McAllister Industries

This mysterious multinational conglomerate is the single largest corporation on Earth.  A shadowy fiscal entity whose very existence is concealed from the vast majority of mankind, it is the holding company behind countless subsidiaries and the production of a staggering variety of high-tech products.  Its annual turnover is unknown, but Louise has estimated it to be measured in hundreds of billions, or perhaps even trillions of dollars per annum.

It is only recently, however, that the truth behind this monolithic organisation has begun to emerge.  McAllister Industries is the public facade of the Technocratic Union, the enigmatic 'Technocracy' that seeks to redefine all reality to suit their own vision of the universe.  The history of the Technocracy can be summarised as follows -

In ancient times, it was said that many men were Awakened, able to call upon the powers of their will to alter reality itself and bring about wonders the like of which defy description.  However, as is all too often the case, absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Awakened men and women fought each other, sometimes with words and machinations, sometimes with bolts of fire and lightning.  Eventually, a small cabal of such 'True Magi' realised that all of reality was in danger from their brethren’s manipulations.  They realised that the masses needed a stable reality in which to develop, as opposed to one which could be altered by any madman’s whim.  They formulated their precepts and desires in the 1320 Convention of the Ivory Tower, and in 1325 were reborn as the Order of Reason.  Their tenet: that a single unified truth was safer than a thousand possibilities.

It was the Order of Reason that brought about the Renaissance and the Age of Reason.  Copernicus, Newton and many others brought about a shift in how the Masses perceived the reality around them, and as belief changed, reality changed to match it.  When no-one believed in dragons anymore, dragons disappeared from the skies; when mankind believed the universe worked according to certain rules, those who had used to break those rules with impunity now found themselves shackled.  But, of course, by this time the Inner Circle of the Order were themselves corrupted by power.  And high ideals soon began to fall by the wayside.

During the Industrial Revolution the Order found one of their greatest champions : Queen Victoria.  As the British Empire spread under her rule, their tenets of science, commerce and logic followed behind and eradicated many more ancient beliefs.  Soon only a few isolated peoples believed in the Umbra rather than ‘space’, and in the guiding hand of spirits rather than in cold, hard scientific principles.  The Order of Reason had become the Technocratic Union, the Technocracy.

By the twentieth century the Technocracy was securely ensconced around the globe, hiding behind masks of commerce and politics.  Reality was almost completely static; the powers of ‘magic’ were drastically reduced; the world was safe from the horrors of the past.  Technocracy strongholds held devices far in excess of accepted modern science, released into the world as ‘exciting new breakthroughs’ only when the Technocrats thought mankind was ready.  And soon all mankind would accept their ways.  The Union believe that when this occurs, the entire spirit world (see The Umbra) will be sundered away from the physical world as it was here on Earth, and the entire universe will follow their rules.

The Technocracy are close to total success.  The powers of sorcery and geomancy are limited to what can be achieved with carefully worded rituals and incantations; mythic creatures have disappeared; ordinary men and women do not believe in the spirit world or fairies or vampires, due to the Union’s success in stamping out these ‘Reality Deviants’.  Soon, such things will be impossible, rather than merely extremely difficult, and the Technocracy will have won.

The Inner Circle of the Technocracy is now the Board of Directors of McAllister Industries, though their can be little doubt that their original objectives have become mired down in a morass of political infighting, personal vendettas and sheer greed.  Although McAllister labs hold technological marvels far in advance of commonly-accepted science, these wonders are all too often used in the pursuit of power for power's sake rather than humanity's development of a clear, unified reality.

The Club have tangled with McAllister agents on numerous occasions, whether a plot to sell high-tech weapons to the highest bidder or another attempt to recover Mitch.  The android member of the Parallax Club was 'born' in a Technocracy lab, and they seemingly will spare no expense to get him back.  Several encounters have suggested that McAllister efforts to create androids similar to Mitch have been uniformly unsuccessful so it is unclear how they were able to build him in the first place.  The First Team responsible for the recovery of Mitch (who McAllister refers to as 'Project Damocles') is led by Michael Banner, a ruthless ex-soldier once of the US marines First Force Recon.

The identities of those behind the Technocracy, the shadowy Board of Directors, are still a mystery.  It is unsurprising that such individuals are as secretive as the most devious Kindred, for they are men and women who are close to redefining all creation in their own image.  The Club have in the past encountered an enigmatic Japanese businessman named Masumi Hakashima, who is also affiliated with the Seven, and it is believed that he is either on the Board or close to it.

It is also known that McAllister agents seek to destroy all beings who do not fit the Technocracy's image of a static, organised world believing only in science and reason - the so-called 'Reality Deviants'.  The teams responsible for investigating and dealing with such threats are part of a group called Project Invictus, and are often composed of anonymous men in black suits and mirrored sunglasses.  As these threats include beings from the Deep Umbra, those which the masses would see as 'aliens', this is the origin of the mysterious 'Men in Black' legend.

Below is a copy of a Top Secret McAllister memorandum recently discovered by the Parallax Club.  It demonstrates the Precepts under which the Technocracy operates and how successful they feel they have been to date.  Just click on the thumbnail: