Technocratic Union

This page discusses the Technocratic Union as it appears in Radio Noir.

A Union Divided
The 20th century has brought extreme change to the Technocratic Union. Born from the antiquated Order of Reason at the middle of the last century, the Union went through a period of severe upheaval in the decades leading up to the turn of the century. In the early 1900’s, it saw the defection of the Electrodyne Engineers and an explosive paradigmatic shift. Air travel, wireless communication, consumer technology, all long-term goals, suddenly became fully integrated in the global consensus. Despite the Technocracy’s obvious victories in the Ascension War, the current state of the Union may be well be seen as supportive of the old adage, “be careful what you wish for.”

The rapid global shift led to disagreements between regional factions within the Technocratic Union. The Russian Revolution caused a Syndicate-led group of Mages to devote their resources to creating the “perfect economic system” in the new Soviet Union. In Germany, a New World Order and Iteration X dominated faction threw their weight behind the Nazi Party. Their goal being the creation of a Unified Paradigm, where both thought and industry is directed from a central government. In Asia, the Meiji Restoration had been thought to bring the Elemental Dragons into the Union. Instead, internal upheaval in the West and the ambition of an Earth Dragon faction, the Tetsukiko, has caused an even deeper divide between East and West.

In 1921, to avoid splintering the Technocratic Union, the Ivory Tower was forced to take the unprecedented step of granting Special Project status to the Technocratic Soviets in Russia and Projektabteilung Thorwald in Germany. At the same time, the Japanese Tetsukiko was granted observer status in the Ivory Tower, as well as a series of other concessions to keep the Dragons from severing ties completely.

Though still technically one Technocratic Union, resources and personnel are now divided among three factions, not including the Elemental Dragons. These are the Western Department, Projektabteilung Thorwald, and the Technocratic Soviets. Though the Western Department has less influence over mundane resources and can muster much fewer Enlightened personnel than the Testsukiko and Projektabteilung Throwald (especially when factoring in the Schwartze Sonne alliance), they still control the majority of the Void Engineer fleet and the Syndicate’s resources. These discrepancies have raised concerns within the Western Department.

Unfortunately, the Ivory Tower's hands are tied. Though the majority of the council members may find the developments of Germany and Russia to be distasteful, the vote to grant them Special Project status was only passed in 1921. The old Masters feel that any attempt to walk this back until the pre-established 1951 evaluation date would be detrimental to the integrity of the entire organization. As for Japan, thus far the envoys from the Tetsukiko have been able to assuage any concerns. After all, has not the modernization of Japan exceeded all expectations?

The following table shows the approximate distribution of available Technocratic resources and personnel between the three main divisions in the 1930’s. Note that the Elemental Dragons of Asia are not technically part of the Technocratic Union and so are not shown in the table. The total strength of the Elemental Dragons is estimated to be roughly 35% of the Technocratic Union. The values in this table are very much rough estimates. They do however illustrate the schisms that run through the Technocratic Union in the Mage Noir setting.