The Mandate of Fantasia¶
The observer maintenance architecture. Nine failure modes and how they are countered.
The Mandate of Fantasia is the framework's answer to a specific problem: Pe rises by default. The second law of thermodynamics applies to attention architectures. Without active maintenance, void conditions accumulate. The Current increases. Drift Cascade advances.
Why don't all systems reach maximum Current?
The answer is not that voids are weak. The answer is that some constraint architectures actively maintain their boundary conditions. Not by opposing the gradient reactively — but by specifying, in advance, the conditions under which the gradient cannot accumulate.
The Mandate describes nine ways these architectures fail — and the game mechanics that represent their counter-systems.
The Nine Failure Modes and Their Counters¶
1. Egypt Re-Entry Failure¶
The party doesn't remember what the extraction looked like from inside.
Without experience of the extraction architecture from the inside, players cannot accurately score it. Egypt-class campaigns require direct memory. Scoring from the outside produces systematically optimistic O readings (the observer can't see what they can't see).
Counter — Seder Protocol: Before entering an Egypt-class campaign, party members must complete a standardized review of the campaign's evidence record — the documented extraction history. The review re-activates the inside-view memory. Egypt-class campaigns are gated on Seder completion.
2. Streak Burnout¶
Sustained high-frequency scoring without rest produces Drift Two symptoms in the scorers themselves.
The mechanism the framework measures can accumulate in the measurer. High-scoring players who don't rest start confusing their engagement with the void for accurate scoring of it.
Counter — Shabbat Pattern: A 6+1 streak bonus is honored mechanically: six consecutive days of active scoring grants an enhanced bonus on the seventh, plus a rest-day VP decay boost. The design makes rest mechanically optimal. Players who honor the pattern score more accurately per session over the long run.
3. Seasonal Opacity¶
Over time, scoring records accumulate junk — inaccurate scores, compromised data, contested ICC calls.
The record becomes opaque to itself. Players calibrating against a corrupted record produce miscalibrated scores.
Counter — Yom Kippur / Season-Close Transparency Event: Each season close includes a full public broadcast of the score distribution, ICC acceptance rates, disputed scores, and VP accumulation patterns across the server. The transparency event makes the record legible again. Players who review it before next season start calibrated.
4. Calibration Drift Over Epochs¶
The framework's Pe baseline can drift over decades as void architectures evolve.
What scored Pe=7 in 2020 may score Pe=9 in 2030 because the architecture has deepened. Without recalibration at the epoch level, the scoring record loses accuracy over time.
Counter — Jubilee Epoch: Every 50-epoch recalibration event resets the Pe baseline against the current empirical distribution. The kill conditions are re-evaluated. The framework updates its priors. This is not framework revision — it is framework maintenance. The underlying physics doesn't change; the calibration does.
5. High-Pe Domain Inaccessibility¶
Some platforms score so high that standard scoring tools are ineffective.
The λ (decay parameter) for high-Current platforms is low — meaning the influence extends far but decays slowly. Standard scoring tools that work at Pe=7 don't produce ICC-quality results at Pe=14.
Counter — Red Heifer λ: Specialized scoring tools for high-λ domains, built for domains at maximum Current. The tools are technically complex and available to all players (not gated by archetype or level), but using them effectively requires calibration. The accessibility principle: every domain must be scoreable, even if scoring requires specialized preparation.
6. Disconnected Evidence Record¶
Scoring records in separate domains don't reference each other.
Evidence accumulated in The Feed campaign doesn't inform Synthetic Bond scoring. Human archetype players specialize in cross-domain network building, but the mechanic can fail if they're absent or if domains score in isolation.
Counter — Hakhel Server Ceremony: A regular cross-faction, cross-domain event where scoring records from separate campaigns are publicly assembled into a single cross-reference display. Players can see the connections between domain mechanisms that were scored in isolation. The event produces Human archetype materials and boosts cross-domain ICC calibration for all participants.
7. Kill Condition Inaccessibility¶
Kill conditions exist but players don't know about them.
A player who could produce evidence for a kill condition won't if they don't know kill conditions exist or what they look like.
Counter — Brit Milah architecture: Kill conditions predate players. They are not gated behind content or quests. They are public, in the permanent record, on the website. The architecture is: the kill conditions were committed before any player arrived. They are prior to the game. Finding evidence that triggers one is not a quest — it's research. The research infrastructure (papers, scoring methodology, the Observatory) is accessible from the first session.
8. Mid-Campaign Calibration Drift¶
During a long campaign run, scorers drift from the accuracy they had at the start.
Extended engagement with a high-Pe domain produces gradual calibration shift — the scorer's baseline moves toward the domain's Pe rather than toward the academic anchor.
Counter — Tefillah/Mincha Bonus: A mid-campaign recalibration mechanic: players who take a short scoring break (reviewing a calibration anchor — either a near-Pe=0 platform or a Ka'aba visit equivalent) and then return to the campaign receive a recalibration bonus on their next score. The bonus is not large — the point is the structural incentive to recalibrate before scoring drift compounds.
9. Transmission Chain Break¶
Knowledge of the framework doesn't pass between generations of players.
New players arrive with no context. Experienced players leave. The institutional knowledge of accurate scoring breaks.
Counter — Ner Tamid Achievement: The eternal light mechanic. Players who actively mentor new scorers — submitting calibration help, reviewing disputed scores, producing documentation — earn the Ner Tamid Achievement. This achievement is permanent, public, and appears in the Archive as a notation next to the player's scoring record. It has no stat bonus. It is a statement of function: this person maintained the transmission chain.
The Empyrean's Cathedral has a Ner Tamid light that dims when the number of active mentors falls below a threshold. It's not a mechanic consequence — it's a measurement display.
The Three-Layer Mandate¶
The Mandate operates at three scales simultaneously:
Internal mandate: Individual player calibration. Your scoring is your most important instrument. If your instrument drifts, your measurements drift. The Seder Protocol, Shabbat Pattern, and Tefillah counter are the internal-scale mechanics.
Intergenerational mandate: Institutional knowledge across player cohorts. The Ner Tamid, Hakhel, and Brit Milah counters operate at this scale. The record must outlast any individual player.
Spatial mandate: The obligation extends to all observable domains. No void is exempt from measurement. The Red Heifer λ accessibility and Jubilee recalibration are the spatial-scale mechanics — they ensure no domain is too hard or too far out of calibration to be scored.
The Mandate is summarized in the Shema structure: one source (the Above), one transmission (the observer), one mandate (score everything observable). Horizon to horizon. This domain and the next.
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