Sons of Ether

	"Any technology sufficiently advanced will be indistinguishable 
from magic."
				--Arthur C. Clarke
	"For a man who's working on way-out ideas like hydrogen fusion to 
call my interest in the present-day, routine engineering application of 
solidly useful technology like dowsing 'off-beat' is kind of stretching 
things, isn't it?  Your attitude implies 'All my ancestors and my 
predecessors in Science were fools, and only I am wise.'  They said that 
what you're doing was pseudo-science and fantasy.  Their best judgement 
was, we can now recognize, badly off.  Are you intrinsically wiser--better 
able to judge the sill-unknown areas of the Universe than they?  How can 
you be so arrogantly and smugly certain that you're righter than they were? 
And can you suggest how I can show you something--when you positively 
refuse to dignify 'such nonsense' by looking at it?"
			--John W. Campbell, "Scientists in S.F.: A Debate"
 
	The theurgy of the Sons of Ether is more difficult to see than that 
of the other Traditions.  The simplest way to uncover a theurgy, I have 
discovered, is to rephrase the question, the first aspect being, "What 
transforming power does the Tradition look to?"  The Celestial Chorus look 
to the One; the Cult of Ecstacy look to pleasure; the Virtual Adepts look 
to the Digital Web and the Singularity they hope to create.  Etherite 
theurgy, however, is unique in that it looks to _thaumaturgy itself_.
	To the other Traditions, thaumaturgy is only a secondary part of 
their philosophy.  Should they win the Ascension War, many more people will 
Awaken, but they accept that there may be some who, despite their 
acceptance of the One's grace, their superb following of Do, or whatever, 
will want or be able to alter reality no more than the ordinary Sleeper 
today.  But the ultimate aim of Etherite science, or "paradigma 
experimentation," is to expand the boundaries of the scientific paradigm 
until even the man or woman on the street can do the things now considered 
magick.  When this happens, the boundary between Awakened and Sleeper will, 
for all practical purposes, cease to exist.  Science fiction is the new 
myth, and its fulfillment the new Mythic Age that the Etherites hope to 
bring about.  To carry out this dream, the Sons of Ether must do three 
things:  (1) create new theories and methods of altering reality, (2) 
integrate these theories and methods into a comprehensive but open-ended 
Theory of Reality, and (3) to make that Theory elegant, simple, and 
available to all.
	To the first end, the Sons conduct in their hidden laboratories the 
bizarre experiments they are known for, whether in macroscopic quatum 
mechanics, the transfer of brain waves, or the animation of dead matter, 
searching out the ways in which anything and everything can be mde 
possible.  To the Sons, this is not merely an expansion of means to an end; 
experimentation is an end in itself, even, in a sense, an act of worship.  
Further, this goal makes the Sons, to an extent greater than any of the 
other Traditions, willing to work even with those who disgust them (such as 
the Verbena or the Choristers), simply to understand what it is they do and 
find their own way to do the same.  This, too, can be considered as a 
religious act--specifically, the recovery of the sacred from the profaning 
followers of another god.
	To the second end, the Sons continually engage in vigorous debate 
and constructive criticism of each other's theories, integrating them into 
broader and broader concepts.  In fact, Etherites often publish and debate 
right under the very noses of the Technocracy.  Virtually all Etherites 
regularly publish in _Paradigma_, their journal; such articles are 
vigorously reviewed, and useful ideas, once published, are fair game for 
others to expand on, though stealing an unpublished idea for one's own is 
officiall frowned on.  Likewise, nearly all the Sons regularly attend 
conventions at which they present papers and inventions for examination and 
for the benefit of their colleagues--the Etherite equivalent of communal 
worship, perhaps even of Communion.  Often these are "shadow conventions" 
of the meetings of Sleeper scientists, just as some Technocrats are known 
to hold.  The Etherite mingle with their unAwakened counterparts by day, 
keeping in touch with theoretical and practical advancement in the real 
world (which helps them keep their effects coincidental) and searching for 
those who are on the verge of Awakening.  Then, when the convention closes 
for the night, the Etherites slip away to the Chantries maintained near 
popular sites and hold their own convention, mirroring the Sleepers 
precisely in form, though the content and the decorum (or lack thereof) 
could hardly be more different.
 	At the beginning of such conferences, many of the older Sons 
prefer to invoke the name of Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven for 
humanity.  Over the years, however, Chorister opposition to this practice 
has caused it to decline in frequency; those who still do so take 
measures to keep it quiet.
	It was the Sons of Ether, as the Technocracy's Electrodyne 
Engineers, who constructed the first computers, and though the Virtual 
Adepts have taken over their invention, they can hardly be said to 
monopolize the Digital Web.  For every ten conventions held on Earth, or in 
a normal Chantry, the Etherites now hold at least one in their own meeting 
places in the Web.  There, fear of Technocratic spying is greatly reduced, 
with the added benefit that individual Sons need not physically leave their 
laboratories.  When Virtual Adepts stumble across such a meeting, they are 
welcomed if they choose to stay, but most simply leave, as Etherite science 
can be difficult to duplicate by typical VA methods.  Technocrats, of 
course, are summarily removed (or imprisoned if possible), any interesting 
theories they might have stolen, and their memories of the encounter wiped; 
the meeting place is then usually shut down in favor of a more secure 
location.
	So far the Etherites have been unable to create a workable means to 
the third end.  Most of the Sons' theories have been eliminated outright by 
Technocratic propaganda.  While some few concepts, such as quantum 
mechanics, have been successfully introduced, all have been stripped down 
by the Technocracy until their individual practical impacts on the world 
are negligible.  (Whether the cumulative impact will be greater remains to 
be seen.)  Nonetheless, the Sons continue to fight back.  Recently, some 
have begun to use the Technocracy's own method of pre-emptive media strikes 
in attempts to prevent theories they consider dangerous from taking hold 
and to slip their own theories into the public mind before they can be 
discredited.  But the Etherites are generally considered to be on the 
lunatic fringe of the scientific community, causing most such attempts to 
backfire (as in the recent cold fusion debacle).  The Sons continue to 
search for a more effective method of "spreading the faith."
				***
 
 
Maccabeus
 
To Ascension!