---
id: sfoc-events-signal-detected
title: "Signal Detected"
primary_class: events
primary_domain: contact-communication
secondary_domains: [liberation-transcendence, time-causality]
material_modes: [original-synthesis]
version: 1.0.0
---

# Signal Detected

> **the signal detected herald.** Signal Detected names a threshold where information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif changes what participants can notice or do. The card keeps an explicit Oracle synthesis distinct from symbolic use.

## Origin

Signal Detected is rooted in collective memory and stories organized around irreversible change, but the card’s present form is editorial rather than primordial. Source order and later mutation remain visible. Because information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif reorders priorities by making an old equilibrium impossible to maintain, provenance work must separate transmission from interpretation and require a return signal that could expose error.

## What It Is

Signal Detected names a threshold where information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif changes what participants can notice or do. The card keeps an explicit Oracle synthesis distinct from symbolic use. In the Oracle it is classified as Events & Thresholds, while its evidence layers determine how literal, historical, fictional, experiential, or symbolic a particular interpretation may be.

## Cultural History

Historical comparison places Signal Detected beside its precursors without assuming identity. Similar motifs may reveal transmission, convergence, or only a useful analogy. At collective scale, information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif synchronizes attention while communities dispute causes and consequences; this matters because contact can create relationship, contamination, domination, or a false sense of mutual understanding.

## Claim and Evidence Layers

  ### literal-and-empirical

- **Claim layer:** literal-and-empirical
- **Material context:** original-synthesis
- **Evidence state:** not-applicable
- **Summary:** Signal Detected is not assigned a blanket literal truth claim; its historical, community, or symbolic meanings are evaluated on their own layers.
- **Sources:** No external source assigned; editorial synthesis only.

### cultural-and-historical

- **Claim layer:** cultural-and-historical
- **Material context:** original-synthesis
- **Evidence state:** unverified
- **Summary:** Signal Detected has a class-level contextual source but still lacks a concept-specific external source in this release. Its cultural history is an editorial research lead, not a completed provenance claim.
- **Sources:** No external source assigned; editorial synthesis only.

### symbolic-and-divinatory

- **Claim layer:** symbolic-and-divinatory
- **Material context:** original-synthesis
- **Evidence state:** symbolic
- **Summary:** The Oracle uses Signal Detected as a reflective symbol, never as proof that its literal or causal claims are true.
- **Sources:** original-synthesis

## Oracle

- **Essence:** Signal Detected names a threshold where information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif changes what participants can notice or do. The card keeps an explicit Oracle synthesis distinct from symbolic use.
- **Archetype:** the signal detected herald
- **Gift:** translate information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif into a bounded practice of observation and accountable response.
- **Shadow:** turning contact can create relationship, contamination, domination, or a false sense of mutual understanding into inevitability instead of a condition open to response.
- **Guidance:** Turn Signal Detected into a careful experiment concerning information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif. State what result would support, weaken, or leave the claim unresolved. Use this guidance where information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif reorders priorities by making an old equilibrium impossible to maintain; keep visible that contact can create relationship, contamination, domination, or a false sense of mutual understanding.
- **Healing / integration:** Retell Signal Detected from the viewpoint of the person or system carrying its hidden cost. Then revise the original reading. Review information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif through signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding, remembering that the card reorders priorities by making an old equilibrium impossible to maintain.
- **Question:** How could contact can create relationship, contamination, domination, or a false sense of mutual understanding be met without feeding the card’s shadow? Answer by testing how information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif reorders priorities by making an old equilibrium impossible to maintain against signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding.

## Meanings

### Psychological

The inner movement of Signal Detected runs between orientation and enclosure. information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif can give experience shape without becoming the only shape allowed. A grounded check for information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif is to separate transmission from interpretation and require a return signal that could expose error, especially where the pattern reorders priorities by making an old equilibrium impossible to maintain.

