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[Mosestrotsky]

[SPEC] The Secret Society

[SteveC]

Re: [Spec] The Secret Society

[Mosestrotsky]

I think your giving me too much credit in the intelligence front.

All I thought of was 3 - one 3 and an inverted 3 is like an 8. What is vaguley similar to an 8 - I know a Mobius Strip. That is my small logic and not based in any actually or 3d design mapping abilities. Yes its lazy.

Main reason why I think this is 3 - ooooh scary symbol. Now I know we are talking about the Perplexians here but somehow I think there must be more to it than that.

[sledgecallier]

Just airing a theory, but do we read it that the Recons are not directly involved with this secret society or the theft of the cube, but there may be members of the society (Including the mysterious V) within the Recon camp? (although from the Salk e-mail logs it looks like there may be members all through Perplexian society?

Equally, we should be able to disregard theories that the society 'died out' years ago. By default, if you want to become a secret society you don't generally advertise your existence?

[am520dj]

when i was reading about this society (did they have a name? cubeheads?), it just reminded me of angels and demons and the illuminati. Secret society thought to be dead...


p.s. if you havent read angels and demons yet, you should

[sledgecallier]

I think 'Cubeheads' is just a derogatory term for the Recons.

[Leeravitz]

Yes, naturally, the Illuminati - we've had a couple of (possibly) Dan Brown inspired references elsewhere already. Of course, the real granddaddy(s) of all Illuminati references in fiction were Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea with their fabled counter - cultural bible, The Illuminatus Trilogy, of the early 1970's (it's a personal favourite of mine, and it's a mind - blower...if a little bit dated these days). The Illuminati, of course, were a real organisation before they were ever fictionalised, but probably didn't have the capacities attributed to them by later writers. If you want to get me started on secret societies, then I'll have to write something more detailed at a later date as this is one area of my own particular expertise.

To clear up (I hope) a couple of minor details:

1. 'Cubeheads' may be derogatory for Reconstructionists, although I think we've heard it used more generally, as a secular lambasting of those who religiously venerate the Cube. They seem to be 'Cubeheads' a bit like we have 'Potheads' or 'Smackheads'...anyway...

2. Whether or not the Recons have links to the conspiracy is an open question. Salk appears to have hypothesised that they might have, but, if you look at the dates and the context, it would seem that he was musing on this about the time we were starting to stir things up for the Recons. and Aiko was getting into trouble. Thus, he may have been simply been led down a false trail assuming the Recons. to be more significantly involved than they actually were (as we also hypothesised at the time). The Advisor seems to have indicated that the Recons were a red herring.

However, it's not impossible that there is some cross - over somewhere: at least, if the Conspiracy are analagous to the Illuminati, and the Recons to the Masons. Historically, the Illuminati infiltrated into the Masons ranks in order to pursue their own agenda. I can talk about this at more length when I'm not in such a hurry. I'll get back to the thread later.

[Axys Denyed]

Personally, I think he was trying to get into the Recon camp to talk to Holyoke's wife. He wanted to see if she had any information to corroborate the story he was receiving from TA. That's my $0.02

[tanner]

i said from the very first picture of sente that HE was a cubehead --- hmmmmm

and that was way before we knew about the recons etc -- haha

i never did trust that guy

[Leeravitz]

I agree with Axys - I didn't make this very clear last time as I was in a rush: Pietro's fascination with the Recon compound seems to have been related to his need to track down Jessica Holyoke. He couldn't get in (unlike Violet and Kurt), but eventually met Jessica anyway, and was disappointed by what she knew. TA then redirected his attention elsewhere, telling him that pursuing Jessica (and, by implication, the Recons) was a distraction from the matter at hand. That seems fairly clear, I think, although whether we trust TA's claims absolutely is another question.

