True. And many Magi are like that. But not all are.
Some people are like that. Not all people are like that.
Some people will gladly take what you have and be very proud of doing so, though they might not boast about it to the "wrong" people for fear of consequences. Some people very readily engage in what we might call predatory behavior. Resource conflict certainly contributes to that but some people don't need that motivation to do these things anyway.
The Order has Magi of all of these varieties and seeks to maintain a relatively stable peace amongst all of them together at once.
Very much so. Not every Mage perceives their situation as one of natural abundance. Also ... Magi, totally aside from resources, are people prone to very differing beliefs about basically everything just as much as any other set of people are. Magic doesn't provide objective answers to all questions or solutions to all problems, especially ones related to people being people.
Not only is every Magus individually powerful enough to make which faction they join a matter of concern for strategic balancing purposes, but Magi are no less factional than any other person. When you delve into belief systems, religion(s), civilization vs nature, and any of the myriad other things than many Magi are very passionate about I think it also emerges that simply put not all of these ideas are mutually compatible. Some of these very powerful people are not going to get what they want and very powerful people do not, as a general rule, quietly not get things that they are very passionate about. When you have compelling causes that are mutually incompatible between factions, all nominally trying to live peacefully inside the Order, you do not have recipe for a peace that never has ripples or disruptions.
High trust does not mean The Order are naive hippies singing kumbaya. I will do the usual caveat, YSMV, however, I think a high trust Order is a reasonable idea.
I have never suggested that there is such a thing as a "high trust" version of the Order. My point is that covenants do not need to put much trust in visiting magi, as a casting token confers a privilege that can be revoked at any moment for any reason. A covenant is therefore not leaving itself especially vulnerable to attack so the privilege can be extended even to magi that it does not view as its closest and truest allies. Moreover, I would never argue that the practice is universal but if it were not at least relatively common for covenants to offer casting tokens I strongly doubt many magi would visit each other at all.
It is true that a casting token can be quickly revoked, but extending a casting token is still a mark of trust. How much damage could a malicious mage do to a covenant, or the magical secrets and power of the covenant magi, with the casting of a single spell? Sure, the casting token is revoked immediately after -- but the damage is done.
Wandering magi need to be wary of malicious supernatural effects everywhere outside of their sanctums, or their covenant -- but being inside the Aegis of a foreign covenant provides protection against all (potentially malicious) supernatural effects... other than those originating from the covenants inhabitants, and in those situations the Code provides some small measure of protection. So it seems that 'places that are safest' rank more or less as follows:
Personal Sanctum;
Home Covenant;
Foreign 'friendly' / neutral covenant
Everywhere else
Strong hostile auras & hostile covenants.
Magi seem to tend to solitary (aside from the occasional apprentice) habits; and hospitality for study or trade is probably sufficient to the needs of the Order. I think casting tokens will tend to be non-routine; and even magi attending Tribunals should expect to not be (aside for temporary, supervised use sufficient to cast a Parma) granted one.
That is my own interpretation of course; other sagas might have wildly different interpretations.
I am not aware of any instance of such a thing happening. I don't think magi are so naive and trusting as to give casting tokens to any visiting magus they have good reason to be wary of, and if indeed any magus had taken advantage of the casting token to attack a covenant from within I think visits to other covenants would be exceedingly rare. Moreover if magi really were all that suspicious of each other I am not sure if Notatus would have incorporated the concept of casting tokens in the first place when he invented the Aegis of the Hearth ritual.
There is an entire House of agents provocateur in the Order. I suspect that if you become known for handing out aegis tokens willy-nilly someone will eventually arrange a lesson for you. So it's probably a good idea to check references, as it were. Someone you don't know turning up claiming to be an authority and demanding immediate cooperation seems as likely to be a scam in Mythic Europe as here in the real world.
Going to visit some foreign covenant is not something a mage does every day; nor even every season -- nor, I would guess, even every year. Similarly, a covenant receiving a foreign mage (Mercere aside) also strike me a something that does not happen every day. Visits are unusual.
Canon also provides an incomplete picture; so breaches of hospitality might have occurred without showing up where we would be able to read about them -- or perhaps such breaches are rare because mages are wary about handing out casting tokens. I think Quaesitors would be wise to conduct their investigations in a way that did not rely on obtaining tokens.
Immediately after assumes that the hosts are immediately aware. This isn't necessarily a given. Even in a blatant assault of some kind you would probably still have several rounds of unimpeded casting before being identified enough to have a token revoked.
The more meaningful security lapse to me is the increased vulnerability to nonobvious spells. Scrying, theft, or infiltration of some kind. These things aren't exactly unknown human phenomenon or things which no Magus ever engages in.
