Rules

Mystic mages aren’t the only folks who can pass on powerful memes and impart arcane information through the written word. Writing is a technology, after all, and so the Technocracy and other technomagickal groups – the Virtual Adepts, the Society of Ether, and other sects dedicated to Enlightened Science – employ Principiae in order to advance their goals. Unlike those musty tomes crafted by doddering wizards, though, Principiae are sleek vehicles of Enlightened insight. Advanced computing codes, brain-wrenching textbooks, radical-culture magazines, and other methods of scientific esotericism can be seen as Principiae.

In all ways that matter, a Principia is a Grimoire that deals in Enlightened Science instead of Awakened Magick. Its paradigms, practices, and presentation follow technology, not mysticism. As a result, a Principia is neither hand-crafted nor unique in the ways that Grimoires are unique. Such texts can be disseminated through printed books, computer codes, mathematical formulae, even videos or PowerPoint presentations. Even so, a Principia demands advanced

understanding, specialized training, Enlightened awareness, and dedicated study before its deeper levels become obvious. The average reader – even if he’s a total tech-geek – can’t get anything but a headache from reading a Principia. To the Masses, the work seems like gibberish… fascinating, perhaps, but utterly impractical.

An Enlightened technomancer whose paradigm and practices synch up with the Principia’s design may enjoy the same sorts of benefits that a mystic mage gets from a properly understood Grimoire, as detailed above. Once again, however, a mage without the appropriate training and mindset will remain baffled. An Etherite might glean astonishing insights from an Iteration X presentation, but he won’t find it especially useful in a game-system sense; likewise, the Black Suit who tries to parse a Principia post­ ed in a dark-net VA website may find herself beating her shaved head against the nearest wall in frustration before she gleans any sort of helpful data from such rubbish. Given the modular nature of technology, of course, it’s perfectly possible for a technomancer with the right background to understand Principia created by a rival group. Considering the elite attitude of many tech-geeks, however, that sort of access tends to be restricted by inside jokes, obscure lingo, passcodes, and other hypertech arcana. (For potential de­ cryption rules, see the entry for Cryptanalysis and Codes in the Computer Systems section of this book, pp. 120-121.)