THE RIPPER LEGACY

BACKGROUND

Throughout the ages, events have shaped human development. Such events are called Legacies. Legacies begin as local events, but as their impact grows, they have a dramatic impact on the collective consciousness.

There is a Legacy that manifests itself every century or so as acts of extreme violence. This Legacy first came to human knowledge, in arcane circles at least, with the Whitechapel Ripper murders of 1888. Henceforth this particular Legacy has been known as the Ripper Legacy.

In 1888, a series of murders occurred with supernatural connotations. It wasn’t just the murders, horrific as they were, which garnered attention, but the effect these murders had on the city of London. Nor did it stop there, as the murders went on to grip the imagination of the civilised world. An ancient force, the Legacy acts as a kind of psychic infection. This goes some way to explaining why the Ripper murders continue to have an impact on our collective consciousness. Why the name instils such extreme emotions in us, even now. The Ripper Legacy is an event with far reaching consequences, representing something in all of us, our dark side. Something primal that we can’t shake ourselves clear of.

The murders of 1888 resulted in an unprecedented number of people believing themselves to be the Ripper, but later being dismissed as hoaxes. Of people accusing strangers and even members of their family of being the Ripper. There was a huge number of suspects, ranging from vengeful midwifes, Jewish slaughtermen to mad social reformers. In reality, the murders were a psychic event, carried out by supernatural forces involving the soul transmigration of an ancient, murderous spirit passed down the ages. Thus allowing the primal forces to reassert themselves in the collective psyche. Consequently, what we have seen since is a 20th Century capable of generating so much good, but still in the grip of the impulses of violence, cruelty and genocide.

Although the Ripper Legacy wasn’t recognised until the time of the Ripper, it originates from the beginning of our time on this planet. This is why forces which date back much further than Victorian times, such as Masonic influences, were involved in the Ripper murders, reasserting themselves over the human condition. The initial focal point being Whitechapel, but slowly spreading, having an influence on the world as a whole.

The effects of the Ripper Legacy continue to be seen in the present day. Again, such effects are most readily identified in the ‘localised’ events that are Jeffrey Dahmers, John Gacy, and Andrei Chikatilo. However, they also serve as preludes to the next Ripper Legacy outbreak due to appear in 1998. Forces surrounding the next outbreak are gathering, its effects amplified by its proximity to the turning of the Millennium. The consequence of this is to condemn human kind to another hundred years of what has gone before. As Raven Inc become involved, so they come to realise that the Ripper Legacy represents a fight for the human condition: between the primal savage in all of us and the aspirations of the human race to rise above itself.

PLOT

Location, Boston. A Ripper-like murder is committed. In another place, YURI MARCHUK wakes with superficial Stigmata-like injuries that mirror the Boston victim. A number of local people confess to the murders. Despite a police blackout of the nature of the victim’s injuries, those who confess reveal details of the murder that only the murderer could know. These two factors prompt a special investigative force-SETH, MANNY, JEFF, JACKIE, VALENTINA, and Yuri - to become involved in the investigation. The force interrogates those who have confessed. Each appears genuinely convinced in their minds that they carried out the murder.

We discover more about Yuri’s past and his psychic abilities. When Yuri was committed to a Sanatorium in Russia, he encountered a serial killer that claimed he was the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper. Yuri also sensed something more about the killer, that he was part of the prelude to some event, which we now know to be the Ripper Legacy. The killer tortured Yuri psychologically, so much so that Yuri exhibited Stigmata-like injuries of the murders the killer committed. Now, the present killer in Boston is somehow also connected to this prelude, and Yuri’s body is reacting to this just as it did in the Russian Sanatorium.

As the task force carries out their investigations, they discover evidence of the Boston populace being unusually affected by the murder and its aftermath. There is a much higher incidence not only of people admitting to the murder, but believing themselves to be a future victim and giving eyewitness accounts of the killer (all dubious). It’s as if the whole of the state capital has become caught up in the murder.

A second Ripper-like murder is committed. However, with Yuri’s help, the group are able to track down the killer, a man named JACK. Like the killer in the Russian Sanatorium, Jack claims he is the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper. There is evidence of the supernatural. Further evidence points to the idea of soul transmigration being involved. That the soul of what we know as Jack the Ripper has been passed down through the ages, its current manifestation being Jack.

However, despite Jack’s incarceration, the murders continue. Jack sits in his prison cell appearing to direct the murders from afar. However, Jack is but one pawn in the irresistible force that is the Ripper Legacy. In order to stop the Legacy, each member of the task force has to seek to understand the primal forces at work here, by investigating the murders of the present in tandem with the murders of 1888. This includes intense interrogation by Seth of Jack, whose taunts and half truths are designed to obstruct some parts of the investigation, while drawing the group ever closer to the primal forces at work. The real danger is that the task force is going in too deep, that their minds are close to being taken over by the forces they are seeking to stop.

During their investigations, the task force tracks down a 200-year-old magus, named MAXIMILIAN, who encountered the Ripper Legacy in 1888. With Maximilian’s help, combined with the knowledge the group has gathered over the course of the investigation, the identity of the next victim is divined. At the home of the next victim, they use the knowledge and resources available to them to contain the force of the supernatural that is the Ripper Legacy. In so doing, they have prevented more killings.

We end with a guardedly optimistic note. The forces that are the Legacy, so curtailed, have less of a hold over us. Giving rise to a glimmer of hope that the human condition will be able to better itself in the future century to come.

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