Genesis Season Lore: The MetaMasons Backstory — Power of Secrecy
THE METAMASONS are the original protectors of the Dark Shards, the first to discover and harness their nearly limitless power. Lurking in the shadows for millennia, they’ve been known by many names: Freemasons, Illuminati, Knights Templar… but these titles have been nothing more than words applied by a desperate public, struggling to name the void.
The reality is that their great strength, carved into weaponry, has allowed them to control all human societies… until now.
Backstory — Power of Secrecy
The first and oldest of the factions, the wellspring from which all knowledge of the Dark Shards flows, the MetaMasons began shrouded in the darkness of history.
Those original few alchemists who dabbled with the dark power realized instantly that humanity had stumbled on an energy source capable of obliterating itself millions of times over. They knew that access to such endless strength must be guarded closely, lest it fall into the wrong hands.
Layers of ritual, privacy, and myth grew from the seeds of those first dark scientists, a society built secret by secret to protect humanity from itself. Equal parts religion and vocation, the MetaMasons took their responsibilities seriously, and were only fully indoctrinated into the Darkness after decades of apprenticeships and rigorous testing.
The most elite in every generation were privately recruited, their bodies and minds purified, forged by time and austerity to ensure that they would not be tempted by the destructive potential ahead of them.
And for millennia, this process worked. Yes, there were schisms, heretics who learned the secrets of the Shards and abandoned the MetaMasons to promote their own selfish goals, power-hungry elders who hoped to possess the entirety of the dark power for themselves… but through it all, the MetaMasons persisted. They knew their calling was too important, that the inherent selfishness of Man could never withstand the call of the Shards without proper training.
And so, over the centuries, they used their access to accumulate influence and power Power used to protect the secrets they were responsible for.
They created weapons and instruments of espionage from shavings of the Dark Shards, technology the likes of which the world had never seen. They sold this technology to those who would do their bidding, all in service of further insulating themselves and removing their minds from the standard temptations of the world.
When the meteor struck, and chaos was unleashed, the MetaMasons were prepared. Constant interaction with the Dark Shards had given them a preternatural sense of the universe, and preparations had been made for such eventualities.
But what they were not prepared for was the onslaught of human bodies in close proximity to the power of the Shards. As the research station left orbit, they could feel the pulsing waves of energy flow through the ship, could see the power-hungry gazes of Chaos and Order, and could sense the endless desire of the Unspoken.
They knew that their sacred vows would be tested on this journey like no generation before them, and vowed not to fail their mentors… or the Shards themselves.
The Dark Shards needed a keeper — that much was abundantly clear. Without the MetaMasons providing balance, chaos would truly destroy what was left of humanity. And so, leveraging the deal-making acumen of the Yami Gang (who they had personally ensured passage for), the MetaMasons set out to refine new methods of control from the remaining Shards, developing a power designed purely for the confines of the research station.
The fate of the human race lay with them, and they would rise to the challenge.
