Virtual Adepts
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The Virtual Adepts are a Tradition, or secret magical society, in the Mage: The Ascension role-playing game. They are the newest of the formal Traditions; like their fellow societies, they seek Ascension for themselves and the world at large. Specifically, the Virtual Adepts seek Ascension through the use of computer technology and virtual reality. In the World of Darkness, Wikipedia would certainly have been created by the Virtual Adepts.
Their philosophy is described in the First Edition of the Mage: The Ascension sourcebook:
- We represent all to which humanity aspires. No longer will we go the way of all flesh, because after the flesh is dead our souls will live on. Before then, however, we'll rip through the barriers that block us, the locks that keep us out, and the security systems that try to stop us. It's our destiny to know, to sense, to alter, to crash, to steal, and to become one with the Ghost in the Machine, the soul of the computer. We are the future. We will continue to evolve in this way until we become the tools of our Ascension.
The Virtual Adept philosophy resembles the real-world Hacker Manifesto, and the imagery and style of the Adepts was influenced by the cyberpunk movement, including works like Neuromancer and Ghost in the Shell. The Virtual Adepts also have a great deal in common with the "hackers" in the movie trilogy The Matrix. Outside of fiction, many ideas from Transhumanism, including man-machine interface and "Uploading" consciousness into a computer, can be found as tools in the Virtual Adept arsenal.
The majority of Virtual Adepts sooner or later find themselves amidst the Digital Web, a virtual plane that exists just beyond the flat 2-d Web Pages the "bleaters" see. It is here that they plan to free humanity from the bonds of reality outside. However, the Web has been greatly damaged over the previous few years, due in part to the actions of sleepers and in part of the major destruction of the Umbral cabal known as "Doissetep." Doissetep, having back-doors into it from the Deep Umbral plane that the Web in fact is, allowed chaos and destruction into the Web. Now, quite a bit of the Web is corrupt data, known as junklands. Younger Adepts are warned against these places, as they are often in a Nephandi format.
It is said that when Virtual Adepts grow older, they join the Technocracy. While the generalization is false, there are likely several that have, both willingly and through Technocratic brainwashing. Many Iteration Xers refuse to speak about the subject. A Technocrat joining the Virtual Adepts is very rare, but not unheard of.