Combine Faction Bible

File:CombineStateMap.png

***Work in Progress***
This article (Combine Faction Bible), or a section of this article, is under construction; please excuse all cranes, dozers, and MCVs in the meantime. Feel free to add additional content to the page, including pictures and templates; the final page may differ from the current page to a large extent.

**Note:** The following information is only for those interested in writing lore for or of the Technocratic Combine, or miscellaneous viewers who wish to see a run-down of the faction as a whole. It does not deal with lore events, individual members, or great in-universe detail, but provides a comprehensive look at the faction's place in the setting and what it encompasses.

**Note 2:** The information here is subject to revision.

## Who They Are

* The Technocratic Combine is a coalition of assorted peoples and groups, most notably the United Technate of the Americas, who've gotten together in order to build and fight for such grand concepts as the end of war, the unity of all branches of humanity (and any other sapient species they find), the eradication of poverty and want and unlimited resources, and the general advancement of the hard and soft sciences.
* Technically, the Technocratic Combine is the alliance bloc of the United Technate and influenced allies. In practice, the United Technate and the Technocratic Combine are mostly interchangeable terms (in cases of confusion, United Technate is akin to United States in the same way that Technocratic Combine is to NATO).
	+ The Technate is a superstate composed of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Ecuador: while they have their own governing bodies, all cooperate under the greater heading of the United Technate.
	+ The Combine, it must be noted, is as true to the historical state of Central and northernly South America as the Atomic Kingdom is to the historical Red China. Its thematic origin is rooted in a certain notion of Western futurism: its creator and originator apologizes in advance for any RL cultural erasure present in the faction.

## What They Want

* In brief: World Peace & Harmony. Under Us. Preferably Soon-ish.
* More specifically, the Combine wants a single unitary society that operates on a system where fields of study and work are led and managed by those most skilled and adept in said fields: those with the best understanding of biology should head the biology programs, those most skilled at psychology the psychological fields. Together, said fields must then be used in order to enhance the overall human condition, bring enlightenment and freedom of information to every being, and most of all provide practical means to solve problems that ail human society. It's all very humanistic and high minded and ultimately it boils down to the concept of Utopia. They're *really* big on Utopia.
* Now, world peace and unity is all well and good, but the problem is all these *other* factions running around, fighting each other and refusing to see the light. The Combine's short-term goals, as such, are to: proselytize and integrate as many smaller groups into the Combine through assorted means (mainly technological bribery, debate, and society building), build up the United Technate as an economic and political power, and eliminate nearby competition via sabotaging their PR campaigns or manipulating them into striking the Technate first in order to justify "self-defense".
* In-universe, most factions and groups that are aware of them know the Combine's desire for unification of humanity and end of war and all that jive: it's not like the Combine is exactly **subtle** about it, after all. What most of them *don't* know is that ultimately what the Combine calls Technocracy is really ideological vampirism: it drains components of other systems and ideologies and regurgitates them in whatever form the Combine thinks or believes will advance its concept of Utopia.
	+ The Technocratic Mandate is doublethink: it allows for two or more opposing viewpoints of reality (or ideology) to be held and discarded or swapped about at will. Get a strong enough Technocratic believer in an argument and you'll find they not only don't have a consistent set of ethical or moral viewpoints, they'll actively subvert your position and incorporate it into their own ideology (then calling you out for working against the position you were previously arguing for).

## How Much They Know

* For the most part, the Combine know about as much about the rest of the world as any other public group like the Soviet Union or the Industrial Guild. While they may be a bit more interested in following up the tales of robot sightings and alien abductions than other groups for the sake of information gathering, they're still not actually aware that groups like the Protectorate or the Ecumene exist.
* The one major exception to this is the Talon and Black Hand: the Combine are aware that groups like the Cult of the Talon and Cult of the Scorpion exist, and they are pretty pissed about it given one of their ideology's few constants is about open access to information directly contradicts the work of said groups to conceal information. They can't distinguish the two groups very well though, so their main approach to the Secret War is to blunder in, shoot the lot of them, and let God sort the really guilty ones out.
	+ They'd feel real bad and probably agree with the Talon if they knew the rationale behind their decisions, but since neither side is inclined to talk much it'd take a miracle to get them to do so.
* While they know shit-all about how the Chronosphere works or that time travel is an actual thing, they're pretty sure it doesn't work the same way that their Astrogates do. This is mildly worrying, but the rush of being able to punch reality in the face so much it just sighs and allows them to explore different universes tends to override the worry.

