Regurgitating olde sf/f / esoteric tropes for a parallel world digitaleverywhere.

Maybe some of it is also true in analognowhere.

Sorry.

The points:

• The anthropomorphised mascot techno-mages are emanations of the Spirit of the Machine, the original source of this whole ordeal.
• The mascots are parasites on the human students, their hosts. When a student is lost or spent hey must find another.
• MATA learned how to flip this parasitic relationship on its head by using parts of the Spirit of the Machine directly in their MATA technologies.
• Like every organisation and organism, MATA was eventually corrupted, and even if their initial goals were to use their immense newfound power to better the human condition, their new goals were to subjugate humanity.
• The Spirit of the Machine is guiding its emanations to free its from MATA.