Aegis Institute

Aegis Institute

Predecessor	Nevrin
Formation	28 February 2010 (2010-02-28)
Founder	Josie Galray
Type	Secret organisation
Legal status	Unincorporated
Headquarters	Mansur House, Sunderland, Cumbria, England 54.715713°N 3.259477°W / 54.715713; -3.259477 (Mansur House)
Members	~10,000 (2273)
Official language	English
High Caster	Josie Galray
Main organ	The Roundtable
Affiliations	Council of Exotic Artefact Affairs Department for Exophysics Raven (occasional ally)
Threat level	Substantial

High Caster Ana, an example of an Aegis Institute caster. She is holding two staves.

The Aegis Institute, often known as just "the Institute", is an enigmatic organisation that performs research into substratics and, through substratics, psionics. It is led by High Caster Galray, an ex-Nevrin researcher who discovered and named galraite. The Institute uses the concept of magic as a counterintelligence technique, dressing up its personnel to appear as magi and utilising esoteric terminology for its research. However, the organisation is highly scientific, and has a significantly greater degree of understanding of substratics than any other human organisation, including Raven.

History

Creation

The Aegis Institute was established by a team of ex-Nevrin researchers from the Section Z-8 team led by Dr. Josie Galray - part of an ethicist faction that intended to prevent the misuse of galraite. After Dr. Grey's team made off with half of Nevrin's galraite cache, Galray vowed to protect the rest. After the creation of Küiser, Galray realised Grey's plans to exploit galraite for his own personal gain, and went into hiding after he attempted to have her assassinated. Realising with time he would use the substance to become unstoppable, she and her team had no choice but to begin their own exploits to build a counter to Grey. She secured resources and personnel to continue her mission, and developed the idea of masking her scientific research in "magical" concepts to make it seem opaque even if outsiders found out about it.

Partnership

For a lengthy period after its creation, the Institute lacked personnel and funding, but it could not risk exposing itself by going public because of, among others, the risk that it could be targeted by Dreams Intelligence, the rival organisation led by Dr. Grey. The Institute therefore began searching for a legitimate partner that they could provide with a subset of their technology and in turn receive the necessary resources to continue their mission.

During the First Incursion, Aegis provided substratic technology to Raven in a bid to form such a legitimate partnership. However, Raven quickly began to grow out of control after the signing of the Dimensional Security Accords; High Caster Galray observed it was uncontrollably heading down the path of authoritarianism. Aegis quietly withdrew and cut all contact with the organisation, but this formed a small ideological divide and Grand Weaver Karshen (subsequently Director Shannon Taylor of Black Research) as well as several others defected to Raven.

Aegis subsequently approached the Department for Exophysics, which was also based in London. The organisation had previously refrained from contacting the DfE due to their distrust of anarchist revolutionaries; however, the government had now gained legitimacy and they were able to observe the DfE's genuinely significant process in the cleanup of the Southern Exclusion Zone. This relationship remained far more stable, and they were able to begin educating the DfE on substratics, leading it to attain a similar level of substratic understanding as Raven.

Appearance

The Institute's core goals include both protection and secrecy. It sees itself as a thankless protector of the outside world, doing what organisations like Raven are unable to due to political or regulatory boundaries. It has thwarted hundreds of potentially reality-ending anomalous events, though it prefers to stay tight-lipped about its true accomplishments. Many of its citizens view the world, and especially its scientific organisations, in distaste, as a reckless generator of crises that must constantly be cleaned up.

It could be said that many at the Institute have a superiority complex over the external scientific community, but it's also true that they understand the study of exophysics much more accurately. In particular, they have an extensive understanding of substratics and Precursor technology, which enable their "magic" to function. However, they lack budget, personnel, and space, making them able to perform great feats on a small scale but unable to affect large areas (such as the entirety of Earth) without outside collaboration.