Editing Genius The Transgression/Chapter Three:Systems and Foundations (section)

==The Fellowship for Manifest Direction==

'''Name: Directors'''

'''Nicknames: Overlords, Disputers, The Loud'''

Many of the Inspired shy away from interaction with others, but not the Directors. Instead they seek out other mad scientists, mundane scientists, and laymen and attempt to expound and expand upon their theories. They are often met with scorn, but that rarely slows a Director down. They know, deep down, that they are right, and they know that with just the right application of charm and rhetoric, they can bring anyone around to their side. They might even learn something along the way.

Directors are horrifying yet familiar. They don't seem interesting in ripping away the comforting veils of ignorance that keep mortals from scissoring out their eyes to escape the blasphemous truth. They don't spit out legions of unholy half-born things. Or when they do, at least it's not for it's own sake, it's for a purpose that regular people can understand: power. But this makes the Directors all the more scary. The Fellowship for Manifest Direction is the smoke-filled room, the penthouse boardroom where old men make decisions that ruin lives in order to gain tiny increases in their portfolios. Directors are the blank-faced advisors sitting beside presidents, kings, and prime ministers, subtly guiding policy for their own ends. They are the censors who decide what we watch and don't watch, think and don't think. To mortals, it's a group like the Fellowship for Manifest Direction that controls the media, the government, and the finances of the entire world.

Of course that's not entirely true. The Directors are powerful, but they aren't the Illuminati, they aren't the International Banking Conspiracy that manipulates the world economy from New York to Dubai. In fact, what the Directors really are can seem more terrifying than the shadow-government fears that course through many people's minds when they hear the Directors described. Each Director burns with ambition, with vision, with a terrible yearning for more: more power, more wealth, more control, more safety, more revenge. It doesn't matter what it is, but all Directors live lives of restless dissatisfaction. An individual Director might be afraid, or uneasy, or ambitious, or merely curious, but all want the same thing: to accumulate power, at nearly any cost. It's the naked ambition that shocks people, more than what the Director plans to do with all that power. A genius' catalyst often strips away certain subtleties in a person's nature, exposing something smooth and archetypal, and in the Directors is this tendency most strongly manifested. Some might climb the greased pole to escape the machinations of their underlings, to exercise control over the pitiful world of mortals, or merely to get laid every weekend, but all Directors possess a horrible, blank, all-consuming lust for power that exists outside of any concrete goal or desire. A Director is a scientist-aristocrat, a wealthy master of hypnotism, a would-be ruler of the world, who wouldn't even know what to do if at the end he sat alone and unchallenged on a throne of pure diamond and looked out over his dominion of the Earth.

===Focus:===
The Directors are masters of mad psychology. They specialize in mind control machines, splinter 
personalities, implanted behaviors, and drone servitors that do their bidding. Some are diabolical masterminds, pulling strings from the shadows, while others are out there mixing it up on the lab floor, beacons of Inspiration.

Psychology is an interesting and subtle science with many branches, some barely explored. Some Directors focus on traditional psychology, including hypnosis and psychological manipulation; these may only break out the wonders for real emergencies, instead relying on good Social Skills and an ability to read a situation. Wonders are obvious, but few people distrust a winning smile. Others focus on mind control machines, pheromone manipulation and biological impulses, or the implanting of hidden personalities. Many younger Directors (and not a few older ones, as the Fellowship for Manifest Direction does not reward the crotchety 
and out-of-touch) have begun studying the psychology of the artificial, creating machine intelligences.

Those Overlords who do not study psychology often study related fields, such as economics, sociology, ecology, and even agriculture. But the Directors are ultimately a pragmatic group, and will recruit intelligent, capable people from nearly any field―especially if that field looks like it won't disrupt the existing power structure.

===History:===
The Fellowship for Manifest Direction originated in the industrial age as an answer to Lemuria's superior organizational abilities. The Peerage's response was to appoint a council of "directors" able to mobilize the other foundations. (The Fellowship for Manifest Direction was, in fact, originally just a fellowship, not a foundation. They never bothered to change the name.) This organization quickly manifested some of the worst traits of 19th century Lemuria, becoming exclusionary, racist, intolerant, and paranoid. Reforms shortly before the Great War stripped the fellowship of many of those elements, replacing them, though, with something many in the Peerage considered even worse: a taste for the fruits of industry.

