Sons of Ether

This article related to the World of Darkness is a stub. You can help 1d4chan by expanding it

"The idea that science can, and should, be run according to fixed and universal rules, is both unrealistic and pernicious. It is unrealistic, for it takes too simple a view of the talents of man and of the circumstances which encourage, or cause, their development. And it is pernicious, for the attempt to enforce the rules is bound to increase our professional qualifications at the expense of our humanity."

– Paul Feyerabend, Against Method

The Sons of Ether, rebranded as the Society of Ether in the 20th Anniversary edition, are one of the Nine Traditions in Mage: The Ascension. Their Reality Paradigm is one of Gaslamp Fantasy; viewing the world through a lens in which discredited historical scientific theories are objective truth, allowing them to produce Steampunk (or theoretically Dieselpunk or Clockpunk or Atompunk, but the Sons have pretty much solidified around a Victoriana motif) "super science" to do their will.

The prevalence of preservative Pattern avatars among the Etherites accounts for the fact that they are somewhat stuck in the past, and it also makes them the iconic moderates of Stasis; their extremist analogues are the Threat Null Technocrats.

History

The Etherites actually trace their history back quite a ways, all the way back to the Trojan philosopher Aretus, who created their foundational tome Kitab al-Alacir from interacting with so-called refugees from the lost city of Atlantis. This book lays out the foundational concepts of using Luminferous Ether and how Atlantis harnessed it at it's full potential before being lost beneath the waves forever. The Kitab al-Alacir bounced around the world of antiquity for quite some time, getting translated in all different forms until a chance encounter with an italian mage and a Templar, both of whom happened across it in two different languages, and they came together to create a short-lived house within the Order of Hermes to attempt to decipher it. While it never got very far, it did lay the groundwork for future scholars to find common cause around the concept of Luminferous Ether.

The Etherites as we know them today however, got their start as part of the Technocracy; as a convention referred to as the Electrodyne Engineers, dedicated to the use and control of all forms of energy; but left it in an outrage after one of their most beloved pet theories, the Luminiferous Ether, was ousted from the Technocracy's Reality Paradigm for moving it too fast, thus rendering them powerless and thought of as nothing more than quacks and illogical madmen. The Engineers, who felt that this was making science "duller" (not to mention making wireless energy transmission impossible), instead chose to leave in a huff, and proudly renamed themselves as the Sons of Ether, as a dedication to their central tenet. Considering that the Technocracy wound up creating a world so banal that their own magic is now struggling to work any better than that of the Nine Traditions, the Etherites have a point, and have spent every waking second since driving a wedge between the Technocracy's accepted reality and society at large; ethics and safety be damned.

Their traditional characterization of the Victorian scientist is more common among the old guard of the Tradition, who are notorious for circlejerking blatantly asinine junk science like the flat Earth or phrenology. Younger Etherites actually tend to be Dynamic if anything, and have refocused the Tradition around more modern (if not strictly more credible) fields like UFOlogy, psionics, and cryptoarchaeology.

The Life of a Scientist

The Etherites could be considered the most blindly optimistic of all of the traditions, and not without reason: a central tenet of the Kitab al-Alacir is that Anything is Possible, and Etheric Science ultimately proves it, creating "Mages" that are exceptionally industrious and adventurous in the extreme. All of their understanding of the Spheres comes from the central theory of Luminiferous Ether; and using, understanding, and mastering these aspects of Ether will allow you to understand Science. Science (and that's Science with a capital "S" to separate it from sleeper science) isn't just capable of proving any little point, it can reshape our understanding of pretty much everything we know, and so Etherites invent and experiment constantly; whether in mundane or fantastical ways, to yank modern society kicking and screaming into a future of yesteryear or the never was through the results of dedicated individuals.

Hilariously, being an Etherite isn't necessarily any different from being a regular scientist in sleeper science; most are versed in the stuff we understand as normal science and use it as a basis for their work (whether individually or collaboratively), and often live among the average person in universities and places of higher learning, while also trying not to zap half the world with an experiment. That also means you have to deal with Academic politics on an even more dangerous scale, as the Etherites are often mired in petty grievances and interwoven feuds that keep them from being a truly unified front.

The Etherites recruit from a litany of different sources, but the starting point is always the same: they identify a recruit (typically someone from academia, or about to become academiens), and then either become close with them in order to discuss the deeper points of Science and Ether, or test them with use of one of their many wacky inventions. If they don't laugh off the pseudoscience or accidentally kill themselves with the gadget (or even better, manage to figure out how to make it not kill people), they will be granted a copy of the Kitab al-Alacir. Most students are either Awakened during the process of becoming closer and closer to the archaic traditions of the Etherite through their mentor, or it happens during their reading of the Kitab al-Alacir. Those who Awake while reading are said to become exceptional Scientists down the line, but it is ultimately quite rare for it to come all at once during a reading; most of the time it's just the alarm that wakes up the Avatar of the reader.

Once that's done, the student is given the mother of all college workloads; getting them up to speed on where Etheric Science and modern science is at and how to use their newfound genius and power (usually using Time and Mind spheres to make the cramming bearable) to be able to walk around a lab without creating Paradoxes or giant monsters. After an undefined period of time, usually between two to eight years; the student makes a Thesis or Invention that must stand to be inspected by three fully accredited Etherites. If it passes, they get some form of accreditation of degree in Etheric Science, Philosophy, or Progressive Sciences, and officially become a Researcher.

From there, they enter the dizzying world of Etheric Science, and it's many pitfalls and excitements.

