The Sight Imperium: Government by Foresight
Divination Surveillance, Pre-Crime, and the War on Uncertainty
The Sight Imperium has not had an unplanned crime, accident, or political upset in 40 years - because the Seer Corps predicts them before they happen and intervenes. Every citizen wears a Fate Band, a device that reads the low-level divinatory signature everyone emits and flags probability spikes to the nearest Seer station. If your future-probability score for criminal activity crosses a threshold, you are brought in for counseling before you act. The system has a 97% accuracy rate. The other 3% are in detention. There is no appeals process for probability scores, because probability is not intent - the Imperium argues you have not been convicted of anything. You are being protected from yourself. A rebel statistician has discovered that the Fate Band algorithm drifts: it has been quietly reassigning low scores to political opposition members for six years.
“The Imperium does not punish you for what you did. It helps you before you do it. The distinction matters. We are very clear that it matters.”
- Director of the Seer Corps, annual public address, Year 40
1. Setting Overview
The Sight Imperium is what happens when a government gets very good at predicting bad outcomes and defines its mission as eliminating them. The logic was sound, initially: if seers can predict accidents, prevent them. If they can predict crimes, counsel the would-be criminal before harm is done. Two generations later, the definition of a bad outcome has expanded considerably.
The city is genuinely safer than it has ever been by conventional metrics. It is also a place where reading a banned book raises your Fate Band score, where associating with flagged individuals transfers score points to you, and where the algorithm’s definition of “political risk” has quietly merged with “electoral opposition.”
Tone: The horror is administrative. No one is cackling over a control panel. Everyone in the system believes they are helping.
2. The Seer Corps
Seers are recruited young, trained extensively, and burned out by 35 from sustained Reading. They are respected, paid well, and given excellent retirement packages. They are also told not to Read their own futures, because Seers who see their own endpoints become unreliable.
The Seer Corps has noticed the algorithm drift in the Fate Bands. The senior Seers who noticed it were reassigned. The junior Seers who noticed it were told it was a known calibration issue being addressed. It has been being addressed for six years.
3. Factions
The Seer Corps - 80% true believers. 15% uncomfortable but employed. 5% actively looking for a way out.
The Probability Resistance - Citizens whose scores have been flagged incorrectly and who have built a network of Score-Clean locations (spaces shielded from Fate Band reads). They are not violent. They are technically illegal by probability score alone.
The Statistician - A single person with documentation of the algorithm drift. Currently sitting on it because the moment she releases it, her score will spike.
4. Unique Mechanic
Probability Reads: 1 Mind action to glimpse most likely near-future outcome. Causality Break: Acting contrary to a Read gives +2d6 to the breaking action; costs the Seer 1 Clarity. Clarity Track (Seers, 1-6): Depletes with Causality Breaks. At 1, Reads become unreliable (Storyteller may give false information). Restores 1 per full session rest.
5. Character Archetypes
The Burned Seer
Semi-retired from active Reading at 34. Takes occasional consulting work. Has been avoiding Reading anything near the city center for two months because the probability landscape there is wrong in a specific way she does not want to document.
- Drive: “Understand what is causing the anomaly before someone else acts on it first.”
- Approach Distribution: Force 1 | Finesse 2 | Mind 4 | Presence 1
The Score-Clean Operator
Runs a shielded space where people with flagged scores can exist without surveillance. Refuses to call it a resistance. It is, at its core, a tea shop that does not report to anyone.
- Drive: “Keep the shop open long enough that someone with the algorithm documentation finds us.”
- Approach Distribution: Force 1 | Finesse 3 | Mind 2 | Presence 2
The Internal Affairs Officer
Investigates misconduct within the Seer Corps. Has been handed a case that keeps leading back to the algorithm team. Has not filed the report yet.
- Drive: “Figure out whether filing this report is the right thing to do and who gets hurt either way.”
- Approach Distribution: Force 2 | Finesse 2 | Mind 2 | Presence 2
6. Starter Scenario
Score Spike: A character’s Fate Band score jumps 40 points overnight with no explanation. The counseling appointment is in 12 hours. If they miss it, a Seer officer will come to them. If they attend, the counselor will ask about their recent associations - which will expose the Score-Clean network. The statistician has just sent them the algorithm documentation with a note: “They know I have this. I need somewhere to be that is not on the grid.”