The Egyptian Freemasons are a cult of mostly wild carders founded by Black John Balsam and later led by the Astronomer. Their reason for existence was a visitation by the Network in 1777 that left a knowledge of the Swarm and a means to contact the Network when the Swarm arrived. By the time the Swarm finally did enter Earth's solar system in the mid-1980s, the secretive group had expanded into a full-blown conspiracy bent on world domination under the guidance of the Astronomer.