Weirder Factions
This is the second post on Factions in Maximum Recursion Depth, the first focusing on Factions in New York.
There are still more factions I haven't written about than in this or the prior post, either because I haven't fully developed them yet, or because they blur the lines between Weird and "Realistic". There are also some NPCs I haven't included in either of these posts, either because they don't fit neatly into these factions (such as Doctor Lovesmenot), or because they are cool in a gameable sense, but aren't necessarily "notable" NPCs for the faction- more like videogame minibosses (for instance, Redlight and Greenlight). I'll try to write another post at some point for the stuff that didn't make it into these first two.
On top of that, none of these really formalize in any way The Celestial Bureaucracy, nor The Numberless Courts of Hell, which I realize may confuse or annoy some. I'm intentionally avoiding formalizing those factions, honestly, for several reasons, but when I do decide to take that plunge, if I decide to do so, I may do a post on that as well.
The Polterzeitgeist
Human consciousness is not built to sustain extended periods of immateriality, and especially not the inevitable friction of being an immaterial being in the material world. As such, rogue poltergeists, those who for whatever reason linger in the material world rather than serving time in one of the Numberless Courts of Hell to be reincarnated, are in a vulnerable position. Rogue poltergeists are, in the first place, more likely to have accrued a lot of Karma in their lives, and this Karma is paradoxically both what sustains them, and, in a downward spiraling feedback loop, what destroys them. In the end, most rogue poltergeists, if not returned to a Court of Hell or reincarnated, go insane, and become something more like a Nature Spirit. However, a rare few do manage to find a balance, becoming something no longer quite human, but also not quite a Nature Spirit. These are the Polterzeitgeist.
The Polterzeitgeist is led informally by “The Council of Jacks”, although it is more like a living culture, or a people defined by their oppression, than it is a movement per se. Their only uniting goal is their desire to be allowed to continue to exist in the material world, without being reincarnated. Beyond that, the Jacks each have their own activities and their own personal agendas. They see their relationship more as siblings than as political peers.
Notable NPCs:
Rat Jack: Humanoid rat in appearance and in character. He'll turn on anyone if it suits his interests, but at least he is reliable in his self-interest. He closely associates with Chester, a Nature Spirit and drug dealer, often managing certain logistics of the drug trade. Nonetheless, he is generally not a malicious person, and can actually be quite sentimental, even if it doesn't permeate through his actions.
Goblin Jack: Short, awkward, rugged, mangy looking creature. The type who looks pathetic at a distance, until you realize he's not as scrawny as he looks- it's just lean muscle as tight as steel, with a square jaw, and those teeth do look sharp... An idealist at heart, but also angry, and sadistic, and on the verge of being consumed by his Karma and becoming an Ashura. In his most recent past life, he was raised as part of an organization known as The Doppler Potential alongside Doctor Lovesmenot, who he sees as like a sibling.
Jungle Jack (In development)
Honeybee Jack (In development; may replace with an ant-themed Jack)
Dragon Jack (In development)
Potentially others...
The Doppler Potential
A distributed intelligence, a living system birthed as an emergent property of the United States government. Its modern name is derived from a combination of the Doppler Effect and an Action Potential in the brain, and as a reference to the sound of a speeding police siren passing one by. The collective actions of humanity can be thought of as a connectionist neural network and by extension, a wave function, where individual humans are to civilizations as neurons are to the brain. This model had been converging nonlinearly towards the manifestation of a superorganism for some time; the crests of the wave function interfacing with the nodes of the network at an increasing rate. With the formation of the United States Government, the frequency of the feedback between the superorganism and humanity reached a critical mass, like post-synaptic potentials in the brain summating into an action potential, setting off a cascade response wherein the superorganism became self-aware, in some sense, if not necessarily as humans think of self-awareness.
The Doppler Potential exists as a living idea, manifesting in jingoism, religious-like reverence towards historical American figures and artifacts, cultural mores, institutions, and the systems behind them. It operates as a meta-governmental, multi-body organization interfacing with all aspects of the United States government.
Through various aristocratic families, housing projects, government orphanages, and similar means, The Doppler Potential has engineered, mostly behaviorally but more recently also technologically and genetically, human agents, corporations, and artificial intelligences, which serve either directly for The Doppler Potential, or completely unknowingly serve its will across the country and even the world.
The Doppler Potential has reached god-like status, although it is formally recognized by the Celestial Bureaucracy and the Numberless Courts of Hell as an incorporated human. It is karmic, although as a superorganism, and a young one at that, it does not necessarily interact with the karmic cycle in quite the same way as normal humans.
While the results of the Doppler Potential’s will may be interpreted as negative, or outright evil, by many humans, it does not see its actions as evil any more than a human would think themselves evil for killing brain cells on a night out drinking. Nonetheless, it’s utilitarian (if we’re being generous), if not outright Machiavellian treatment of humanity, is perhaps net-negative from the perspective of individuals. Even so, it is neither the total cause of nor total solution to all of humanity's problems, and in fact, could potentially be leveraged towards its salvation, if only humanity could understand it and come to terms with it.
The Doppler Potential makes no effort to hide its existence, but in most cases, it is simply too complex, and for many humans too existentially and epistemologically challenging, to even acknowledge, and therefore it is able to operate in plain sight, despite not being recognized in the general public consciousness.
As the United States has descended towards militarism and fascism, so too has the Doppler Potential become increasingly violent and hostile towards its perceived opposition, although its motives are often inscrutable.
It is not necessarily the only of its kind.
Notable NPCs:
Soft Mother: A cartoon humanoid in the form of a voluptuous woman, like a cross between Jessica Rabbit and Betty Boop. She serves as the mouth of The Doppler Potential; her words comforting but without substance.
Wire Mother: A putrid, zombie-like humanoid, naked, seeping noxious milky fluids, held together by a barbwire exoskeleton. She serves as the gut of The Doppler Potential; impossibly disgusting, yet plays a crucial role in its ability to gain sustenance (not so crucial that she cannot be replaced, of course).
Detective Dick ("Fuck Ya") Smashburn: A short, bald, mustachioed, middle-aged, no-nonsense cop who plays by his own rules (or so he thinks), and dreams of “the old days”. He is not aware that he is part of the Doppler Potential, but his actions serve its greater and often arcane purposes.
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