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T R A D I T I O N B O O K :

By Samuel Inabinet and Malcolm Sheppard

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2 Sons of Ether

Coming soon for Mage:CreditsAuthors: Samuel Inabinet and Malcolm Sheppard.World of Darkness created by Mark Rein•HagenStoryteller game system designed by Mark Rein•Hagen.Development: Bill BridgesEditing: Carl BowenArt Direction: Aileen MilesInterior Art: Langdon Foss, Jeff Laubenstein, AlexSheikmanCover Art: Christopher ShyLayout, Typesetting & Cover Design: Aileen E. Miles

© 2003 White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permission of thepublisher is expressly forbidden, except for the purposes of reviews, and for blank character sheets, which may bereproduced for personal use only. White Wolf, Vampire, Vampire the Masquerade, Vampire the Dark Ages, Magethe Ascension, Hunter the Reckoning, World of Darkness and Aberrant are registered trademarks of White WolfPublishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Werewolf the Apocalypse, Wraith the Oblivion, Changeling the Dreaming,Werewolf the Wild West, Mage the Sorcerers Crusade, Wraith the Great War, Trinity, Mage StorytellersCompanion, Mage Storytellers Handbook, Guide to the Traditions, Forged by Dragon’s Fire and Tradition BookSons of Ether are trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. All characters, names, placesand text herein are copyrighted by White Wolf Publishing, Inc.

The mention of or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademarkor copyright concerned.

This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters and themes. All mystical and supernatural elementsare fiction and intended for entertainment purposes only. This book contains mature content. Reader discretionis advised.

For a free White Wolf catalog call 1-800-454-WOLF.Check out White Wolf online athttp://www.white-wolf.com; alt.games.whitewolf and rec.games.frp.storytellerPRINTED IN CANADA.

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3Contents

T R A D I T I O N B O O K :

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ContentsOverture: Waves Within 4Introduction: Strangeness and Utopia 8Chapter One: The Eight-Track Method 12Chapter Two: The Essence of Science 34Chapter Three: The Dynamic Faculty 66Epilogue: Every Step of the Way 99Sam

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5Overture: Waves Within

Overture:Waves Within

Southern California, 1978:“What a heap of junk!”

“That thing s’posed to roll, or tunnelinta the ground, or what?”

“Looks like fuckin’ Buck Rogers orsomething!”

Ace whipped out a rag and dusted offhis ride with well-practiced swipes. Not

because of razzing from gringo hot-rodders — leavingthem in his dust was just going to be the icing on thecake. It was the dust itself that worried him. Hedidn’t know what would happen if extraneous mattergot caught in the field when he kicked it into highgear. Residual ionization had already coated the hullwith magnetized dust, covering up his cousin’s fine-

ass paint job. Blue flames licking out of the grillagainst a deep red background, with “La Fuente delRitmo — Baja ’78” written in a florid script above thefenders. When his cousin had said that the colorscheme seemed backward (“Everyone knows flamesare red, man!”), he had tried to explain about light-speed, relativity and the Doppler effect.

“Where’s the dingleballs? Thought you beanersalways hung them dingleballs on yer rods!”

Carefully wiping out the air intakes, Ace couldn’thelp but chuckle. The scoops were absurdly huge,mounted in the trunk, facing backward like rocketnozzles. Yeah, I guess she does look like some kind ofgoofy Flash Gordon contraption, he thought.

“So, we doin’ this already, or what?”Sam

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6 Sons of Ether

His opponent, tall and lanky, blond and tan,revved his jacked-up Mustang and drummed errati-cally on a chrome chain steering wheel. Ace slid intoplace and flipped the ignition toggle. La Fuentecoughed to life, blasting dusty air forward throughthe grill.

“Hey, ya stupid beaner! Y’know ya got yer fan inbackward?”

“Don’t you know nothin’, man? He’s gonna jet-propel on refried bean farts!”

Ace ignored the insults, watching how the dustin the air moved. Out the front, around back to theair scoops, muddying the sunset in the rearviewmirror. Perfect. A toroidal field, like a doughnutturning itself inside out, channeled through everysystem in the car — combustive, electrical, heating,lights and sound — all attuned in perfect synchroni-zation. As long as the central internal waveformretained modular coherence, it should move forwardwithout the slightest trace of air drag, friction oreven a sonic boom. After experimenting with vari-ous sorts of modulators, Ace had finally decided on avariegated electrosonic pulse running in a continu-ous loop — that is, his new eight-track tape of CarlosSantana’s Caravanserai. Now, as long as the intakefilters don’t clog…

The starter flag was a monogrammed hanky heldby his opponent’s squeeze, a squeaky Barbie doll in atube-top and cutoffs. When the flag dropped, theMustang fishtailed forward amid a shriek of burningrubber. Supremely confident, Ace let him take thelead, carefully putting La Fuente into gear whileslowly twisting a rheostat taped to his gearshift handle.The outer surface of the toroidal field flowed backfaster.

