Absit Omen RPG

---

16 June 2018

LONDON - The Department of Magical Law Enforcement says they are doing all they can to investigate the recent series of burglaries of apothecaries in London, Slandermouth, Hogsmeade, and Edinburgh.

"So far there are been seven cases, and they're all being worked with the greatest scrutiny," said Chief of the Auror Corps Zora Roh.

The first to report a theft was Hogsmeade's Dogweed & Deathcap owner Rich Brownbank. Brownbank reported no sign of forced entry and told the Daily Prophet that everything stolen was from their restricted stores.

"It's all for sale, we just keep it locked up because it's regulated stuff. There are laws about quantities and storage because things like that can be used for dangerous purposes," said Brownbank.

Roh explained, "there is a clear pattern. What we saw at [Dogweed & Deathcap] has repeated in each of the seven cases we're investigating. The same undetermined mode of entrance, the same inventory taken. It's likely the same perpetrator is responsible for all of these."

The MLE is not releasing specifics of what has been stolen, claiming that to do so could impede the investigation. Owners of here-to-yet unburgled apothecaries are protesting this saying if they knew what was being taken, they could take measures to protect themselves. Instead the MLE is suggesting everyone increase security measures.

Zelda Sellaphix, co-owner of the recently robbed Sellaphix Apothecary[1] had this to say: "If you're not going to buy anything, please leave."

1.	7 Jun 2018 - Went up the water spout

---

Thursday nights at 7pm is the broadcast hour of The Omen, the WWN’s politics and issues programmes hosted by Tanis Quickwood.

TQ: Welcome to The Omen. I’m Tanis Quickwood. Today the topic is Futurism. Last week's demonstrative breach of the Statute of Secrecy in Paris was the first many had heard of Futurism, which may have well been the point.

My guest tonight is Atlantia Caulders, former U.S. delegate to the International Confederation of Wizards, and current sorceror at Knareswick Phrontistery teaching on Muggle Studies. I will ask her about what Futurism is, where it came from, and why we should care.

Madam Caulders, welcome to the program.

AC: Thank you, I'm pleased to be here.

TQ: Let's begin at the beginning. Can you define Futurism for us?

AC: Quite simply, Futurism is the belief that the 'future', the survival, of magical civilization depends on integration with muggle society. This is a political and social philosophy, this is a proposal for change in our societal structure. The movement is primarily, uh, of the global West - Europe, the United States, Canada - where division between the magical and muggle worlds are the most strict.

These ideas are not new, of course. There has always been opposition to Statute even before there was a Statute. We have never all ever agreed on where the line should be drawn between our worlds.

TQ: The Statute of Secrecy. The international laws that hide the magical world from muggles.

AC: Yes. But the term 'Futurism' didn't arise until the 1970s in California when a group of seventeen witches and wizards published a book of that name. It was little more than a booklet, really. More of a manifesto. It was entirely focused on the political, and was a response to the American magical government's policies on magical people, American citizen, being drafted into the Vietnam War.

TQ: What were the original Futurists advocating?

AC: There is healthy criticism of that original manifesto and its feasibility. It was far from perfect, but it was arguably visionary. What they were suggesting were CAWW policy changes that would allow more freedom of movement and political expression by magical people in the muggle sphere, that would allow magical people more of an influence in the larger world. They opposed the war, they opposed the draft, and they felt that the Statute of Secrecy tied their hands in a way that was detrimental to their survival.

TQ: How was that recieved?

AC: Oh, not well. It was mostly ignored at that time. Three of the authors were dismissed from their positions in CAWW, one were force to resign from teaching positions at college. This hadn't really been done before. It was too radical for most to accept. The conventional wisdom in North America and in Europe was that the Statue of Secrecy was the cornerstone of protection and maintaining magical culture. There was no questioning it.

TQ: That's always what we hear now, whenever there's any kind of breach.

AC: No, exactly. There is little else our governments and mainstream thinking are more in lockstep about than the veneration of the Statute.

TQ: You seem skeptical.

AC: I certainly am. We have to be able to honestly examine our institutions and laws if they are to remain relevant and effective. We have never seriously tested this tenet.

TQ: Would you consider yourself a Futurist?

AC: Let me put it this way: everyone you know has a muggle family member somewhere. Everyone you know interacts with the muggle world every day. We read muggle books, we benefit from muggle technology, we are beholden to muggle law, we live in a world made by muggles. Our communities are only as safe as in the muggle cities and town in which we are embedded.

TQ: You're saying everyone is a Futurist? Or ought to be a Futurist?

AC: Well, yes, most, for the sake of argument. And that's only controversial if we grant credence to the extremist side of the ideology.

Sometime in the last ten years, Futurism went from being largely an academic or political exercise - very small, very niche - to a term co-opted by Statute abolishonists. As time goes on we've started to see more open criticism of the Statute, with more serious attempts to weaken it or remove it all together.

And on the most extreme end, you see a rise in deliberate breaches.

TQ: Public exposure of muggles to magic.

AC: Exactly. Their aim is to immediately dismantle the Statue and are seeking to do this by force. Once the muggles know of our world, the Statute becomes moot.

TQ: The cat will be out of the bag.

AC: As if to say, yes.

TQ: I think there's a problem with that logic, though. Help me understand. These Futurist breaches are violent. People have been hurt or killed, both muggle and magic.. How does that track with the goal of integration? Surely, this would only turn muggles against magical people, putting us in a worse situation than before.

AC: I hardly want to be put in a position to legitimize the extremist view, I –

TQ: No, I understand, but –

AC: – All violent extremism is inherently illogical.

TQ: For the purpose of education.

AC: But for purposes of information, to draw a clear line, yes -  Here it is: mainstream Futurism seeks a more modern application of the Statute, that embraces the reality that there really are no more Hogsmeades in the world, that we cannot realisticly close ourselves off from reality.

Extremist Futurism, on the other hand, seeks an overnight and complete tearing down of the wall. The design is chaos. Sudden exposure will require the rapid establishment of a new equilibrium. They will tell you any more gradual a transition would give magical governments more opportunity to pick and choose the new structures and doing this without muggle interests at heart. We'd end up where we started, separate.

TQ: That still seems terribly reckless. You can't predict the outcome, it'd be chaos.

AC: It is! Yes! It's preposterous. Extremist Futurism is a violent fantasy, chaos is the point no matter what they may say. The breach in Paris will serve very little purpose other than, I believe, to cause fearful politicians to close ranks even further. It will have the opposite effect of their apparent goal. And who does that help?

TQ: And that is the question. I want to thank Madam Caulders for coming. I hope we've been able to begin to cover this complicated issue.

AC: As much as that's possible. Thank you.

TQ: Coming up in part two of our program after the break, an interview with Daily Prophet reporter Icarus Trembley on what really happened with the ghoul at St. Mungo's earlier this year.