Etherite Organization

• Initiate/Disciple - The prospective Etherite, often still a Sleeper. The Lab assistant and clueless Grad Student who must get their degree in pseudo-and-pseuntobereal-science before becoming a Researcher.
• Researcher - A Researcher is a freshly accredited Etherite; the fresh-faced Doctor encouraged to go out into the world and find inspiration where they can before doing that mad science, and they do know more than your average scientist. The Etherites abhor the hyperspecialization that Technocratic science has wrought, and so Researchers are often crammed with as much knowledge in the traditional arts of learned people (science, math, philosophy, humanities, etc) as possible during their post-Awakening in order to make sure the best possible Etherite is a well-versed one. Of course, that also means they should consider finishing their traditional science doctorate, as it proves that you understand the Awakened as well as the Sleeping world in equal measure, and those who don't are often looked down on. They are beholden to pretty much everyone above them in a temporary position, and are expected to help Professors and Chairs with whatever it is they happen to be working on if they can. They're also expected to let their betters know about promising students, but sometimes they prefer to just get the ball rolling themselves; after all, nobody's really going to get mad at them for it since the need for Scientists is constant. They at one point used to be referred to as Natural Philosophers, but now that just means you got mentored by an extremely old guy.
• Professor - After enough time (or in game terms, once you've become an Adept in a Sphere) and impressing of the local mad science club, a Researcher can be approached by a Chair or two Professors of good standing to become a Tradition Professor, whose job it is to teach new Initiates and help tutor other Etherites in disciplines or Spheres they're having trouble with, and as such prefer stable lives hidden in plain sight in order to be easy to reach. They can get quite a lot of power if they're charismatic enough and have enough Researchers working under them, but are beholden to the concept of "Publish or Die"; They must regularly show that they're making breakthroughs in Scientific theory or invention, or they risk losing standing within their field.
• Chair - Tenured Mad Scientists with all the apeshit politics that ensue. Becoming a Chair requires a level of politiking that would make even Hermetic Houses blush, but once you're in, you're in for life. Most Chairpeople are specific experts in their field, and particularly their Sphere, and as such are generally fonts of knowledge in their chosen fields of Science...but often have to deal with the fact that Chair positions tend to overlap among their rank, and you do not have to like or even respect your fellow Chair. This leads to just as much sniping and undermining of your rivals as it does to actual Science. Progressivists and Mad Scientists tend not to take these positions as they feel it limits their potential to actually involve themselves in research (to wildly different ends), and Adventurers would rather blow their brains out than ever be tied to a desk.
• Emeriti - The Universally-Respected Professor Emeritus. The Feared-by-All Head of the Department, and all around the biggest swinging dick Scientist above all the rest, and they know it instantly and so does everyone else in the Tradition. They are undisputed masters of Science, and therefor basically do whatever they want and make all the rules if they so desire, but tend to prefer working on truly batshit stuff like making living spaceships, antimatter stars, and intentional paradoxes to study them deep out in Etherspace. If they show up, expect a lecture, or something super cool to happen/be invented.

Learned Societies

The factions of the Etherites are surprisingly quite chummy with each other unlike most other traditions, as they're all largely bound by the same or extremely similar theories, and are all mostly sniping at each other in Paradigma when they disagree with one another. Thanks to the Awakened Scientist's endless curiosity, nobody ever sticks to one all the way and often makes friends and rivals across all of the factions, even if they disagree with them; though the old guard and the younger Researchers often find themselves at odds due to the web of intrigue and office politics that protect the old guard from their rivals.

Official entry into one of the three major organizations is a formal process, where one needs to know people while also demonstrating that you have some form of aptitude towards their goals. The other three are informal; often thought of as more states of mind than anything else, and may only need to do some significant misbehavior or feather ruffling in order to pick up the designation, after which others will flock to them like moths to a lamp. Many Scientists still see all of this as noise and prefer to immerse themselves in their own work; never joining a faction at all. Such Scientists are actually very well-respected, as even though they don't have the same resources as the myriad factions, they aren't so wrapped up in one kind of research that they can't combine or conflate different works from different factions.

The Official Societies

• The Cybernetic Research Institute, or Cybernauts, the iconic machine freaks who love robots, AI, and sundry other gadgets and gizmos. They were once a lot tighter than they are now with the Virtual Adepts, but the Cybernauts' obsession with reinventing the wheel made collaborations less and less frequent.

• The Royal Ethernautical Society, or Ethernauts, who specialize in Etheric travel, making Etherships and conducting xenobiological research at the far corners of the Tellurian. They have an intense love-hate relationship with the Void Engineers and like their frenemies, were fucked sideways by the Avatar Storm.

• The Utopian League, or Utopians focus on large scale social policy and infrastructure, often with a decidedly Marxist bent (a number of its members are themselves former Bolshevik scientists). They are the administrators of the Tradition's large scale initiatives and run the ethics committees. Needless to say, given that the Tradition was formed so that people would stop telling them what to do, they are regarded with mild contempt by their fellows.

The Informal Societies

• The Adventurers are an informal grouping of those Scientists who forgo life in the lab for a life of two-fisted action with improvised tech and more than a bit of grit and determination. They tend to be the first ones to accept and try to understand the other Traditions' "magick". ("Ah, this wand of fireball is forged from Atlantean Orichalcum and emits a constant stream of pyrotrons! That explains it!")

• The Mad Scientists are a grab bag of the Tradition's black sheep: doomsday devices, irradiated monsters, killbots, you get the idea. The other factions try their best to reign them in, but expelling them altogether would mean leaving them unsupervised. Besides, no one can deny that their toys are damn effective at tearing up the enemy.

• The Progressivists actually tend to belong to other factions and are united by their opposition to the fact that, historically, the Tradition has been mostly controlled by old money French and British guys for the past century. They are slowly but surely bringing the Tradition into the (Atompunk version of) the 21st century, as evidenced by the name change in M20.