So intent was Ace on monitoring the movementof the field that he didn’t see the stunned expressionon his opponent’s face as the Mustang fell behind.Nor did he notice the momentary blur of the finishline as he passed it one tenth of a second later. Nordid he realize that he had left the ground entirelyuntil the horizon ahead started to curve and sinkbeneath the hood.

After a brief bout of scrotum-tightening panic,Ace took stock of his situation. He and his hot rodwere both intact and seemed to be functioningsmoothly, the motor thrumming as though happy toplay a part in Santana’s masterful percussion section.

The only sense of motion was derived from theseemingly slow roll of the Earth’s surface far below.He was passing over a broad river that he guessed tobe the Colorado. His mirrors showed fading red;ahead was cool dark blue. Is this the Doppler effect? hewondered. No, I can’t be approaching light speed. It’sjust the sunset behind me. A layer of haze distorted thesun’s lower half; its upper portion was clear andpainfully bright. With a shock Ace realized that hewas leaving the earth’s atmosphere. If I’m all the wayout in space, how can I be breathing? Shouldn’t I beblowing up like a balloon and exploding or something?

That didn’t happen. In fact, he felt wind on hisface, whipping his long black hair into his eyes. Acerelaxed, enjoying the song of the wind that seemed tobe flowing straight through him, as though composedof some finer stuff than mere air. Leaning back, hewas astounded by how many stars he could see, evenmore than from the desert at night. The whole skylooked alive.

Suddenly the horizon loomed ahead, straighten-ing and rushing toward him as he reached the apex ofhis trajectory and began a nose dive back to earth.His stomach twisted in protest. The brake pedalnearly bent as he pressed both feet into it, arching hiswhole body. Nothing. Why didn’t I think about how tostop this thing? What the fuck am I gonna do now?Frantic, he tried to downshift while thumbing therheostat backward. The engine went into a coughingfit, shaking the car, now fast and now slow, followinga logarithmic scale he was too panicked to register.

There was water directly below, and he wasrushing toward the tip of a huge peninsula with arather suggestive coastline that any suggestible ado-lescent male would recognize. Then the ground wasrushing up too fast to make out any more detail,blurred by inconceivable speed into an engulfing tie-dye rosette, but at its center the impact site came intofocus, opening like a stone flower to receive him. Itlooked like some kind of palace courtyard made ofenormous rough-hewn rocks, with thick walls, asquare tower, pylons topped with globes and cres-cents, and even tables and chairs like Flintstonesfurniture. A few yards from ground zero, framed byone of the large irregular crescents, stood a humanfigure.

In the last instant of his headlong plummet, Acemade out the details of this figure. It appeared to be

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7Overture: Waves Within

wearing a bulky metal space suit adorned with tubesand valves. Inside the bubble-helmet was a pale,gaunt and clean-shaven face, around 10 years olderthan Ace, with an expression that combined grimdetermination with peevish annoyance. The figureheld a wide-mouthed ray gun pointed directly at

Ace. Purplish light from the gun’s barrel pulsated intime to La Fuente’s lurching engine.

Ace shot through the large stone crescent, readyto plow into the earth with meteoric force, but whenhis bumper was about two feet from the ground,something very strange happened.

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8 Sons of Ether

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9Introduction: Strangeness and Utopia

Introduction:Strangenessand Utopia

The nature of things is in the habit of concealing itself.—Heraclitus, “Fragment 123”

The Sons of Ether often seemdirectionless, eccentric and delusional.The Technocracy would tell you thatEther Science merely trades mystical su-perstition for crank theories or ideals thatinevitably fall to stark pragmatism. Some-times, they’re even correct.

Directionless? They are at times, butthat’s because the Tradition has never

bowed to a timetable, a commercial vision or a politicalpower. Eccentric? Definitely. Life is an experiment, andif it’s as liberated as Science should be, then it’s boundto produce some unusual personalities. Delusional? MadScientists aside (and the Tradition can deal with thatproblem on its own, thank you very much), the Sons ofEther will tell you that they look at all the variables intheir work — including the individual. Technocrats set

themselves up for a fall when they fail to realize theimportance of the observer’s will, which is why so manyof their proud innovations are revealed to be fraudulentor filled with dangerous side effects. Reproducible ex-periments might regulate reality, but Forteanphenomena, psychic Resonance and enigmatic cosmo-logical principles will always interfere.

