By Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@nada.kth.se)
Their beliefs mirror the ancient ideas of the Gnostics (hence their name), mixed with the Virtual Adept credo of information. The cybergnostics have an intense disdain for the weak flesh, not unlike their brethren in Iteration X. However, replacing it with technology would only be a stop-gap measure, since machines also eventually will fail. Only by turning everything into information can it become truly eternal and perfected. To this end they are experimenting with various ways to encode objects into data and uploading them into the Digital Web. They pursue the goal of total uploading even more than most Adepts, and there is no secret that most of their Masters are already disembodied information existing on the Digital Web.
Their vision of Ascension is the Singularity; the sudden awakening of all information in reality, which will ascend to higher levels of implementation while leaving the imperfect world behind. Many of the simulations they have done seem to imply that this might occur December 21, 2012. During the next decades, the information networks will grow faster and faster, and more and more the computers and programs themselves will develop more advanced versions. People will become parts of the growing Net, and when it reaches a critical size of 10 billion active intelligent units (human and machine) a synergy will occur, where the entire network will Awaken. During the next months, progress will be even faster as the Net guides the infosphere (all information processing on and around the Earth) to higher and higher levels. In a few hours, decades of progress will occur, and in the last minutes centuries and finally millennia of evolution will lead to the total awakening of all information and the end of the world of matter.
The cybergnostics are extremely optimistic, and think that this singularity will occur even if the Technocracy believes it will win. Most of the Ascension War is simply irrelevant to them. What is important is to make sure progress continues, that technology is never allowed to get bogged down and that the Net becomes large enough to Awaken. The more practical cybergnostics try to influence events in the right direction, for example by helping Iteration X get their new products past the Syndicate and New World Order or inventing even cheaper ways to get Internet connections. More advanced members realise that this is not the best way; instead they turn towards a more mystical battle in the information realms. There they seek to strengthen the forces of evolution, self-organisation, synergy and pure information against entropy, stagnation and disruption. In the beginning they merely manipulate the ideas of people, but later they actively battle with the concepts themselves in the abstract worlds. The most advanced members are rumoured to have become abstractions themselves, far beyond humanity or comprehension.
Among the Adepts, the cybergnostics are regarded as a bit too far out and esoteric, but generally cool. The chaoticians and reality hackers get along perfectly with the cybergnostics, while the cyberpunks find them irritatingly impractical. They are not very known among other traditions, but have some allies among the Order of Hermes and Gnostics among the Celestial Chorus. They also have ties to the more mystical units of Iteration X (yes, they exist) and maybe even to the Computer. Their enemies are mainly the same enemies who fight all Virtual Adepts, like the Technocracy and the more nature-oriented traditions, but they also have abstract enemies. Since they so strongly fight against Entropy, Matter and Imperfection, spirits and beings linked to these archetypes are the natural enemies of the cybergnostics.
One unusual and dangerous way of influencing reality is the art of invocatorial manipulation. Masters of cybergnosticism merge themselves with spirits or concepts, literally becoming a part of them. In so doing, they hope to influence them in the right direction or perhaps gain some of their power. This practice is of course extremely dangerous, and more than one cybergnostic has disappeared forever into a powerful being. Apparently the Masters still regard the practice as worthwhile, perhaps because they also have the ability to make backup copies of themselves in case something goes seriously wrong.
Some Cybergnostics also try to influence the growth of the Digital Web, to make it grow to higher spiritual planes. To do this, they seek its secret sourcecode, using advanced disassemblers and simulations. There are also rumours that Turing was in fact the founder of cybergnosticism, and that they have found a way to communicate with his spirit which permeates the Net.
By exactly fixing the current state of an area as a perfect pattern of information, it can become error correcting. Decay and disorder will become almost impossible as long as the program is running. This is often used to turn the laboratories and sanctuaries of the Cybergnostics into fortresses against the attacks of entropy.
[Each success adds another dice of countermagick to all attempts to upset the order of the area; normal randomness and decay are almost completely removed].
Purify Pattern (Mind 4 Prime 4 Entropy 3/4)
A pattern which has been uploaded is normally just a brute force upload, with the same flaws and errors as before. By carefully debugging it and introducing error correction, it can become pure information and much more efficient.
[A purified person will be pure information, and no longer feel any need for sleep, food, sex or other biological functions. However, a purified pattern no longer works very well in material form, and cannot be downloaded again].
Invocatorial Manipulation (Spirit 4 Mind 4)
A Cybergnostic merges with a spirit or abstract concept. The result is very variable depending on what the cybergnostic merges with and the relative power of the mage. Very powerful concepts and spirits just absorb the mage, who forever becomes a part of it. Less powerful entities become influenced by the mage, and change some of their properties in some way. For example, a creative mage merging with the concept of link layer protocols will make the link layer protocol standards slightly more creative and hacker-ish. On the other hand, after the mage has left the protocol entity, he will also be somewhat affected, and maybe preoccupied with the problem of transmitting data without errors or interruptions.
The Turing Option (Correspondence 5 Mind 5 Spirit 4)
This is the final step for a Cybergnostic; he expands his mind into the Net and merges with the developing Net-spirit. He will consciously exist in all parts of the Net, losing all individuality but becoming pure and perfect information. In a way this is a kind of self-sacrifice to the totality of information, and reminiscent of the fate of Alan Turing. Of course, this is the theory. Some detractors have claimed that no human mind could survive the transformation intact, and those who have tried have merely discreetly gone mad and dissolved. But many cybergnostics are convinced that for every year the Net has become more spiritually powerful, more aware.
This nasty little spirit eats information, destroying it so that it can never be retrieved. It has an annoying ability to find the most important files and erase them, including their backups. It can only be felt as a chill draft and sudden absence of something important.
Krach (Matter or Forces **)
Sometimes paradox manifests against the computers of the Adepts instead against themselves. Krach possesses electronics, and makes it fail or break down in the worst possible way. Drives break down, circuits pop and memories overheat. The spirit usually quietly hides in a system until it suddenly strikes, and then leaves. Seen in the Umbra, Krach looks like a small burned patch on the pure electronics of the Digital Web.
Shub-Internet (Correspondence ****)
Shub-Internet is one of the nastiest paradox spirits hunting the Virtual Adepts. It represents all the problems that can occur within a computer network, such as congestion, line noise, vanished datapackets and flamewars. It has total control over data traffic, and can not only disrupt network connections, but actually make an Adept unable to interface with it. Shub-Internet has no distinct form, although there are rumours of a dark, coiling mass hiding beneath the computers of NSA and Pentagon.
[This very efficiently cuts them off from the use of Spirit and Prime if they need the Net as a foci, and also from communications with other Adepts. The spirit can even contact the Technocracy and give them the position of the Adept ].