By Anders Sandberg
The Prognosticators are one of the most well guarded secrets of the Technocracy, and one of the main reasons for Its success. They have members from all conventions, and chart the future evolution of society, economics, technology and even the Technocracy itself.
The Prognosticators, colloquially called the Forecasters, have been a vital part of the Technocracy since it started. In the beginning they used astrology and methods which today would be called magick, but as time went on their methods evolved. After the spread of trade, they began to develop the nascent science of Economics together with the Syndicate. They invented statistics and game- theory to help them, and they discovered Sociology and Psychology centuries before the sleepers was allowed to do so. Today they use complex mathematical models run on supercomputers to analyse and predict future developments. They use catastrophe theory (which they carefully suppresses among the sleepers), advanced versions of chaos theory and their own branch of psychology, psychomathematics.
The accuracy of their models is startling, far better than anything imagined by sleepers. The Forecasters have centuries of data and experience to draw on, and they have had many chances to test their models extremely carefully. Not only that, but by being a part of the Technocracy they have had true "Insider Information", and they have even manipulated society to become more predictable! By helping the New World Order create collectivist societies, they remove the random influence of individuals from their equations. The Progenitors make people more controllable and less creative using their drugs, thus simplifying them for the Forecasters.
The Forecasters models are extremely complex, and require massive computer installations to run efficiently. In earlier times they employed hundreds of clerks for their calculations, each clerk a small cog in the human computer. The Virtual Adepts and Forecasters had close contact, and the Adepts made major contribution to the models. Their defection was a hard blow, but the Forecasters survived relatively intact. Today there are still some Forecasters inside the Adepts, not to mention those who struck out on their own, forming secret groups hiding from both Traditions and Technocracy.
Needless to say, the forecasts they make are vital for planning inside the Technocracy. They can calculate the most probable results of any action, the general trends of any system, how groups and individuals react and the long term changes in history. Their methods work absolutely best on large groups with little individual influence, like nations or corporations. They are seldom right about short term and small developments, but on larger scales they are chillingly accurate. Individuals and random events are the bane of their predictions, causing radical changes without any way to predict it beforehand. However, the Forecasters have begun to learn how to deal with even them, as there seems to be some ways to approximately factor them. Another problem is groups who attempt to avoid being predicted or use predictive methods themselves, since they cause feedback in the calculations. Sometimes this stabilises things and makes everything much more calculable, but most of the time it just destroys the accuracy of the trends. This is a great limitation, since it makes it very hard to predict the future developments of the Technocracy itself and the Traditions. Much work is underway to find a solution.
Beside modelling the future, the Forecasters also study how to model individuals, organisations and economical systems. Using their advanced psychological models and all available information about a person, they can create a simulation of the person and test how he or she will react in different situations. They can find weak points, use the simulation to improve their models and develop rather accurate psychological profiles. The same is true for larger groups, which are much easier to predict. Progenitors use their models to predict the development of organisms, Iteration X and the Void Engineers use their models to plan future technological and scientific progress. Another important discovery is that they can study history and find patterns which doesn't fit in. This is usually a sign of purposeful manipulation, and by comparing with Technocracy records they can discover awakened activity or other groups using their methods. However, this works best from a distance in time (to get enough overview), so it is of limited use in tracking down current activities.
One of the most important aspects of their work is finding bifurcation points (also known as horseshoe nails or fulcrums), small events which will have great impact later on. When they find one, they carefully try to analyse the effects of them and plot the possible outcomes, which is often quite hard. They make sure nobody else will interfere, and manipulate them to suit their ends. This is sometimes risky, and several times they have failed. But the Forecasters are quite good by now, and some even have learned how to create bifurcation points by manipulating the parameters of a system. A typical example of a Bifurcation Point was the elimination of Lee Harvey Oswald, which created lasting social and psychological changes in American society.
Naturally, the Forecasters have great influence in the Technocracy. Without them, the organisation simply wouldn't work at all, and it is dependent upon their work. That gives the Forecasters great influence, but they are also watched very closely. When a project is underway, the Administration often lets several teams work in parallel without knowledge of each other to make sure no manipulation of results or errors are done.