In fact, Ether Science is more than a set of discardedtheories, pulp shticks and wild speculation. It’s a gaunt-let thrown down to the Technocracy, the scientificestablishment and reality itself. It rejects reducing na-ture to a set of predictable mechanisms than can beendlessly recombined, because it knows that such un-derpinnings are false and always on the verge of beingoverturned. The truth recognized in the Kitab al-Alaciris a simple, exhilarating and terrifying one: Everything istrue. Anything is possible.

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Theme: The Saving Powerof the Impossible

now work at cross-purposes instead of for the greatergood of the Masses.

Enter the Sons of Ether. Theirs is a Science thatrejects limits and immutable laws. It could feed billions,colonize space and fight off the worst horrors of theWorld of Darkness, but in saving humanity, it couldgive it the power to destroy itself — to wreck the veryfoundations of the Tellurian. Etherites realize this,which is why they’re so idealistic. Limitless power needsto be guided by an ethos, or else it becomes a terribleweapon. Nevertheless, the time for half-measures isover. Change is on the horizon, and the Tradition hasthe tools to prepare humanity for it.

As Armageddon looms, old assumptionshave to be cast away before they renderhumanity helpless to act. As long as theSleepers believe that they are powerlessto change the universe, they will alwaysbe its victims. Now, more than ever, theSons of Ether need to introduce Sciencethat defies what the Consensus thinks isimpossible. Cosmic forces are aligning

against the survival of a species that believes that itcan do nothing but wait, consume the last of its richesand appeal to its leaders to act. The Technocracy isconflicted between its desire to save humanity fromharm and its will to exert control — impulses that

Mood: Realizing Science’s PotentialEther Science is powerful and diverse, butwithout mass acceptance, it shares many ofthe flaws of occult belief systems. Scien-tists must be initiated into their craft andadvance based on intensely personal in-sights. Dynamic Science is hard toreproduce, it requires years of study, and itrequires discretion and subtlety to use ef-fectively. As the world races toward its

destiny, the flowering of Science must take two forms.First, new Sons of Ether need to break away fromTradition dogma, selfish motives and infighting. Theyneed to create genuinely new inventions and push the

borders of the possible instead of recycling antiquetheories for their own sake. Second, they need to find away to share these revelations with the Sleepers, tobreak them from a pessimism that reduces innovation toa commodity and denies that any other way of living iseven possible. New Science needs to contradict theestablished norms, or else its possibilities will never beunlocked for general use. Quantum physics was the first“great contradiction,” but now it needs to be challengedand expanded in turn so that Sleepers will see that manytheories exist, and they can use the ones that suit themin their own quests for knowledge and survival.

ContentsThis book provides revised and expandedinformation on playing the Sons of Ether:the other Enlightened Scientists of Mage:The Ascension. The following chaptersdetail how Ether Scientists organize, studyand even use “magic.”

Chapter One: The Eight-TrackMethod takes us on a literal ride throughthe Tradition’s history, ethos and relation-

ship with other occult societies, Scientists and themysteries of the World of Darkness. Ernesto C.Amanguale takes a trip to the end of the world andlearns that his Science might be all that stands betweendisaster and Ascension.

Chapter Two: The Essence of Science introducesus to the Tradition and its Science. The Sons of Etherare about more than just pulp style and anachronistictheories. Their factions, organization and approach toScience (or magic) are all presented. And even thoughpulp isn’t the end-all of Ether culture, it certainly has itsplace. Adventure never goes out of style.

Chapter Three: The Dynamic Faculty concen-trates on tips for playing a Son of Ether, includingnotable Scientists, ideas for all-Etherite games and asample cabal that’s ready to be used in your own Magegames. Ready-to-play templates round out the chapter,allowing you to run a Son of Ether right from the book.

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11Introduction: Strangeness and Utopia

Lexiconthe Ether, human knowledge and the nature ofreality. The book contains the central theories ofEther Science, but there are many divergent inter-pretations. This Primer Grimoire is loaned tovirtually all budding Scientists and is known tospark Awakenings.

Parmenidean: Theories in the Kitab al-Alacirsimilar to those of Parmenides, a pre-Socratic Greekphilosopher. Parmenidean physics holds that the cos-mos is a continuous entity, without any void. Thiscosmos holds every phenomena, both “real” and “un-real.” Therefore, some common medium must exist tosupport reality without emptiness (the Ether), andlaws that assert that something is impossible must becategorically false.

The Parmenideans (or Pupils of Parmenides)formed both a Greek cult and Renaissance society,both of which might have ties to the modern Sonsof Ether.

Professor: An Adept-ranked Scientist capableof supervising a lab and directing Researchers inthe field.

