No one knows they exist and that is how they like to keep it.
They are a secret society of time travellers dedicated to the preservation of the Continuum – a timeline that leads to the best future for humanity. The Order of Oblivion were created to stop the end of the world, or at least steer the human race as far away from it as possible.
Theirs is a difficult task – trying to predict the future requires millions of simultaneous equations that factor every possible variable, feeding them into the Infinity Engine – the four-dimensional model of the last 12,000 years. They are constantly making minor course corrections throughout history.
Time is a tricky vocation, especially if you are limited to working in the past – the future is a frontier they cannot cross, an unwritten page. Nor can they venture much beyond the end of the last ice age, relics of human civilisations are rare when you go back more than 12,000 years, beyond that the Quartarian glaciation lasted more than 2.5 million years. Electricity also seems to disturb their abilities, and many of the order find the modern age too noisy and chaotic preferring the relative calm of pre-industrial 16th century.
The paths back into the past are impossible to navigate without a map, and the most reliable of those are found amongst the everyday artefacts. Man-made items that have travelled down through the ages, one day at a time, whose timelines are stable enough to allow the traveller to interweave –unlocking the timeline and using it to navigate into the past; an ability that sets them apart from normal mortals, or Lineals as the Order call them.
Going back into the past comes with some drawbacks, the fundamental laws of the universe prevent materials from existing beyond their time of invention. Plastic, nylon and certain metal alloys simply disappear in the transition, only simple materials and metals made from the period or further back into the distant past can travel.
Structure
The oblivion order is made up of a number of different guilds which are overseen by a high council:
- Antiquarians
Who are basically the curators, warehousemen and quartermasters of the order. - Scriptorians
The librarians of the order, they curate the knowledge and documents of the past. - Draconians
The explorers who investigate the forgotten and abandoned places in time. - Copernicans
Statisticians and Actuaries that calculate the probabilities of future outcomes. - Watchmen
Those who actually go back in time and make the changes determined by the Copernicans - Seers
Ones who can see the timelines of humans - Protectorate
An internal police force.
The founder of the order is Lord John Dee who established the order at the court of Elizabeth I and acts as her court astrologer and adviser. He, in turn, is advised by the Grand Seer – Edward Kelly.
Factions
There are two main factions within the order :
- Determinist
Those who believe that the order should take a more active role in manipulating the Continuum - Chaotician
Those we believe that there should still be an element of randomness to the future
There is a constant battle between the two factions for control of the order.