Its strange, but you know what eclipse phase reminds me of? The progenitors and void engineers from the oringinal White Wolf's "Mage: The Ascension."
All the hallmarks of the technocracy are there, the arrogance, the paranoia, the condescension and patronization. Resleeving and body consciousness fit right into the Progenitors goal of biological, clinical immortality, and the Void Engineers bizarre double vision with the sleeper society and their own, simultaneously trying to convince others that there is no Extra-Terrestrial life while simultaneously knowing there is.
In a weird way, I've always kind of sympathized with these two factions for being the "least evil" of the technocracy, the void engineers, trying to protect humanity from things it hardly understands itself, and the progenitors, trying to improve our overall health and well being while being unable to treat the cause of almost all human suffering: the human condition.
Its sad that they both present a hostile paradigm (now there's a word I haven't heard in a while) to most of the other awakened factions, due to the pogrom, and its monopolist attitude on reality. It wouldn't be that hard to work in a crossover with the old White Wolf setting with Eclipse Phase. (Too bad White Wolf publishing was taken over by a bunch of ninnies and wet noodles)
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Odd Familiarity
Thu, 2016-08-25 20:28
#1
ringringlingling
Odd Familiarity
Sun, 2016-08-28 15:45
#2
Panoptic
In later Mage: the Ascension
In later Mage: the Ascension books, there was definitely more of a grey element to the Technocracy, as opposed to the faceless evil they were originally portrayed as.
Did you ever read any of the Mage: the Sorceror's Crusade books? Back when cross-faction parties were not unheard of and the battle for reality had not yet been decided.
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On 'IC Talk': Seyit Karga, Ultimate
[url=http://eclipsephase.com/comment/46317#comment-46317]Character Profile[/url]
Tue, 2016-08-30 17:26
#3
ringringlingling
The problem with playing as the Technocracy in Mage
Is that it puts you in a sympathetic position with a frame of reference you are already familiar with and support. It doesn't necessarily mean its incorrect, it just that the goal of the game is to expose you to different points of view, ones that you might be uncomfortable with.
Certainly, every protagonist faction in White Wolf has its own agenda, and many of those agenda's are somewhat extreme from a conventional viewpoint. But playing as a Euthanitos or Verbena, as extreme as those viewpoints are, (and depending on how dark you want to take it) can ultimately be a rewarding experience, especially once you find a means of relating what you see to your own frame of reference.
I find that science, (especially fringe science) tends to have a real life allegory for everything we think of as "magic", and with a little work, you can incorporate most spiritual and mystic beliefs into your worldview no matter how rational your process is.
All spirituality and mysticism is, is a means of coping with an inherently irrational world. Trying to cope with the irrational by doubling down on rationality only makes it more difficult to cope with the general nonsense the universe tends to throw at us.