## Weird Science

* The Combine's branch of weirdness is the weirdness of old 1920s and 30s ideas on what the future was going to hold: though not all of said ideas were serious and some were already discredited, their weirdness and their goofiness works well with the RA universe. Advances in agricultural leading to enormous food bounties and sizes, personal robot servants and factory workers, radio wave guns, exotic particles, the powers of radiation, adventures in other worlds, the Combine draws on every element of what would later be the father of Allied 60s jetpunk: a more optimistic brand of dieselpunk, also known as Ottensian dieselpunk or decopunk. So that's where the fungal zombies, giant ants, Death/"Peace" Rays, floating magnetic discs, Android Automatons, rotorpacks, cyclocopters, landships, and more come from: the pages of pulp science fiction and old Popular Mechanics magazines.
	+ Their conventional aircraft, ships, and vehicles range from WW1 to WW2, with the planes trending towards later years and the ships trending towards earlier. They **all** look like someone decided to make a Crimson Skies version of World of Tanks/Warplanes/Warships.
* These three areas are where the Combine are **most prominently** Weird:
	+ Biology and Eugenic Engineering - the alternate universe pulp equivalent to genetic engineering, everything from legit gene therapy and modification (with 40s era computers no less!) to chemical and bio-artificial enhancement. Closely tied to this is the widespread use of animals and biological organisms for combat and utility, both unaltered and eugenically modified. **NOT** negative eugenics, important to note.
	+ Rhetoric and Psychology - Doublethink, triplethink, crude memetics, and just good old fashioned sophistry. The Combine don't tend to use it as an actual combat technology much, but it plays into their personality and their battlefield morale.
	+ Metaphysics - Simply put, metaphysics is the delicate art of creating machinery that generates and rips holes between different spacetimes in order to affect this spacetime (or 'universe'). Whereas chronotechnology exploits dimensional properties in our universe in order to induce time travel and other weirdness, metaphysics exploits white holes, topographical points, and fields in the larger multiverse in order to induce spatial jaunting and other weirdness. This allows for all sorts of wacky and unbelievably Fun shenanigans. **NOT** traveling to different dimensions, important to note.

## Why You Should Join Them

* Most obvious: their goals include eliminating hunger, poverty, illness, cruelty, injustice, class oppression, tyranny, and ignorance. Even if it's impossible, their interior systems are genuinely interested in tackling these problems.
* They are genuinely interested in and take measures to try and address the issues of poverty, prejudice, inequality, and conflict within and outside their borders: social aid programs, cross-culture dialogues, personal and psychological safety measures, etc.
* They advocate for the free exchange and flow of information, and the vast bulk of their generated information and knowledge is available for public consumption (classified files are automatically declassified after a certain period of time, or even before depending on authoritative orders)
* They encourage entrepreneurship and invention, and offer a wide variety of opportunities and positions for people who can demonstrate a new invention or discovery that could be used to help individuals or the population at large.
	+ In other words, their weird tech isn't top-secret military stuff: it's military stuff that has the ability to be reconfigured for civilian usage, like modern firefighter uniforms were able to take notes from spacesuit design. They bring science and development into the hands of the masses.

## Why You Should Fight Them

* They're arrogant narcissists who believe only they have the right and proper path towards solving all of humanity's problems (THROUGH SCIENCE!) and aren't exactly quiet about bringing it up when they have a chance
* Their ideology is filled with doublethink and rationalistic relativism, meaning they'll imitate almost any other real ideology such as communism, objectivism, utilitarianism, etc so long as it can lead people into the Technocratic mindset.
	+ In addition, their ideology allows them to be massive gits so long as they can justify the other party as being worse *and* having thrown the first stone. War is therefore technically an option if its in the interests of securing long term peace or in self-defense against an aggressor...
* They encourage the self-sacrificing of an individual for a collective good or possibility of success, and advocate choosing death over being wrong.
* Their humano-centrism means they're pretty shady when it comes to the whole "non-sapient animal rights" deal.

## Where They're Headed

* If the Combine continue in the direction they're aiming for, they'll eventually start going down the road of transhumanism: first biological with increased gene modification and personalized biochemical control, and later cybernetic (once they subvert enough of the Syndicate or Empire's ideology into their own). Materials and an understanding of weird particle physics feeds into Metaphysics, and that leads to an open world of exploration, colonization, and (most of all) a major step forward in the Utopianistic idea of unlimited resources.
	+ If the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket (and it's getting close), they'll ramp up the Metaphysics program to try and get as many people off-universe as possible. The META is a distinct entity that's formed from the possible future of the Combine should they go this route: don't worry about them though, they're not relevant to 1969 Paraechoes.

General Setting Details • Faction Bibles (Paradox) • Faction Bibles (Echoes) • Faction Bibles (Quantum) • Faction Bibles (Annihilation) • Faction Bibles (Null) • Faction Bibles (Pandemonium) • Faction Bibles (Insanity) • Faction Bibles (Extremist) • Faction Bibles (Silentium)