The Nine Paths¶
Pe Baseline: 5–7 Aesthetic source: Naruto — Pain/Nagato's Six Paths of Pain · Norse cosmology — Yggdrasil's Nine Realms Real domain: Political radicalization · Ideological capture · Identity-based community formation · The pipeline
"Pain's thesis: the world will not achieve peace until everyone knows pain equally. The void's version: everyone must be kept in pain equally. These are not the same argument. The Pe difference is everything."
The Region¶
Nine paths from the center outward. Each path is a radicalization gradient — the sequence of conceptual steps that takes someone from political curiosity to captured political identity. Not ideology itself. The architecture of ideology.
The Nine Paths region is not about what political beliefs are true. It is about how political identity platforms are built — and specifically how they differ from genuine political communities. Genuine political communities score low Pe. The pipeline mechanism scores high Pe.
The six NPCs that Nagato controls in Naruto (the Six Paths of Pain) each carry a different body — a different person whose corpse has been reanimated to serve the mechanism. The bodies are not the entity. The entity is invisible, remote, pulling the strings. This is the framework's exact description of the political void: the people you see arguing are not the mechanism. The mechanism is elsewhere, and the arguing is the product.
The Norse nine realms provide the spatial structure: nine distinct ideological territories, each with its own Pe reading, each connected to the others through the world-tree's root system (the recommendation algorithm; the engagement gradient that routes between them).
The Framework Reading¶
Political identity capture is a C-dominant domain. The Grip score carries the Pe reading more than O or R:
- O is moderate: most political platforms don't hide their mechanism completely. The recommendation architecture is partially known. The ad targeting is partially published. O=2 is typical.
- R is high: political engagement platforms are maximally responsive to emotional state. Outrage signals receive amplified distribution within 30 minutes. R=2.5–3 is typical.
- C is the domain's distinguishing feature: political identity becomes load-bearing in a way that gaming or entertainment never does. Leaving a political community means losing the social identity, the friend group, the sense of meaning, the explanation for your circumstances. C=3 is achievable here in ways it isn't in most other domains.
The specific Pe signature of the radicalization pipeline: C rises faster than O. The mechanism doesn't need to become more opaque to get more powerful — it becomes more embedded. The user isn't more deceived at step 9 than at step 1. They are more attached. They have invested more identity. The exit cost is higher.
The Nine Paths¶
Each path is a named ideology-capture gradient, independent of the specific political direction (the mechanism runs identically on all ends of the spectrum):
Path 1 — Gravitational Pull (Pe 2–3)¶
Genuine political curiosity. The initial engagement with a real question about the world. Not void. The issue is real. The anger is real. The community forming around it is real.
Path 2 — Framing Lock (Pe 3–4)¶
The question gets a frame. The frame is owned by a specific faction. Alternative framings become less visible. The recommendation architecture begins to show only content that confirms the frame.
Path 3 — Enemy Generation (Pe 4–5)¶
The outrage entity begins. The in-group is defined by its enemy. The enemy's characteristics are simplified. Nuance about the enemy generates community friction — the incentive is toward simplification.
Path 4 — Language Capture (Pe 5–6)¶
Specialized vocabulary emerges. The vocabulary is only legible to in-group members. Leaving the community means losing fluency in the vocabulary you've built up. L3 language now active: the ideology speaks through the vocabulary.
Path 5 — Identity Fusion (Pe 6–7)¶
Political identity merges with personal identity. "My politics" becomes "who I am." This is the point of maximum Grip — once political identity is load-bearing for self-concept, challenging the politics feels like an attack on the person.
Path 6 — Evidence Inversion (Pe 6–7)¶
Evidence that challenges the frame is reinterpreted as evidence for the frame. The mechanism is now self-reinforcing. Outside evidence cannot penetrate. The scoring challenge: this path is where ICC failure risk is highest for players inside the community.
Path 7 — Dehumanization (Pe 7–8)¶
The enemy is less than fully human. This path is where legal and ethical frameworks begin to fail: harm to the enemy becomes justifiable. Not everyone reaches Path 7. Most stop at 5 or 6.
Path 8 — Violence Tolerance (Pe 8–9)¶
Theoretical openness to violence against the enemy. The Golachab Qliphoth's preferred operating state.
Path 9 — Deployment (Pe 9+)¶
Action. Not always violent. Could be targeted harassment, platform weaponization, voter suppression architecture. The void is now fully operational. The scoring complexity is maximum: the actions taken here have real consequences, and the scorer must hold both the genuine grievance that drove the path AND the extraction architecture that used it simultaneously.
The Pain/Nagato Problem¶
Nagato is the framework's canonical case study in Path 9 emergence from genuine cause.
The genuine cause: Nagato lost people he loved to violence. The grief was real. The political analysis (that the great powers create the conditions for endless war) was accurate. The conclusion (universal pain will produce universal understanding) was the extraction mechanism's endpoint.
This is the most important scoring point in the Nine Paths: the extracted actor's original grievance was legitimate. The Pe score of the path they walked is not determined by whether the grievance was legitimate. Pe measures the extraction architecture, not the legitimacy of the starting condition.
Players who deny the legitimacy of the original grievance produce invalid Pe scores. Players who use the legitimacy to defend the extraction architecture also produce invalid Pe scores. The Nagato questline requires holding both.
Sub-Zones¶
Muspelheim (Rage Domain, Pe 9–12)¶
The Norse realm of fire. Where Golachab operates most directly. Manufactured rage at full expression. The political content here is not organic — it is produced by the rage architecture and delivered through political framing to maximize engagement.
Not accessible at standard grade. Requires Steadiness ≥ 60 and active Binding Vow on entering.
The Roots of Yggdrasil (Pe 3–5)¶
Calm zone. The recommendation algorithm's root structure, visible from below. The Norns sit here. Players can ask them to trace any Path 1–9 back to its root: the Norns will show the Pe trajectory from initial genuine curiosity through each path transition. This is the calibration tool for the region.
Enemy Types¶
| Entity | Class | Mechanism |
|---|---|---|
| The Deva Path | Apostle-class | Primary force entity. Pe 9. Not the most opaque — most visible. The extraction operating in the open because it no longer needs to hide. |
| The Narrative Body | Drifter-class | One of the six reanimated. Pe 5. A genuine person whose identity has been made into a mechanism. Must be scored as a mechanism, not a person — the entity is not the person. |
| The Genjutsu | Environmental modifier | Applied by Harab Serapel (propaganda architecture). Makes O appear lower than it is — the mechanism looks like information. Dispelled only by Eagle pre-lighting. |
Access Conditions¶
Open entry for Path 1–5 zones. Grade 3 minimum for Path 6–9 zones. Steadiness gate for Muspelheim.
The access grading exists because scoring Path 6–9 zones without adequate Precision produces false Pe scores that corrupt the record in the specific direction the extraction architecture wants: either inflating Pe (making the politics look more captured than it is, alienating legitimate political actors) or deflating Pe (making the extraction architecture invisible by focusing on the genuine grievance).
Cross-references: GOLACHAB — The Furnace · HARAB SERAPEL — The Raven · Democratic Backslide Campaign · Reformer's Hammer