WHAT IS THE DEMI-MONDE? PART 3

IDIOSYNCRACIES

There are a number of idiosyncracies about the Demi-Monde of which the most important are the blood-dependency of the Dupes and the Lo-Set Infrastructural/Technological Modality prevailing in the Demi-Monde.

Blood-Dependency: all Dupes in the Demi-Monde need to have a minimum weekly dietary intake of 10 ml blood to survive. However their craving means that they perceive this very much as a subsistence level. The Demi-Mondians’ thirst for blood is virtually unquenchable: the more blood they consume the better they feel. They get the blood from Blood Banks situated in each District of each Sector which provides 20ml of blood to each Demi-Mondian each week.

Lo-Set Infrastructural/Technological Modality: As most AWE environments have, at best, a Level 3, lo-set, infra-structural/technological modality - a modality additionally impaired and compromised by AWE events - it was agreed that the Demi-Monde should have no electrical power and that weaponry available to Dupes be maintained at a realtively primative level. To achieve this, the decision was made to time-freeze Demi-Mondian technology at a competence level equivalent to that achieved by the year 1870.

SINGULARITIES

In order to provide the appropriately ferocious leadership found in AWEs four PreLived Singularities were seeded into each of the Demi-Monde's five Sectors.

An α-Class Singularity (aka Dark Charismatic, Hi-Level Psychotic) is defined as an individual demonstrating such distorted and aberrational force of personality and singularity of purpose that they have the capacity and the ability to wrest power from existing governments, to overturn the politico-social status-quo and to irreparably damage and change existing cultural, moral, religious and political mores. α-Class Singularities are noted for their vaulting ambition, their great cruelty, their lack of empathy and of remorse and their indifference to the suffering of others. However this discordant personality is effectively masked by a profound charisma, a compelling personal magnetism and an ability to lie and dissemble with aplomb. From the ranks of α-Class Singularities have risen the tyrants and despots who have shaped the Real World, who have built empires and whose malignant personalities have created the hurt and anguish that has besmirched history. The PreLived α-Class Singularities seeded into the Demi-Monde are:

Sector 1. Henry Tudor
Sector 2. Maximilien Robespierre
Sector 3. Shaka Zulu
Sector 4. Ivan the Terrible
Sector 5. Empress Wu

β-Class (aka Mid-Level Psychotics) are those flawed and demented individuals who, although possessed of great charisma and ambitions, never, through want of intelligence or because of flaws of character, achieve the same leadership levels as those achieved by α-Class Singularities. However because of their often immense organisational skills and tireless energy they do much to realise the destructive potential of ά-Class Singularities. Although immensely effective and murderous β-Class Singularities often demonstrate a limited ability with regard to original, abstract thought, being more comfortable when subordinate to a ‘higher power’ (generally an α-Class Singularity). They are the ‘Administrators’ of History rather than the ‘Shapers’ of history, but are no less dangerous or pernicious because of their preference to operate in the shadows, shunning the limelight and caring little for titles or honours. Like Cerebus at the gates of Hades it is the β-Class Singularities who ensure that Hell is run efficiently. They sit at the right hand of Satan. The PreLived β-Class Singularities seeded into the Demi-Monde are:

Sector 1. Reinhard Heydrich
Sector 2. Godfrey de Boullion
Sector 3. Selim the Grim
Sector 4. Lavrentii Beria
Sector 5. Lucrezia Borgia

Of all the classes of Singularity it is perhaps the γ-Class Singularity (aka Lo-Level Psychotic) which is the most viscerally evil. γ-Class Singularities are those who revel in close-up violence and torture, the ones who delight in getting their hands bloodied and in hearing the screams of their victims as they torment them. The Inquisition was staffed almost entirely by γ-Class Singularities. In the hierarchy of Singularities it is the γ-Class Singularity who executes the orders of higher ranked Singularities and who turns madness into reality. The PreLived γ-Class Singularities seeded into the Demi-Monde are:

Sector 1. Archie Clement
Sector 2. The Marquis de Sade
Sector 3. Joaquin Murieta
Sector 4. General Mikhail Dmitrievitch Skobelev
Sector 5. Countess Elizabeth Bathory

In order to ensure that there is the required level of religious tension prevalent in the Demi-Monde, PreLived Singularities of the α-RF Class have been seeded into each Sector. Individuals who make up this class of RF’s are characterised by a fanatical and unreasonable belief that they are ‘special’, that they have been selected or ‘chosen’ by God (or other deity) to lead the peoples of the world to salvation. The PreLived α-RFs selected for insertion into each Sector are:

Sector 1. Aleister Crowley
Sector 2. Tomas de Torquemada
Sector 3. Mohammed Ahmed
Sector 4. Karl Marx
Sector 5. Jeanne d’Arc