The Initiative

Aedolis, for all the hedonistic delights its upper caste enjoys, is a repressive dictatorship. No one feels it quite as much as the Lower Caste, who live in comparative poverty and squalor, work enforcedly low-level jobs, and don't enjoy the technological benefits they can easily view on the VCN. Is it any wonder some of them are disgruntled?

It's easy to join the Initiative, but very hard to back out few want to. You've got to be really committed to a very rough way of life. Because speaking out against Aedolis typically results in death or jail, if you want to do it you've either got to be ingenious about hiding your activities, or you've got to cut out your chip and go underground. There are some who keep their chips and their daily way of life, but are simply very quiet about their subversive thoughts, and work mainly to hide and protect those who do speak out.

Initiative activities include subversive blogging, radio broadcasts, and physical sabotage, particularly to surveillance systems. Most of the organization is in Haviah, but they have some branches in other Aedolian cities. They've got a few ties to Teinar and Arteia, and, while they're wary of the Gospels, they have had contact with them over the years.

History of the Initiative

The Initiative has its origins in a loose-knit group of general dissenters, those who decided to become voluntarily chipless. They instigated some riots over the years, often put down. The group really organized itself and took the name 'the Initiative' only after they were joined by psychics who wished to avoid the trap of Candidate training and eventual Pilothood. A Pilot they knew as 'Hydra' helped to establish the network of support the Initiative needed, and helped track down psychics who wouldn't be eager to join the Candidate program.

They stirred up some trouble four years ago--some Lower City rioting, which killed Pilot C. Hasdrubal. Around the same time, Pilot I. Talbotte's Dragon discovered her as a Gospel, and the Pilot Imperial disappeared: both events may've contributed to the air of unease or imbalance that led to the Initiative attempt at action. It failed, and many involved were killed or imprisoned.

At present, the Initiative is split between those who simply want to save psychics from the Candidate program and somehow get to Teinar, and those who want to get up enough firepower, particularly now that they have psychics on their side, to challenge the Aedolian military itself. It's widely recognized, though, that this is not something that's going to happen in the near future.

How the Chipless Survive

It's not easy to live in Aedolis if you don't have a chip, and most members of the Initiative, understandably, have had to get rid of theirs. After all, a chip ties you to the surveillance grid; you're easy to track if you make a purchase. Similarly, since surveillance cameras recognize most faces as matched to chips, it's important for anyone in hiding to avoid surveillance cameras as much as possible.

And then there's the question of where you're going to live, considering the prevalence of surveillance cameras, which the Lower Castes often call 'survees.'

The Initiative has managed to deal with these issues in a few ways, using several resources.

Methods of chip forgery

Valencia and the District 2017 Public Hospital. Valencia is an undiscovered psychic working discreetly in a Lower City hospital morgue. She provides chipless with chips from dead people she then does not record as deceased; her Gospel friend Nessuno helps her with public record. These chips are only usable in the short-term, but they're pretty ironclad, and she provides them regularly, as the hospital's enormous and gets a lot of traffic. She also removes chips from those just going into hiding and logs them as deceased.

Forged chips. These are a little harder to get, since it takes work to create a new chip, a false identity, and input it into the system. There are also few people who are willing to help chipless who also have the resources to create this. Someone using one is often caught due to some glitch; it's a risky method, and only works perfectly in theory.

Blank chips. These are chips that carry no identity marker, but which you can use in automatic systems like vending machines. Nothing that's checked immediately by a person, though, and they're highly illegal, so if you're caught with one, you're in trouble.

Credit skimmers. These are small handheld scanners that will skim the credit from one chip and transfer it to another. Very risky, very hard to get one that works well, and newer chips have safeguards against these.

Methods of surveillance evasion

The Wrong Way graffiti. This is ever-changing, color-coded graffiti, often a stylized set of 'W's, that points out spots that aren't exposed to the surveillance cameras. The Lower City has several areas with damaged or simply inadequate surveillance cameras, so this is far from impossible, though difficult.

The tunnels. The tunnels are a network of underground passageways, through very old ventilation and sewage systems, made when Haviah was a much newer city. Not on any city plan, they're hard to access and they're kept very, very secret, but those who've been in hiding for awhile can use them to get all the way to the Upper City.

Vandalism. It's not unheard-of for survees to go unrepaired in the poorer districts of the Lower City.

Where and how they live

Mainly, members of the Initiative have to camp out in the tunnels, or in surveillance-free areas right at the bottom of the Lower City. It's not a glamorous lifestyle, though there are occasional safe havens, unmonitored barter-for-food bars like The Warehouse (which doesn't have surveillance and masquerades by day as, well, an abandoned warehouse).

Initiative members often access the VCN using the discarded Thanatos terminals that have been floating around junk piles. Shortwave radio setup for listening to and recording broadcasts are not too hard to find or make from salvaged parts.

In fact, salvage is an important part of Initiative activity. They make most of their weapons out of things they can find lying around, in someone's home, or as part of some public apparatus they can dismantle, like a streetlight, power generator, or surveillance camera.

What's Happened Recently

Recently, the Initiative's been turned a little bit on its ears by Poet, a radio broadcaster who runs Justified Poetics Radio and the Wrong Way Club branch of the Initiative. He's got a lot to do with bringing the revolution to the upper caste, though he himself is a chipless, and he preaches much more for direct action than the other loud voices in the Initiative, most of whom believe waiting is the best idea.

The Wrong Way Club is made up simply of the guys and gals who started the graffiti tradition, which has made things easier for everyone. They also do outreach to new people interested in subversive activity, and claim Poet's special protection (he's a powerful psychic). Anyone can join the Wrong Way Club. They've been gearing up for action recently, though that's still in the future. At present they're simply gathering some plans on a weaponsmaking facility in Lower City Haviah.

They are also currently dealing with the Gospels. Nessuno is connected to Valencia and Chimera is a personal friend of Poet's, but the Initiative mostly does not trust the Gospels. They are, after all, Pilots. The issue at hand is the psychic cure, which Chimera tested in secret on a compliant members of the Initiative, named Satro Marival. The rest of the Initiative doesn't know about the psychic cure at all, though Poet has just found Satro with her memory erased. For more on current events, see this thread.

Threads of note

The Initiative--this is the thread that kicked off the idea for the initiative. It's kind of a strange thread, because no one in it really has any idea where it's supposed to go; it was just set up to establish some things the Initiative is doing (with the psychic cure, etc.). In retrospect, posting it on Gospel accounts might have made it seem too intimidating. It should be a handy reference for some NPCs, like Valencia. Feel free to PM Chimera if you'd like interaction with Poet.

JP Radio--Poet's crazy radio show. Initiative members would listen to it. It's slightly rambling, but that's to throw the man off the scent, right? Probably.

The Sylph Report--is always worth a read. Pay attention to little details about how to set up a terminal. Very useful for any subversive Havian.

It's Terminal--some ongoing player-character plot, with Circa and Sam's undercover Lower City police. They have bugged some of the discarded Thanatos terminals used by Initiative members, and they're presently trying to contact an Initiative member called Core.