Throughout the 20th century, the Directors represented the excesses and triumphs of industrial civilization. They were ruthless capitalists, gifted entrepreneurs, and super-science economists, shaking the monetary foundations of the world with their transactions. Their ruthlessness was matched only by their usefulness to the Peerage: the Directors provided drive, focus, and political expertise. It was the Overlords' ability to organize the Peerage that led to Lemuria's downfall.

Without an enemy to fight, though, the Directors lost their focus during much of the latter half of the 20th century. They became decadent and sluggish, interested only in maintaining their own power. Old boy's networks and secret economic societies popped up, devoid of accountability or long-range ambition, apparently dedicated only to maintaining the status quo. In recent years this has begun to change, fast: the "smoke-filled room" has given way to loose groups of independent organizers and peripatetic contractors, as the Directors, like everyone in the Peerage, adapts to a smaller, more mobile world. This generation gap has produced tension in the Fellowship for Manifest Direction, as older members fail or refuse to adapt to the new changes in direction and philosophy. New Directors are truly new creatures: fast, mobile, stripped-down, not bound to the ponderous lairs and laboratories that kept their predecessors stationary. Their motto is "A Phone and a Gun," because that's all they need. Their beholden aren't waiting around in the Volcano Fortress; they're an Instant Message away from showing up armed and ready to go. Their destructive wrath isn't measured in mountain-sized ray guns, but instead whatever they can find, transformed with ruthless, elegant efficiency into instruments of death and destruction. This new breed terrifies the old guard, and tensions are growing worse as the years pass and the elders cling to power in a changing world.

===Organization:===
The Directors are more organized than other foundations. Every Director, whether she knows it or not, belongs to a Dominion, a geographic region that contains from ten to 30 million mortals. The United States contains twenty-three Dominions. Each Dominion is run by a Heterogeny, made up of three, five, seven, or eleven influential Directors called Dispensers, one of whom is appointed the Overlord and manages the regional finances. Many lesser ranks exist beneath the Dispensers. This group manages the affairs of the Directors in that area from some central location. Every ten years, the Heterogenies vote on a Clade, which consists of 44 Directors (currently; the population grows with the total number of Directors). The Clade, in turn, sets policy for all the Directors from a central location in one of the world's major skyscrapers. (The exact location varies from year to year.)

Directors technically have a single source for all Director-related scholarship, a monthly magazine called Control. However, that's the old way. The new Directors, the up-and-comers, favor an ever-shifting network of newsgroups and contacts squirting micro-assessments to their phones or laptops in a constant stream of evaluation and analysis.

Most rank-and-file Directors, whatever their style, interact only vaguely with the hierarchy of their Dominion, instead working on small-scale projects within their collaborative. Those that focus inward often serve simply by remaining loyal to those on top and fighting for scraps of power in predictable ways. Others, though, join some of the cultural groups within the Fellowship for Manifest Direction, organizations that exist not for the benefit of their individual members but to protect and enhance the foundation as a whole. The Jaguar People serve as the Directors' elite guards. The Mirror People handle counterintelligence and espionage. The Stochastic People deal with issues of raw material, transport, and extraction. The Sigil People monitor internal affairs and handle audits and personnel. The Tower People (whom everyone calls the People People) deal with the mundane population. These groups were once vitally important to the foundation's well-being and had intricate hierarchies and protocols; now, with the power structures of all the foundations flattened, most of these groups are little more than a news feed with jobs to be done and rewards to be offered.

===Members:===
Inspired who join the Manifest Fellowship are interested in power. Not all are interested in accruing it, however: while there are many sharks and ladder-climbers among the Overlords, others are interested in power as a concept: how it moves, how it flows, how it relates to money, to charisma, to talent. They want to know how power can be organized, and they want to explore the many subtle forms that control can take. Geniuses who join this foundation often hail from wealth and privilege: before their catalysts, they were power-brokers, high-profile lawyers, wealthy entrepreneurs, or political administrators. Others came from fields interested in the study, not the acquisition of power and prestige: sociologists, policy analysts, and stock forecasters. Still other members of the foundation started with nothing, catalyzed, and now see a bright, wealthy future for themselves in this foundation.

Though not all Directors are wealthy, all understand that wealth does not equate directly with authority, and authority is what interests a director. They dress and act to demonstrate their authority in whatever society they find themselves. Some are obsessive about being the center of attention, while others use their talents to blend in and control an organization from within. However they approach issues like power and authority, however, geniuses who become Directors possess an almost intuitive ability to gain and hold power.