### Social

A community may use Signal Detected to preserve memory, coordinate action, or mark identity. The Oracle also asks who bears the costs of that cohesion. In shared life, information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif synchronizes attention while communities dispute causes and consequences. Test that specific information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif pattern by asking people to separate transmission from interpretation and require a return signal that could expose error.

### Spiritual

Through the signal detected herald, the card offers a relationship to information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif. The reader is asked to receive that relationship without demanding possession of the unknown. In symbolic practice, information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif may be read as revelation, judgment, initiation, return, or rebirth; keep in view that contact can create relationship, contamination, domination, or a false sense of mutual understanding.

### Technological

The technological question is who gets capability without inheriting equal risk. Separate transmission from interpretation and require a return signal that could expose error. When information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif becomes a capability, it tests detection, resilience, coordination, and recovery capacity. Verify the implementation of information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif by asking participants to separate transmission from interpretation and require a return signal that could expose error.

### Political

Where Signal Detected promises order, ask whose uncertainty is being reduced and whose freedom is being converted into someone else’s assurance. When information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif becomes governance, it opens exceptional powers while exposing who controls the official account. Make authority over information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif answerable by requiring decision-makers to separate transmission from interpretation and require a return signal that could expose error.

## Divination

- **Gift state:** Upright, Signal Detected makes hidden structure visible without declaring every unknown solved. Act on what is clear and protect what remains open. The capacity within information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif is strongest when a message can be exchanged without pretending that every ambiguity has vanished, even as the pattern reorders priorities by making an old equilibrium impossible to maintain.
- **Shadow state:** The shadow position warns that information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif is being used to erase context, consent, or counterevidence. Restore those missing constraints. To keep information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif from escalating, separate transmission from interpretation and require a return signal that could expose error, because the pattern reorders priorities by making an old equilibrium impossible to maintain.
- **Threshold state:** Signal Detected becomes relevant when a threshold makes the previous equilibrium impossible to maintain. The immediate signal is a change in signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding. Operationally, information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif reorders priorities by making an old equilibrium impossible to maintain; the reader should separate transmission from interpretation and require a return signal that could expose error.
- **Practical move:** Retell Signal Detected from the viewpoint of the person or system carrying its hidden cost. Then revise the original reading. Review information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif through signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding, remembering that the card reorders priorities by making an old equilibrium impossible to maintain.

## Game and Story Function

- threshold
- reversal
- countdown

**Story seed:** A protagonist inherits the role of the signal detected herald and learns that its gift was built on an unacknowledged burden. They must redesign the role. The world of the story must show how information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif reorders priorities by making an old equilibrium impossible to maintain and why contact can create relationship, contamination, domination, or a false sense of mutual understanding.

## Relationships

- edge--assessed-through-shared-source-lens--sfoc-events-life-review--sfoc-events-signal-detected
- edge--develops-into--sfoc-events-signal-detected--sfoc-events-first-sighting
- edge--same-class-as--sfoc-events-return-to-source--sfoc-events-signal-detected
- edge--same-class-as--sfoc-events-signal-detected--sfoc-events-technological-singularity
- edge--shares-inquiry-domain-with--sfoc-beings-dmt-entity--sfoc-events-signal-detected
- edge--shares-inquiry-domain-with--sfoc-cosmologies-ancient-astronaut-cosmos--sfoc-events-signal-detected
- edge--shares-inquiry-domain-with--sfoc-events-signal-detected--sfoc-forces-assimilation

## Visual Direction

Signal Detected visualized as information arriving from elsewhere meeting the detected motif: a broken ring crossed by a bright threshold line, with before and after remaining visually distinct. The art must be original, text-free, square, rounded-corner enamel with one immediately legible silhouette.

## Safety and Integration

No elevated safety flag. Keep claims and metaphor visibly distinct.

## Sources and Research Notes

- Source IDs: sf-encyclopedia, original-synthesis
- Research note: Which earliest reliable source fixes the modern meaning of Signal Detected? Which communities use Signal Detected differently, and what changes across those contexts? What evidence would distinguish the leading literal explanations associated with Signal Detected?
