Editing Mage: The Ascension (section)

===The Revolution Will Be Televised===

The Technocracy Good End.  

Essentially, the better elements of the Technocracy have always been stockpiling power, waiting for the more xenophobic elements to fully clear the Earth of dissenting magical philosophies before seizing power themselves as the Unionists, and bringing back that old-time paradigm: the [[Noblebright|old, positive ideals of the Order of Reason, reborn in the 21st century]].  They are opposed by the Loyalists, Technocrats who just want to take over the world and rule it for its own good forever, reshaping the bodies and minds of all humanity to their will.  

Suddenly, the Avatar Storm overtakes several Horizon Constructs and cuts off the Ivory Tower from the rest of the Technocracy.  They can send orders, but not move around troops.

As the Gauntlet starts to fall apart, letting through all manner of supernatural critters from other planes and causing the cataclysmic events of other gamelines, these two super-factions start a conflict with one another just shy of all-out war; ham-fisted Loyalists use more and more extreme methods to seal dimensional breaches and deal with witnesses, while angry Unionists argue that the current crisis is just the culmination of their failures and proof of how far the organization has drifted from the noble goals of the Order of Reason.  Some Unionists even collaborate with Traditions to protect the innocent caught in the crossfire.  

Then, Control falls silent, isolating many Technocratic parties for a long period of time.  Just long enough for them to get used to making their own calls, in fact, before suddenly communications resume, demanding mass status reports for new supervisors no one's ever heard of.  In the meanwhile, lots of Technocrats collaborated with Traditions or went against procedure, and now they're being cracked down on for it.  Worse, the supervisors are clearly not at all informed of how bad the situation is up in their Ivory Tower, and send people into crazy-dangerous situations with moronic restrictions or insufficient equipment.  

Revolution brews.  Mid-level managers start ignoring orders.  More and more ground-level Technocrats turn Unionist.  Many begin collaborating more and more openly with the technically-minded Traditions. And when the Avatar Storm finally hits the physical world and people start Awakening en-masse, things boil over.  Both sides work to contain the damage while actively working to destroy one another.  Many Loyalists go completely insane rather than bend their worldview to accommodate the wackiness going on. It also frees up the Technocratic leadership trapped in their Horizon Realm to come back into the physical world as spirits, so that's fun.  

Paradox gets supercharged as a panicked consensus tries to protect itself, fucking up all non-techomantic magic.  From there, the Unionists, assisted by cabals of Virtual Adepts and Etherites, gets ready for a massive conflict against the Loyalists, as the Loyalists prepare to eliminate all Reality Deviants and take over the world, regardless of collateral damage, while more and more monsters come out through the Umbra.  In the end, hopefully, the Unionists emerge triumphant, creating a Technocracy Good End, where the reborn ideals of the Order of Reason triumph over the corruption of the Loyalists, in a new world of Enlightened Science.  

It's a good idea for a finale.  Better than most of these others.  Unfortunately, it's not very well-designed.  It just tells the story, barely bothering to talk about what the PCs should do, or even if they should be a Traditional cabal or a Technocratic amalgam.  More of an idea-mine than an actual module... but still, it has a vision, and it actually addresses the long fascination with the positive side of the gameline's traditional antagonists.  

Unfortunately, it's all downhill from here...