Technomancers. A strange group of people recently stepping out onto the world stage, bearing powers and abilities of a nature we haven’t seen since the Awakening in 2011. Like our magically active brothers and sisters, they stand alone from baseline metahumanity because of these strange powers, finding it hard to find common ground with those that fear and hate them for what they can and can’t do.

So they seek companionship – friends, scholars, lovers – who will understand. In recent years, technomancers have begun emulating the magically inclined in forming groups and in some cases tribes like the Otaku, to find others that understand the world that they now live in. These groups can form around religious ideals, personality, genders, interests…in short, for any reason any other baseline person may.

Tonight on In-Sight, we’ll be detailing these new groups “emerging” from within the technomancer community: who they are, what they stand for, and what their effect on the Sixth World may be.

The Spacemen

There are many theories as to where technomancers receive their strange powers. Some say it’s a genetic trait; others say it’s more evidence of the “rising tide” of magic affecting the technology of today. These “Spacers”, as they like to call themselves, say that aliens gave it to them.

Dale Goldman, twenty-one year old de-facto leader of this group, explains:

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“Well, all I know is, I was asleep one night and I was woken up by this strange white light pouring into my room. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in my parent’s house completely naked. A few days later, I was having these extreme headaches…they said I had AIPS at first, but I guess I was lucky that I Emerged towards the end of the technomancer scare and no one tried to ship me off to some mental ward or something.

Talking on the Matrix later, I found out that other people had had this very same experience! Only some of ‘em had said strange creatures in green or faceless spacesuits had been leaning over them on some sort of table or something. So, closest we can figure, we got picked up, given our powers, and then released – but for what reason? I don’t know, but we’re trying to find out!”

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Dale is currently facing several charges of hacking, defrauding, and infiltrating nodes and satellites with others of his group. Their lawyers claim that they were simply trying to make contact; the corporations and groups whose nodes they infiltrated say it’s all a ruse, and the Spacers are simply another brand of conspiracy nut, looking for trouble where there isn’t any.

The Brotherhood of Babel

This group of pro-technomancer rights activists founded and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, works diligently in both the real world and the Matrix to promote a positive image for technomancers the world over. They focus on finding and aiding newly Emerged technomancers in coping with their strange new abilities, and teaching how to use them to benefit society. Many of these teachers are groundbreakers in technomancer ability research, and are strong advocates of positive integration with the rest of the world.

The Brotherhood also maintains a large, mostly donated, legal fund to combat anti-technomancer sentiment and aid the falsely accused. Though it has been two years since the Scare, fear and prejudice still haunt technomancers and often seek them harm. The Brotherhood has been quick to denounce these groups and even faster in bringing aid to those affected.

The Twists

This small group of all female thieves was relatively unknown until the arrest of their leader exploded them onto the front page of New York newspapers, Matrix nodes, and blogs. According to New York City Police Chief Michael Nusbaum, for the last six months reports of theft around the city has been on a dramatic rise, especially within the club and social scene, but they could never find a cause. It seemed that patron’s money simply…disappeared when patrons least expected.

Nusbaum explains that until one of the group – a teenage girl named Olivia – finally confessed to the group’s existence and lead the police to their hideout, they’d never thought that the crimes could be connected to technomancers. When they arrived at their hide-out, the home apartment of Jenny Allsark, twenty-four and leader of the Twists they discovered thirteen other young girls aged seventeen to twenty-one, and a hide-out filled with electronics.

“It was so simple,” Nusbaum said, “they would find someone, dance with him, and while they did, effortlessly break past the security on their comms and take whatever they wanted.” Apparently they would even sometimes install backdoors into the commlink to come back to later for anything else they thought worth stealing.

This story continues, however, as only two days after interviewing Chief Nusbaum, Allsark was able to escape from jail. Her whereabouts are currently unknown.

War Drums

From their manifesto, made public in June of 2071 –

Do not worry, fellow Children of the Echo. It has spoken to us, and made us aware. We are the inheritors of the earth; nothing, man, machine, dragon, God, can stop us. Where we walk, the earth trembles. When we call, there is power. And if the world refuses to recognize us - <b>we will make them[/b].”

Vague and ominous, War Drums are known only by the graffiti left near the sites of their brutal murders and destruction. They have only been caught on film twice – the first time the footage was later erased under strange circumstances, and the second, the taper was later found dead of asphyxiation.

We know little about them: they were first active towards the peak of the Technomancer Scare after the brutal death of Arthur Penelton, a research scientist working with AIPs patients in a San Francisco asylum. Their name and symbol was carved into the walls of the solitary room they left the crumpled mess of a body in. The body was so mutilated ID’s could only be made through genetic testing.

War Drums seems to only strike people that they feel have ‘wronged’ technomancers somehow; companies and people involved in brutal technomancer testing, psychiatrists, psychologists, and technicians working with both AIPS patients and technomancers, and even some families that had sold their children to parties interested in technomancers. They are brutal, quick, effective, and above all, seemingly invisible.

There is a standing reward for any information leading to information, arrests, or capture of any person that can be proved to be a part of this movement from several governments, GOD, and the Brotherhood of Babel. They should be considered armed and extremely dangerous, and you are encouraged NOT to interact with them.

This has been Martha Stonewall. Thank you for watching In-Sight this evening. Your evening news is next.