Disclaimer: This setting does not follow the Mage metaplot, or rather, it presents its own metaplot, if you need one, and choose to use it. Read: No Avatar Storm.
The Technocracy has had a bittersweet run with Budapest - while the organisation has had a lot of success influencing hearts and minds, and shaping the history of the city, events have largely got out of hand.My basic idea was to map
on the one hand, the transition from Socialism to democracy in Hungary/Budapest to a parallel power handover within magical secret societies, and
on the other, the arguably failed or at least incomplete adoption of a liberal democracy to a chaotic power struggle
To my mind, at least, this setup creates a lot of potential for campaigns. If your group likes social manoeuvering, there is intrigue up to your eyeballs, but the tensions and instability between factions can easily spill over into physical conflict if combat is more your thing.
Budapest Hermetics more or less equal State Socialism
Unbeknownst to ordinary people, the 'soft oppression' associated with the Socialist regime in Hungary was orchestrated and maintained by a coterie of powerful Hermetic mages.If you're interested, here's a primer on Socialism.Soviet Technocrats, after the failed 1956 revolution, started a human experiment in Budapest - give 'progressive-thinking' Western mages free access into the country, limiting them to the Budapest metropolitan area to contain their shenanigans, and recruit them as allies in the Ascension Cold WarTM
Some of those visiting were ground up or sold out, but a Hermetic wizard guild soon outmanoeuvered their Soviet Technocrat hosts, and took over governing the city in all but name. They gradually grew ever more oppressive, stymieing growth and human and civil rights alike, and farming out the city to advance their visions of amassing knowledge and discerning the laws of the universe. Their hold over the city and their tyranny unchallenged, they grew just as complacent as the local loyal Communists had before them, until the tides of history inevitably swept them away. Their gradual unshifting that ended in a popular uprising coincided with the overthrow of Communism in the country at large.
Not many people are aware, but the 1989 change of government saw 'capitalist' Hermetics ousted from Budapest, and 'socialist' Technocrats sent packing in the rest of the country.
Troupes should decide for themselves whether and to what extent they equate the Order of Hermes's Eastern European chapter with the real-life Soviet-influenced ruling elite. While the wizards had surely influenced the architects of the 'Goulash Communist' system, a one-to-one match would be a slippery slope of blaming history on magic.