Giving someone a token that you don't know and have reason to trust is like ... handing a stranger your house keys. Is something guaranteed to go wrong in doing that? No. But it certainly amplifies the risk. And with real life instances of risk management like that, we naturally and intuitively avoid doing such things.
This seems an important point to me. Is the Quaesitor a familiar face from tribunal meetings, someone we have cooperated with on areas of common interest? They probably get a casting token if they present a reasonable case for needing one. Someone we've never heard of? We'll check their credentials, and even if they are from Guernicus, they'll be watched carefully.
(Which brings up another point. Even someone with a token isn't likely to be allowed to wander freely without supervision.)
In the scenario I was thinking about, there is no doubt about the guy being a Quaesitor. He has appeared as a quaesitor before and he's got the official letter. You have no idea why he's at your covenant. Like almost everyone else, you interfere with the affairs of mundanes (no ruin yet) and you habitually molest the faeries when hunting for vis. Nothing to justify two hoplites - you hope. He won't tell you why he's here, only that he's got a few questions for you and your covenant-mates.
Or put another way: "Just a few questions? Oh, very reasonable, and we won't take up much of your time then. You'll be gone so soon, and using no magic, so there's no need to worry about a token."
"He has appeared as a Quaesitor before" is an important part of this, and probably an important part of the OoH cultural landscape. Quaesitors, at least ones who want to be given free access, probably have to do a lot of PR managing at least within their local communities, whether "I am trustworthy" PR or "I will be a problem if you do not cooperate" PR. I can't see a mage being like "Yes hello random stranger, have a token" but I can see them (within limits) agreeing to it after decades of trust being built up.
Relevant question - can you have an overlapping Aegis? Eg, if we as a covenant all knew we were up to something, could we do a public Aegis over the whole place, but then a quiet little Aegis within it over just one broom closet, so that if the Quaesitors came sniffing around we could have a panic room to hide the diablerie in? Or, is there a world in which (possibly through inventions and breakthrough) the Aegis has a shaped bubble within where welcomed visitors can cast spells more freely, but only if they've made their way through the outer Aegis (meaning you can't just teleport in)
Along the PR lines, it also seems likely that House Guernicus also comes down hard on anyone attempting to impersonate a Quaesitor (if they learn about it).
Relevant question - can you have an overlapping Aegis? Eg, if we as a covenant all knew we were up to something, could we do a public Aegis over the whole place, but then a quiet little Aegis within it over just one broom closet, so that if the Quaesitors came sniffing around we could have a panic room to hide the diablerie in? Or, is there a world in which (possibly through inventions and breakthrough) the Aegis has a shaped bubble within where welcomed visitors can cast spells more freely, but only if they've made their way through the outer Aegis (meaning you can't just teleport in)
That reminds me that some years ago I thought about casting an aegis larger than the current one on the boundary of an enemy covenant to cancel most of their advantage on us (their aegis would still work against us in the more little area but our aegis would work against them and would be a little bit bigger). Since the boundary had to be a bit larger, cutting off a dozen of trees was enough to make the boundary larger and still be imperceptible.
Now with the discussion about containers and the new completed description of the aegis of the heart in DE, I'm not sure what would be the result of this.
I think there might be some need to worry about a token. Has it occurred to anyone that casting tokens might be as much for the visitors' protection as the hosts'. Visitors to a covenant don't always know that their hosts aren't going to try something on them, especially in a case like this with a quaesitor and hoplites investigating potentially dangerous lawbreakers. Without the same protection of the aegis they would be at a huge disadvantage if the hosts used any magic on them.
That's a good point. I would expect that any visitor invited to a covenant receives a casting token as part of normal hospitality. This could in turn mean that not granting a casting token would send a message that the visitor is not welcome.
That can be the other way around: only a fully trusted visitor gets the casting token as a matter of course (like a Peregrinator working for the covenant), while all other might get them only if they can show the necessity.
I would really make that dependent on the Tribunal. Covenants in Tribunals with heavy strife or controversial politicking - like Stonehenge or Hibernian - will hand out tokens only to known and fully trusted visitors. Covenants in strongly policed Tribunals like the Transsylvanian are expected to trust every visiting mage not blackballed by the Tribunal itself. Covenants at the Rhine might often rely on their vetting of Peregrinatores before handing out tokens. Covenants in the Greater Alps might rely on the general peace there to do just as they please wrt the rights of visitors.
Just imagine, who would hold this little speech: "Norman magus, you are not welcome here - and you know it! Still the rainstorm is quite dangerous and you look ill-prepared. We have both sworn the same Oath of Hermes - which you often forget. Hence I will not feed you to the famished wolves of my country: come on in, there is a place besides the fire for you until the storm subsides! But don't you even ask for a casting token!"