Reductionism: Scientific and philosophical te-net that holds that all possible phenomena can bereduced to a set of consistent, explainable mecha-nisms. Rejected by the Sons of Ether on the basis thatphenomena are infinite, dynamic and possessed ofsimultaneous rational explanations.

Researcher: An Ether Scientist capable of inde-pendent field research but not the supervision ofother Scientists. In Tradition terms, roughly equal toa Disciple.

Science: When capitalized, Science refers toEtherite Awakened inventions, research and theo-ries, as opposed to Sleeper or Technocratic science.Also called Awakened Science, Ether Science orDynamic Science.

Scientist: A general term of an Etherite of anyrank. Usually capitalized.

Specialist: A Scientist who uses a narrow range oflinear Effects; what mystics call a sorcerer or psychic.

Aretus: “The Virtuous,” legendary sage and re-puted author of the Kitab al-Alacir. Thought to be anallegorical or mythic character by some.

Chair: An Etherite Master, so called because of asemi-official position that she would normally oc-cupy. Some specific Chairs have their own titles,responsibilities and requirements for eligibility.

Doctor: All Sons of Ether can claim the title of“Doctor,” either from pre-existing credentials or thanksto completing an Etherite apprenticeship (which is,of course, equivalent, if not superior, to any mundaneeducation). Etherites who earn the title only from theTradition are sometimes frowned upon by those whoearned ordinary credentials first.

Electrodyne Engineers: Name of the Sons ofEther during the 19th century when they re-estab-lished their identity as a distinct organization.

Emeritus: An Archmage.Ether: The “Fifth Essence” of reality upon which

the rest of the cosmos is founded. Ultimately, Ether isfundamental and imperceptible, but offshoots (“lesserEthers”) such as Quintessence can be measured.

Etherite: Informal, popular term for a member ofthe Sons of Ether. Favored by Scientists who wouldlike to divest themselves of the sexist connotations ofthe Tradition’s proper name.

Fortean: Unusual phenomena for which there isevidence but no known cause, such as rains of frogs orpsychic phenomena. Used by the Sons of Ether touncover hidden natural laws and to prove theParmenidean doctrine.

Heraclitan: Theories in the Kitab al-Alacir simi-lar to those proposed by the Greek philosopherHeraclitus. Heraclitan doctrine holds that reality is inconstant flux as opposing metaphysical forces destroyeach other and recombine into new phenomena.

House Golo: Medieval branch of the HermeticHouse Ex Miscellanea devoted to studying the Kitabal-Alacir. Precursors to the modern Sons of Ether.

Kitab al-Alacir: “Book of the Ether.” Arabicname of a Greek text that espouses theories aboutSam

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13Chapter One: The Eight-Track method

Chapter One:The Eight-

Track Method

Band One: Stone Flower“I have discovered the secrets of the pyramids, andhave found out how the Egyptians and the ancientbuilders in Peru, Yucatan, and Asia, with onlyprimitive tools, raised and set in place blocks ofstone weighing many tons!”

—Edward Leedskalnin, builder of Coral CastleFrance, 2003:Within an ornate recessed cupboard in a

disused wing of a large mansion, an antiquetelephone rang. It continued to ring for some time, whileheavy, perfectly even footsteps approached down the longhallway, pausing at each room and juncture as though search-ing for the source of the sound.

Meanwhile, light and sound poured from the mansion’sexpansive greenhouse. Candles and oil lamps hung on chainsfrom the ceiling or swung on jointed telescoping arms, theirlight intensified and focused by lenses and reflectors to wherea figure sat amid a cacophony of whirring wheels, grindinggears, coughing combustion devices and shrieking steam-pipes. The figure, a young man clad in insulated apron andgloves, perched upon a high stool and glared through thickgoggles at the glowing core of a dismantled armature on the

worktable before him. Behind him, a second figure resem-bling an oversized tin soldier entered the greenhouse, itsposture ramrod-straight, its stride thumping a metronomicallyexact rhythm until it stopped just behind the young man.

It said, “Telephone call for you, sir.”The young man covered his work with a dust-cloth and

turned, removing his goggles. “A what?”The tin soldier’s words emerged from a bellows in its chest,

passing through a series of tiny horns, whistles, tuned stringsand rubber baffles that produced a fairly intelligible imitationof human speech. They did, however, tend to mangle thephonemes of the French language. “A telephone call.”

The young man blew out some of the nearest lights andpulled a few levers, silencing some of the noisier machines.“How is that possible?”

“A simple electrical apparatus, sir, transmitting sound inthe form of—”

“Must have missed one,” the young man muttered, removinghis gloves and apron. He followed the tin soldier into the old wingof his family estate to where the old-fashioned receiver dangled fromthe cupboard. A chair and end table had been dusted off and placednearby, the only furniture in the empty room.

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