The Faculty

Faced with this new cosmic infinity of undiscovered challenges and questions, wise explorers and bold enquirers banded together into an interstellar organisation that would become the furthest stretching collective of humanity in the species’ turbulent recent history. United in the pursuit of greater understanding and further frontiers, and the shared responsibility to pass this passion on to future generations, Faculty members move and are treated with great respect, and much of what is known about the possibilities and realities of the distant stars and the magic within us is owed to these teachers.

Inception
In the first years of the Portal Morning, when folk crossed the gaps between worlds for the first time in millennia and reconnected with their arcane potential for the first time in just as long, Sectors Solar and Sentinel were engulfed in chaos. Earth was rapidly becoming inhospitable to all but those who could live aligned with the rhythm of the planet, and the newly rediscovered Gardener Cities on Ganymede, Io, and Mars each had powerful personalities vying for dominion of the treasures and knowledge within. Sector Sentinel promised a sprawling wilderness of unmet ecosystems and forgotten arcologies which remains not fully mapped to this day; in the early years of the Portal Morning the major gateways of Sector Sentinel were abuzz with adventurers, researchers, hunters, and pirates looking to stake claims on these fresh worlds. As it fell out upon these years, the Gardener library on Oparyllian was discovered by Angharad Wisehammer, a natural philosopher seeking a structure complete and secluded enough to settle in and answers to the origins of these abandoned, but doubtless human, architectures on worlds beyond our own. In Oparyllian’s library she found both, and with the lost knowledge she uncovered there the Portal Network connecting Sectors Solar and Sentinel was stabilized, and new routes identified to what would become known as Sector Serpent and Sector Garden. The legend of the library spread under the name of Sailor’s Vision, and the hungry for understanding would flock to these halls to compare their studies and examine the archives for themselves. Anything from humanity’s history that might have helped unravel the mysteries of the universe was either lost on Earth, hoarded on Mars, or scattered about the planets in the hands of knowing or unknowing private actors, but the secrets and certainty of Sailor’s Vision quickly outpaced the ill-gotten head start of the Martian Aristocracy – and the people of Sailor’s Vision were far more given to sharing their findings with the brewing interplanetary family, and far less disposed to tearing apart their fragile societies through reckless experimentation with the wild realms of spirits and demons.

Twenty seven years into the Portal Morning, as clear settlements of modern witches had taken root on worlds thousands of light years distant, at Sailor’s Vision Angharad Wisehammer and a cabal of other academic explorer mages founded the Faculty, with founding branches on Ganymede, Io, Angel Basin and Sailor’s Vision.

Purpose
Near limitless potential can be found in anyone, so long as they know the paths they must travel to find it. The Faculty formalizes education in the arcane arts and the mysteries of space, providing tuition and guidance for achieving magical finesse and understanding reality, and leading to the questions to which there are not yet answers. To this end, in addition to teaching and nurturing new generations of mages, the Faculty pushes the boundaries of what is known and what is possible.

The Faculty does not stop learning. Even, especially, the most extremely qualified will still be seeking new worlds and new mysteries, documenting forgotten species, stretching the capabilities of what can be done with something like Grand Construction. Even the biggest existential questions surrounding the very creators of many of the cities we now call home remain unanswered, and everyone knows it. To become a Faculty member is a lifelong dedication to seeking and sharing knowledge, as well as a badge of excellence in the field.

Not all schools are managed directly by the Faculty, and not all explorers in space and etherean are anything close to members of the Faculty, but their methods have set a standard and a success rate that anyone could be proud to aspire to.

Organisation
From four initial branches, over one hundred and sixty years the Faculty has grown to comprise dozens of individual institutions. Some are found on planets in cities or in remote locations, others move independently on ships or operate from artificial structures floating in nebulae.

Each branch is considered to be autonomous, and sets its own course on the voyage for new questions and answers to them. The Faculty is built on collectivist ideals, so while certain titles exist which confer certain responsibilities, Faculty members value one another’s counsel and it is rare that concepts like “chain of command” are used. Headteachers exist to coordinate schools as a whole, not to bark orders, and the foundation of the organisation rests on this kind of ethos, even in times of crisis. Perhaps it is no small wonder that the Faculty has survived so long valuing expertise, and not corruption. Even within individual branches, Faculty members are considered to be responsible for only themselves, and have full authority to make decisions in the Faculty’s name on their own research.

