power calling itself the Machine – a force apparently Hell bent on damaging the Technocracy and what it stood for. For the most part, these were on the edges of the Technocracy lands, but Machine attacks soon became feared as their technique involved killing every living thing on a Shadow they seized, and then stripping those Shadows of resources before departing from whence they came – wherever that may be. On more than one occasion, Andrew responded to appeals from his Interfaces in the more far flung regions to assist them in the struggle, and when he did, he was usually successful, thus having a personal hand in limiting the Machine’s expansion.

After about thirty years (about three years, Sable time), Andrew was made aware that the Reich – Sable’s perennial enemy – were making stronger inroads into Sable Shadow than had previously been the case. Leaving the Technocracy in the hands of the Council of Twenty, he returned to the job he had held before the creation of his world – as one of the primary generals leading the Sable forces against the Reich – confident that his link to the Nexus would remain intact and he could keep a watch on the Technocracy from afar.

The Rise of the Master of the Machine

Once Andrew was otherwise engaged, the Master of the Machine – Andrew’s dark opposite, ruler of the Machine – who had been waiting patiently for an opportunity to strike, began to establish himself within the Technocracy, to try to destroy it from the inside so that his worlds and aspect could become dominant. He was assisted in his intentions by the fact that Andrew had not provided heirs of his bloodline to control the Secondary and Tertiary Nodes, which meant that they were more susceptible to the influence of the Master than, for example, the Azure and Argent reflections of Sable, where Robert’s children ruled were to their enemies.

The Master developed a technological interface into the Nexus, and from there began to undermine its creator’s ideas and methods: developing and promoting non-magical ways of contacting the Nexus, such that ultimately, every Citizen had the chance to communicate with the Core. He developed a system of data-jacks and similar implants, and mechanical replacements for human organs, which would enable those without Interface potential to access the lower levels of the Core. He also made sure that those lower levels became the entertainment for the masses, such that more and more people wished to be part of it. And of course, he sold his idea on the basis that the replacement operations could be performed a matter of days, rather than the years it would take to learn the magical method of interfacing. What was the loss of a little humanity in the face of the advantages that would bring?

He also developed vehicles which would allow Interfaces to travel along the edges of the Technocracy Shadows, thus opening up worlds of possibility for the people of the Technocracy to explore, as well as the potential for subsuming Interfaces into the Machine such that his own world could expand. While he was doing this, he also managed to affect the Nexus Core, so that the true state of what was happening within the Technocracy was kept from its creator. As he fought against the Reich, Andrew was therefore unaware of the seizure of power, especially as the Master had established a system whereby Interfaces could regularly speak with the Prime Interface, if they had matters which needed his assistance. Once he was content that the damage was done, the Master returned to his duties elsewhere.

The Prime Interface Returns

Andrew’s eyes were opened in the equivalent of SY149 – a little under thirty years after the creation, Sable time, although within the Technocracy itself, nearer to one hundred years had passed. In November SY149, events conspired to bring one Niamh McCormick, an mortal Interface based on the Outside (the Master having manage to gain access to the worlds Outside by virtue of the Aurellis Transport System) to Sable, where she was introduced to her Prime Interface in person: a rare honour, given his extended absence. As an Interface, he hardly recognised her – she was one of those who had undergone the mechanical replacement procedures, rather than learned how to communicate with the Core in the way he intended. As he pursued what had happened with her, he realised just how badly he had dropped the ball in his creation.

With the agreement of his father, he resigned his duties in Sable and returned to the Technocracy to try to reimpose his vision on his world. Niamh agreed to accompany him and quickly – and somewhat inevitably – the close working relationship between them developed into a physical relationship.

A few weeks after their return to Nexus Prime, and with the assistance of Queen Claire of Sable, the implants with which Niamh had been interacting with the Nexus were removed. To replace what had been taken, without her having to spend the time learning the magical techniques, Andrew took a very unusual step. Using his influence as the Nexus’s creator, and his skill as a mage, he helped Niamh initiate directly to the Nexus itself. Prior to this, he, the Master and the Council of Twenty, were the only initiates of the Power in the usual sense of the word – the Interface connection being so much more limited.

For this, the Nexus demanded a price – the creation of three beings to assist the process of wresting back control from the Master. Andrew and Niamh made love within the Nexus, and the product of the union are the beings concerned. Of these, the firstborn, known as Lucy (alternative designation, Sys), is a creature partially human and partially machine, and now lives within the Nexus itself, helping to keep order and watch out for trouble. The other two children, Abigail and Jonathan, are more human, and have grown the become the Interfaces for the Secondary and Tertiary Nodes, on the theory that the safest ruler for the echoes of a Power, are the children of its creator.

A Bloody Struggle

When the Master learned of the arrival of Lucy, he attempted to snatch the child for himself. On the day of Andrew’s wedding to Niamh McCormick, in April SY150, a deadly conflict ensued between creator and counterpart in the labs of the palace above the Nexus. On this occasion, Andrew was victorious, but in the process he discovered that the Master’s nature was not what he believed: rather than being a true flesh and blood human, it transpired that the being calling itself the Master is a cybernetic-organic crossbreed, more akin to his machines than to humanity.

Andrew successfully dispatched his enemy in the struggle, thus protecting Lucy and ensuring that she would remain within the Technocracy. However, you cannot truly destroy a Creator or his Counterpart, and therefore the Master was returned to the Machine to be regenerated. The only light at the end of this tunnel was the fact that Andrew then until the Master returned to reimpose his will upon his creation, with no possibility of interference. He spent much of that time working with Niamh to convince the Citizenry that humanity is more important than a quick fix.

The Master became active again in March SY153, and a short while later it became known that he and Andreas Delatz, then General Commanding the Waffen-SS, were one and the same person. This led to a schism between Andreas and his former mentor, RFSS Rupert Delatz. Since when relations between the Machine and the Reich have, if anything, been worse than relations between the Machine and the Technocracy.