I have a theory, and I’m not sure if this was @moochava’s intention, but I believe Dr. Sabbatine is a Genius, specifically a Staunen. Staunen, the Catalyst of Curiosity, are defined by curiosity and wonder and have a constant need to gather and learn information. They are eager to learn more of the world around them and beyond, often using more than dubious methods to attain them or to rip away the falsehoods that hide the horde of truths hidden away. They’re often more subtle people like librarians, computer analysts, explorers or even mere hobbyists.
“The Specular was not my first attempt to witness the Icons, before that, years ago, I created a kind of viewing portal… But even then, I saw things that I did not think were possible. The Icons’ early experiments. Eusocial humanoids, different from us but still recognizably people… I had seen things, and I wanted to know if they were real. I wanted to know if the strange modes of life and intelligence that I had seen could be brought into my world, or if they were just illusions, or things that could only have existed in the early ages of the world, or conceptual dead ends.”
I fumbled through failure after failure, until answers eventually came…in dreams.
When I turned Control on for the first time, the dreams stopped. And when I looked through my viewing portal again, all of the strange images were gone. No eusocial insect-people, no more peculiar impossibilities. Those times, those timelines, they were gone. Or had never been, and I had only seen impossible things. Except, in creating Control, I brought something impossible into the real world.
From how Dr. Sabbatine describes the creation of Control, we can infer that either using the time-viewer was her catalyst, or using Apokalypsi to create it, had already become a Genius before. Sabbatine even says that Control’s creation was impossible; both the Specular and Control obey the Laws of Mad Science:
(1) Popper’s Little Secret; Wonders bend the laws of physics, whatever it is they’re doing, it isn’t science by any traditional definition of the word. Control should’ve been impossible to make, yet she still exists because of Mania.
(2) The Anticlark Corollary; Wonders are not magic and don’t get their power from Mania alone; they’re derived from theories that circumvent the laws of physics, but a Wonder will never ignore them entirely. While Control is impossible through normal science, she’s possible through Mad Science.
(3) Goldblum’s Diatribe; a Genius might know what their Wonders do, but nobody really knows how their Wonders work because if they did they would be practicing regular science, not Mad Science. Building a Wonder deals with principles beyond human understanding, and these principles are inconsistent at best. Dr. Sabbatine was unable to create Control without the False Icon’s help.
(4) Gilligan’s Rule; regular mortal + Wonder = Havoc. This is a little bit more shaky since the MC can help Control pilot the Specular, but you could say the False Icon being released during the trip could be a result of Havoc.
(5) Mulder’s Lament; There is no Masquerade. Normal people can see and remember Wonders just fine and Dr. Sabbatine is a world famous scientist.
Of course, a good portion of this could be waved away as Dr. Sabbatine receiving help from the False Icon, instead of creating and powering Control via Apokalypsi and Mania, but I wanted to rant about this because @moochava once said that the Tremere was his favorite clan since
they (sort of) got their start in a completely different game with a different setting and metaphysics (Ars Magica). So they never quite fit in with Vampire. It’s like you can look over their left shoulder and see a whole different universe out there. I love how, no matter how canon changes to try to fit them smoothly into the setting, they never feel like they quite belong. They’re intruders from someone else’s game.
Reading this, replaying Silverworld, and seeing how Dr. Sabbatine would fit perfectly in Genius: the Trangression is what inspired me to make this theory.