The Forecasters generally work in research teams of 4-10 persons, often consisting of several conventions to deal with different aspects of their areas of study. The Economists of the Syndicate are experts at economical planning and prediction, the Social Engineers of NWO at the social aspects and Iteration X at the technological side. The Progenitors and Void Engineers are more interested in pure research, and are mostly used as experts in narrow areas close to their work, such as the medical industry.
Recently some Forecasters have begun to notice worrying trends and irregularities, sometimes even inside the Technocracy. Their source so far is unknown, but some members have begun fear that the organisation has internal flaws which might even destroy it in the future. So far they haven't dared discuss this with their superiors without any evidence, but some of them have begun to worry that time is running out.
Another problem is the rouge Forecasters. Beside those Forecasters who left with the Virtual Adepts, there are others. The Technocracy has tried to suppress the true methods of forecasting, but not entirely succeeded. Sometimes carelessness or independent discoveries have allowed outsiders to learn the secret, and this has led to small groups of rouge Forecasters.
Most of these groups are small, secret societies which use the forecasts to gain wealth and power. Some use them to try to change the direction of history. They are seldom thinking of themselves as mages, more as scientists or engineers. Many of them don't even know anything about the other forces in the world, although some suspect something is afoot. Most of their existence is spent in hiding from real and imagined foes. Those groups who don't hide well enough fall prey to others or the Technocracy, which is naturally quite interested in competitors. However, It doesn't destroy all rouge groups It finds. Instead it often tries to subvert them, especially those groups who are interested only in wealth and power. They become very useful pawns for the Syndicate, who uses them to do its dirty work. The Idealists have sometimes surprisingly technocratic ideals, but most of the time they are just trouble and are terminated.
Foci and spheres: The Forecasters might belong to different Conventions, but they mostly use the same foci, psychomathematical models run on mainframe computers. The Forecasters specialise in mainly Time and Entropy, with much attention to Correspondence and Mind. The other spheres are individual specialisations.
Quote: "According to the Helleman-analysis, the stock market will crash on the 8th September, plus or minus five days, with a probability of 89 percent. However, there is an alternative solution involving just some market fluctuations which could be strengthened if we can temporarily decrease the economical flux through alpha-variant stocks. If this is done, a reverse bifurcation followed by a realignment would make the continuous solution stronger, probably around 67% percent."
Modelling methodologies (Rotes)
Forecast (Time 2): This is the most common duty of the Forecasters. They feed their massive databases into their models, and predict the most probable future outcomes of the current situation. Often they limit their predictions to a narrow area to avoid having to do too complex calculations. The predictions take the form of stacks of printouts, showing the statistical behaviour of the future in a complex psychomathematical notation that has to be interpreted by experts. [ The difficulty varies upon the conditions. The initial difficulty is 5, but is changed due to other factors:
Accuracy:
+2 Accurrate information needed (Date of stock market crash)
0 Normal precision (which candidate will win the elections?)
-2 Only general predictions needed (will the economy grow?)
Size of forecasted population:
+2 Very small (a few individuals, a cabal)
+1 Small (less than 30 persons)
-1 Large (more than one million people)
-2 Very large (nations, the whole world)
Dependency on individual actions:
-2 No dependency (bureaucracies, social movements)
0 Normal dependency
+2 Strong dependency (charismatic leaders, inventors)
Likelihood of random influence:
+2 Very High (Stockmarkets)
+1 High (Assassination attempts, elections)
0 Normal
-1 Low (Soap operas)
Timescale:
+2 Very short (days)
+1 Short (weeks)
0 Medium (months)
-1 Long (years)
-2 Very long (decades)
Miscellaneous:
+1 Fast, chaotic development.
-1 Slow development.
-1 Pivotal person(s) simulated.
-2 Pivotal person(s) well understood
-2 Active manipulations to keep prediction correct.
+2 Active manipulations to increase randomness.
+2 Awakened beings involved
+5 Studied group uses prediction.
+10 Studied group uses prediction and tries to avoid tracking.
Examples:
Predicting the global economic trends instead is easy, since its a long timescale, no individual dependency, a very large group and no detailed predictions are needed, giving a difficulty of -3. This is of course compounded if future manipulations of the Syndicate are taken into account, when it rises to 4 (Awakened and uses prediction too).
Predicting the future developments of vampiric society in a city the next few decades would involve a small population with strong dependency on individuals, a very long timescale and awakened beings. The resulting difficulty is 5+1+2-2+2=8.