Despite these far-reaching concepts of autonomy, there are inescapably seats of power within the organisation. Sailor’s Vision, the obvious home of the Faculty, is responsible for the core curriculum, even if modification by individual teachers is encouraged, they eagerly consume the research of all the other Faculties, and their approval cannot be understated. Saturn Station was the pioneering ground for starship construction, and continues to lead the way with application of this particular magaitechnology, with plenty of influence and resources as a result. And in Sector Garden, far from the Faculty’s birthplace, Scorpion has hosted the entrance exam for over a century and their staff has set it for most of that time.

Licenses
Other than education and exploration, the Faculty plays a small but powerful part in the regulation of dangerously phenomenal magical techniques. In the beginning, the only limits to the knowledge that could be shared or sought lay in the philosophies of the teacher and the student. Metaphysically disturbing arts were discussed and passed on at the discretion of the individual, and the Faculty’s opening thesis was that, with a sense of poise and rationality, this should be enough. The Faculty, though, are not responsible for keeping the peace in the cities and on the fringes. After outbreaks of unsettling events throughout settled space that stretched the sanity of all involved, Ganymede Alchemists’ Guild petitioned the Faculty on behalf of the people to more heavily restrict and monitor certain kinds of magic.

Ganymede suggested a license be required to study and practice arcana pertaining to death, the wild dimensions, and the invasion of the human mind. After reviewing the evidence, Sailor’s Vision agreed to license these magicks only to those who demonstrate the capacity to use them responsibly, and in so doing empowered lawkeepers to act with due precedent against the unlicensed as well as monitoring the spread of such knowledge through teachers and tomes. Understanding some things far better than Ganymede, Sailor’s Vision also responded with clear conclusions that prophecy should be licensed too, but after many years of disapproval and refusal to seek license from the Cassiopeian Oracles attempts to license prophecy have since been abandoned.

Every Faculty branch is authorized to issue licenses, and each Faculty branch is free to set their own terms for the licensing exam, with some consensus from their sister faculties. Some are harsher than others, but overall the system has smoothed the course of justice, safety, and discovery for humans in the Portal Morning.

Faculty members are all considered to hold all three licenses, regardless of if they have passed a formal application for one – the test to enter the Faculty is far more rigorous.

Recruitment
Branches of the Faculty range in size from a couple dozen people up to several hundred, and the organisation eagerly receives all applications for entry – it is delighted by opportunities to increase the size and scope of its mission. The delightedly received application, however, is only the start of the admissions process to becoming a member of the Faculty, and is doubtless the easiest part.

To even submit the application, those who aspire to be a Faculty member must have passed their Grade 9 with Distinction in Astronavigation, Spatial Distortion, and at least two other disciplines. Those who have achieved higher than Grade 9 may have some of the Distinction requirements relaxed, as a result of their further and more specific studies. The applicant should send a letter detailing their intent to their desired Faculty Branch, or to Sailor’s Vision, who can assign them to a Branch upon their success.

If the Branch’s admission staff considers an applicant suitable, they will be invited to interview. Interviews typically take place on-site, sometimes they are a one-on-one half-hour chat with a single Professor, sometimes they take place over multiple days, involving practical elements and panels of Doctors, Sensei, and Masters. Many Faculty members report that their interview experience was worse than their Eclipse – the final exam for those who pass the interview process.

Applicants who reach this stage must make their way to Scorpion in Sector Garden for the Eclipse, and they are forbidden from using the public portalways to get there. On arrival, they are grouped with eight other candidates and thrust as a team into a thriving arcane jungle, riddled with puzzles, barriers, portals, hazards, exomorphs, (including xenodragons), and atmospheric phenomena. The exact conditions required to end the exam vary from Eclipse to Eclipse, but once the test is over all applicants are judged on Understanding, Curiosity, Creativity, and Survival. Their results are then submitted to their chosen Faculty, who make the decision on whether to recruit the candidate or not.

Anyone who seeks to pass on their knowledge could choose to be a teacher. But the Faculty stands against, and steps into, the unknown and into the ethereal risks of the cosmos, and this is why their entrance requirements are so punishing. They need to know how their new members will handle under unpredictable pressures.

Titles
Some Faculty members prefer to be addressed by their class of magical expertise, Mystic, Master, or Sorcerer, but most choose (or are given) a particular honorific derived from a lovingly remembered culture from Old Earth tied with knowledge or teaching. Terms like Miss, Sir, Doctor, Maestro or Sensei are all common, other terms such as Chief or Conductor are used more rarely. Specific titles pertaining to Faculty duties or studies are also used, such as Chancellor, Dean, or Keeper of the Void. Not all humans could be said to set the same stock in titles.