The Illuminati/Mason hypothesis that I didn't get time to explicate earlier relates to the following: as we understand it historically, in the late 18th century, a defrocked Jesuit named Adam Weishaupt, developed a secret society in Bavaria which was devoted to the cause of...well, actually accounts differ strongly as to what they were devoted to the cause of. Lots and lots of speculation (argh! - dread word) has been applied to what the 'Illuminated Ones' (i.e. Illuminati) were up to, and it ranges from the historically plausible to the outrageous. Speaking as a historian, the logic behind the association may have had something to do with a variant Masonic mysticism, a proto - Romantic drive towards Germanic nationalism, or an atheistic minded pursuit of the secular principles of the Enlightenment over and against the rule of Church and (religiously oriented) state. But you will find all sorts of wilder theories suggesting that the Illuminati are/were really part of a thousand - year capitalist or Communist conspiracy, evil magicians, alien colonists, satanists and so on, if you look for it.

The reason that the Illuminati - Masonic connection is interesting is because the Illuminati infilitrated the Masonic establishment in the German States during the early 1780's. They had supporters within the Masonic Lodges who ultimately allowed control to be handed over to the Illuminati. It's obscure as to what was happening exactly - but if we read between the lines it seems to have been the case that the aims of the two associations were somewhat different. The Masons have become a modern day byword for secrecy and occult practice, but Masonic belief was actually quite highly thought of in the 18th century, with many prominent men and aristocrats being Masons (they didn't allow women in, shunting them off into their own Lodges).

As far as we can tell, 18th century Masonry was partly a secular 'religion' taking a cue from Deism (the popular 18th century European idea that God should be thought of as a 'great watchmaker'; a masterful engineer of the universe who, nonetheless, remained distinterested in human affairs, and had left human beings to get on with their lives within society as best they could) and partly a philanthropic venture (providing money to charitable organisations and so on). It was also a social club. But none of this was considered to be unacceptable, or especially suspicious. The Church (naturally) hated Masonic secularism, and because the rituals surounding initiation into these elitist clubs were deliberately designed to seem magical, Masonry gained a later reputation for being the root of all evils.

However, the Illuminati represented something different, and much more sinister - sinister enough for the Bavarian goverment to root out the organisation's existence in 1785, and force it to either dissolve (if you believe the historians) or go underground (if you take the word of the conspiracy theorists). It's hard to know what exactly was so fearsome about the Illuminati. The most logical explanation is that they were actually devoted to violent, political revolution in concert with their aims (sort of pre - French revolutionary Jacobins/anarchists), and that this contrasted greatly with the usually quietist aims of the Masons. But we know less than we'd like.

Where there is an interesting parallel is in the sense that Reconstructionism is rather more openly accepted than we'd been assuming - Salk mentions that the Sentinel has attacked Aiko on the basis of being a member of a perfectly legal religious organisation, and there is a market where Recon produce is allowed to be sold. Although this is stretching a point, it might be fair to see the involvement of 'famous names' with Reconstructionism as not unakin to the giving of honourary status within Masonic lodges to 'celebrities' in the 18th century. And Salk's hypothesis might not be totally wrong: the malevolent conspiracy could have footholds within the Reconstructionist movement, individuals who secretly promote the conspiracy's line/interests without others acknowledging such. We've heard that the conspiracy operates 'everywhere' - it could as easily have operatives working within the Perplex City Bank or on the Council or police payroll as within Reconstructionism, and they could all be co - ordinating efforts whilst seeming to attack one another...

The only other thing I'd mention is that the Illuminati parallel may not be so far fetched. OOG, it's likely that anyone who knows cryptography well knows of the Zwack cipher, which was the specific transposition code utilised by the Illuminati to veil their documentation. It's quite possible that MC are well aware of the historical precedent.

[Mosestrotsky]

The focus really if the group is of course the Cube or probably more specifically what they know/believe it to do. Obviously the symbol is three - either some reference to Cubed or something unknown. In a moment of madness and with the talking about The Illuminati I have been thing about pyramids.