Directors can catalyze in almost any way, though few are motivated by sorrow and loss. Those more interested in the process and theory of power are Staunens, while ambitious Hoffnungs, bitter Neids, and even righteous Grimms are common among those Directors who see power in more practical terms.

===Aesthetics:===
Directors are capable of flexibility in their style, changing the superficial appearance of themselves and even their wonders to match the expectations of clients, friends, or enemies. An Overlord in tailored suits and smooth plastic one day may be in tattered street clothes and worn cybernetics the next, if that's what the people around the Director need to see.

Members of the Manifest Fellowship who need to project a clean, professional image often favor smooth and elegant fashions. Others see their persona as "Director" as separate from their behavior as a genius and favor brutally functional styles for the wonders they create. Other Directors build to shock: though they may care nothing about the philosophies and cultures behind a style, they take on horrific or bizarre aesthetics to keep their enemies (and potential enemies) on-edge and uncertain.

===Character Creation:===
The Overlords focus on Social Attributes and Skills as much as Mental ones. They are orators and administrators, and they often view themselves as the "elite" of the Inspired, best able to command the efforts of other geniuses. Composure often trumps Resolve, as looking in control is more important in the Manifest Fellowship than actually having it together. Physical Attributes are sometimes neglected in favor of Intelligence and Presence, especially among Directors who prefer to act through proxies.

Social Skills are also prioritized, though Directors of different styles focus on different approaches: a scheming, manipulative genius may focus on Subterfuge, while an expert at raising money and giving presentations might emphasize Expression and Persuasion. This is not to imply that Directors neglect their scientific training: most are as technically competent as members of the other foundations, though they often seem reticent to emphasize that fact. Academics and Computer, to fit their favored Axioms, are common, though medical Directors, aeronautics Directors, and even occult research Directors all exist.

Many Directors define themselves by their Social Merits: Allies, Contacts, Status, and Resources are all common. Some even stay in the mortal limelight with Fame. Directors enjoy large numbers of beholden, and can always find work for them. They're rarely the Dumpster Diver sort.

===Role:===
Directors, unsurprisingly, serve as the "face" for a collaborative. The Director allows the group to interact with the mortal community without getting committed to a psychiatric institute. She is also first-in when interacting with other collaboratives or unfamiliar social situations. A collaborative's Director may or may not also be their leader. Some Overlords are natural organizers, making plans and finding tasks for everyone nearby (sometimes annoyingly so), while others use their super-secret powers of "making eye contact" and "smiling" only when they're needed to charm other people. Unless they are masters of Automata, Directors prefer to stick closer to the tougher members of the collaborative when things go wrong, and are rarely interested in direct confrontation.

===Axioms: ===
A Director's favored Axioms are Automata or Epikrato. Directors have a gift for control, and they prefer to surround themselves with guards and allies rather than face challenges directly.

Directors in general prefer subtle uses for Axioms: few focus on fields such as Katastrofi or Prostasia, instead devoting their time to the more subtle applications of Exelixi (to enhance mental faculties) and Apokalypsi (to monitor friends and enemies). Directors who study Skafoi use their machines as launching-points for contacting different orders of intelligence, rather than mere ferries to move the collaborative from one locale to the next.

===Grant:===
Directors are more familiar with social mores than other geniuses, and receive the training and support to keep abreast of developments in sane science. They can spend Mania to enhance their Social Attributes (Presence, Manipulation, and Composure). When they do this, they do not suffer penalties for low Obligation, nor do they suffer Jabir penalties.

===Concepts:===
Lab director, wannabe Bond villain, professional debunker, millionaire industrialist, member of the Mad Ethics Board, unconventional psychologist, New Age techno-guru

'''Quote:''' ''"Like even the strongest iron bar, every man has a weak point, and it can be found."''

===Stereotypes:===

Artificers: If only we could convince them to make something useful.

Navigators: Arrogant, insufferable hotshots! I like that. Besides, someone has to break heads when negotiations break down.

Progenitors: Busy swallowing their own tails. At least they won't take too many people with them this time.

Scholastics: Research and development, that's where it starts. It's just not where it ends.

Rogues: Usually poor and looking for work. But I'm glad to work outside the system...when it benefits me.

Lemurians: How sad it is, to watch gifted geniuses worshiping at the altar of their dead ancestors.

The Illuminated: No, I'm not like them. They don't pay their test subjects.

Other Creatures: Generally dangerous, horrible, and uncouth, with a frightening lack of manners.

Mortals: They never listen.