Predicting the activities of the Virtual Adepts are almost impossible, since they actively tries to avoid being predicted, support randomness and individuality, develop fast and struggle with the Technocracy. The difficulty becomes 19 for normal timescales!]
Detect Pattern (Correspondence 3 Entropy 1 Time 2): By comparing events with each other and running sophisticated algorithms, the Forecasters can detect patterns which normally would seem random. They can predict how the patterns will develop, trace their history and often discover who is behind it. Typical applications are scanning for Tradition activity or crime.
Model Person (Mind 4 Time 2): By collecting all available information about a person into their computers, the Forecasters can create a model of the person. This simple simulation can then be studied as if it was the person, and reveal such things as mental state, general personality, weak and strong points or behaviour under certain conditions. Its not a real AI, just a psychomathematical model which will react to programmed stimuli, but there have been some success with merging such models with Iteration X designed AIs and Progenitor designed clone bodies to create replica persons.
Track Manipulations (Time 2 Entropy 2): This is continuously done to see if other groups attempt to manipulate the trends. The Forecasters carefully analyse events to see if they have been manipulated by someone, using their computers to search for patterns. The difficulty lies in the fact that most manipulators are very careful, and the results are seldom apparent until years later.
Find Bifurcation Point (Entropy 1 Time 2): By analysing the lyapunov-exponents of the historical flow around certain events, the Forecasters can find which events have the greatest potential to change history. When found, they can be further analysed with "what-if"-scenarios.
Create/Destroy Bifurcation Point (Entropy 5 Time 2 Prime 3): This is very advanced manipulations, which require massive manipulations of social, economical or technical parameters. By changing them slightly, the Forecasters can bring Bifurcation-points into existence or remove them, but the changes are not entirely controllable. All such manipulations require approval from the Administration. Removing such points are more common, since its better to follow a known track than to follow an unknown track.
Themes
Is there any free will or does determinism rule everything? Is it really possible to control the course of history, or do those who think it delude themselves? Is really the past or future absolute? What are the consequences of meddling with history? Does knowledge about the future make you less human?
Mood
Stories including the Forecasters will often include an element of paranoia and twisted logic. They are always on their guard against possible enemies, even enemies who have not yet become their enemies. They always try to think at least one step before everybody else, sometimes getting caught in logical loops and bizarre models. Their actions are not always apparent, because they are only interested in their long-range effects, not the acts themselves. At the same time the Forecasters become cold and inhuman, always thinking of people as factors in their equations.
Story Ideas
A group of Virtual Adept Forecasters have been wiped out. Somebody either didn't like them, or desperately wanted them not to discover something. Who did it? The Technocracy? Radical tradition mages? Rouge Forecasters? And why does it seem as they knew they were about to become targets? Are they really dead, or do they just play dead?
The players stumble upon a group of rouge Forecasters, perhaps by wrecking one of their predictions (individuals and awakened people are the bane of good planning). They might become some rather unusual allies, both wealthy and powerful but also paranoid and without knowledge of the supernatural forces.
A bifurcation event is imminent. The result of a local election will in time get enormous consequences if the Technocracy can ensure that the right candidate wins. The players find out about this, maybe just because the Technocracy seems to be so interested in the outcome. If the players manage to interfere, they can prevent the Technocracy from taking yet another step towards their Ascension. But what if the Forecasters have anticipated this? Maybe the players in fact are required to bring about the bifurcation, and the election is just a ruse to get the tradition mages to do something foolish. Who knows what the Forecasters have planned?
A team of Forecasters have discovered a chain of events that will in the end spell the doom for the Technocracy. If they happen, the Technocracy will disintegrate, and its fall will probably mean the destruction of civilisation and possibly all life on Earth. Their superiors won't listen, so they have to get help from the Traditions to avert the threat. Will they listen to the technomancers (who hardly like the traditions either) and try to help them save the *Technocracy*? And the event-chain which must be stopped may require some very unorthodox acts, possibly even against the interests of the Traditions. And then there are some mages who would like to help the Technocracy on its way to its doom...
Required Reading
"In the Country of the Blind" by Michael Flynn. A must for any Mage Storyteller. Secret societies, amateur technomancers and rampant paranoia!