# Factions

## Purpose

Factions coordinate actors around authority, identity, resource, mission, or belief. Living movements are treated without collective blame or unsupported allegations. This chapter is an index and a method: it shows how to explore the subject without collapsing documented history, current research, reported experience, fiction, community belief, and Oracle synthesis into one truth claim.

## Reading Method

1. **Locate the Tile.** Read its Primary Class to learn what kind of thing it is, then its Inquiry Domains to learn which questions it can illuminate.
2. **Name the material mode.** A science-fiction, mythology, political-mythology, experiential-report, or established-science label identifies context; it is not a score of spiritual or personal importance.
3. **Read claims layer by layer.** Begin with the literal-and-empirical layer, then the cultural-and-historical layer, and only then the symbolic-and-divinatory layer. An evidence state applies to one bounded claim, not to the Tile as a whole.
4. **Open the sources.** A concept-specific citation can support a history or bounded claim. A class-level contextual citation only locates the Tile in a wider field. Neither one certifies every interpretation.
5. **Follow typed edges.** Compare the exact verb and rationale. “Fictionalizes,” “opposes,” “echoes,” and “investigated-by” are not interchangeable. A resemblance edge is not proof of historical influence.
6. **Integrate through action.** Use Gift, Shadow, Threshold, and the integration practice to identify one grounded choice that remains useful even if a favored ontology is wrong.

## Worked Comparison

1. **Galactic Federation** is a Factions & Institutions Tile centered on Contact & Communication. Its literal layer is **not-applicable**; its symbolic question is: “What principle permits membership without assimilation?”
2. **Galactic Empire** is a Factions & Institutions Tile centered on Power & Control. Its literal layer is **fictional**; its symbolic question is: “Where has scale replaced legitimacy?”
3. **Rebel Alliance** is a Factions & Institutions Tile centered on Contact & Communication. Its literal layer is **fictional**; its symbolic question is: “What remains useful in Rebel Alliance if its strongest literal claim proves false? Answer by testing how the rebel motif meeting cooperation without complete merger turns shared identity into strategy, allocation, and collective consequence against signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding.”

Compare these examples by asking what changes when the class, evidence state, or edge verb changes. Do not treat the most vivid Tile as the most factual. When a reading crosses into health, identity, conspiracy, or current politics, show the card’s safety flags and preserve an alternate explanation.

## System Links

- [How to Use](HOW-TO-USE.md) for reference, reading, and game workflows.
- [Graph](GRAPH.md) for edge semantics and provenance.
- [Divination](DIVINATION.md) for reflective reading rules.
- [Glossary](GLOSSARY.md) for Classes, Domains, Modes, and Evidence States.
- [Source Registry](../research/SOURCE-REGISTRY.md) for source tiers, scope, and rights.

## Canonical Tiles

- [Galactic Federation](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-galactic-federation.md) — A cosmic polity imagined in fiction and Disclosure lore as unity without total sameness.
- [Galactic Empire](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-galactic-empire.md) — Centralized rule projected across worlds through military, administrative, and symbolic scale.
- [Rebel Alliance](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-rebel-alliance.md) — the rebel motif meeting cooperation without complete merger gives Rebel Alliance its distinctive charge. Read it through signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding, with work, creator, reception, and symbolic reuse kept visible.
- [The Cabal](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-the-cabal.md) — The Cabal is a way of encountering secret coordination as explanatory enemy placed within power & control. Its Oracle use joins a coordinated collective actor with durable membership and aims to the question of authority, secrecy, classification, benefit, coercion, appeal, and the practical right to leave.
- [Deep State](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-deep-state.md) — Deep State offers an instrument for reading the deep motif placed within civilization & ecology. It becomes useful when interpretation remains answerable to follow resources, waste, care, mobility, governance, and nonhuman dependencies across scales.
- [Shadow Government](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-shadow-government.md) — Shadow Government gathers a field around the shadow motif meeting the government motif. Its deeper subject is coordination becomes domination when accountability and exit exist only for the powerful.
- [Illuminati](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-illuminati.md) — At the center of Illuminati is the illuminati motif placed within power & control. The card treats that tension as a coordinated collective actor with durable membership and aims, bounded by documenting a narrative does not validate its hidden-cause allegations.
- [Bene Gesserit](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-bene-gesserit.md) — A fictional order shaping politics, religion, memory, and heredity across generations.
- [Spacing Guild](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-spacing-guild.md) — Spacing Guild names a threshold where the spacing motif meeting the guild motif changes what participants can notice or do. The card keeps a traceable fictional or speculative story lineage distinct from symbolic use.
- [Great Houses](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-great-houses.md) — What makes Great Houses consequential is the meeting of civilizational scale meeting the houses motif with authority, secrecy, classification, benefit, coercion, appeal, and the practical right to leave. The card preserves that meeting without universalizing it.
- [Jedi Order](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-jedi-order.md) — Jedi Order offers an instrument for reading the jedi motif meeting the order motif. It becomes useful when interpretation remains answerable to follow resources, waste, care, mobility, governance, and nonhuman dependencies across scales.
- [Sith Order](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-sith-order.md) — Sith Order gathers a field around the sith motif meeting the order motif. Its deeper subject is contact can create relationship, contamination, domination, or a false sense of mutual understanding.
- [Starfleet](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-starfleet.md) — The working core of Starfleet is the starfleet motif placed within power & control: a pattern that can reorganize attention, relation, and action. narrative truth does not establish literal availability.
- [United Federation of Planets](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-united-federation-of-planets.md) — United Federation of Planets brings the united motif, unity negotiated across difference, and the planets motif acting together into focus. It operates as a coordinated collective actor with durable membership and aims and asks how signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding alter practical choice.
- [Borg Collective](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-borg-collective.md) — Borg Collective brings collective capability joined to compulsory assimilation meeting agency distributed across many members into focus. It operates as a coordinated collective actor with durable membership and aims and asks how agency, difference, recognition, and the ethics of meeting a mind unlike one’s own alter practical choice.
- [Breakaway Civilization](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-breakaway-civilization.md) — Breakaway Civilization brings the breakaway motif meeting large-scale continuity of shared life into focus. It operates as a coordinated collective actor with durable membership and aims and asks how shared survival, place, stewardship, access, feedback, and unequal exposure to risk alter practical choice.
- [Secret Space Fleet](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-secret-space-fleet.md) — Secret Space Fleet brings knowledge controlled through access, the space motif, and the fleet motif acting together into focus. It operates as a coordinated collective actor with durable membership and aims and asks how authority, secrecy, classification, benefit, coercion, appeal, and the practical right to leave alter practical choice.
- [Solar Warden](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-solar-warden.md) — The working core of Solar Warden is the solar motif meeting the warden motif: a pattern that can reorganize attention, relation, and action. the synthesis must never masquerade as inherited doctrine or discovered fact.
- [Megacorporation](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-megacorporation.md) — The working core of Megacorporation is the megacorporation motif placed within power & control: a pattern that can reorganize attention, relation, and action. the synthesis must never masquerade as inherited doctrine or discovered fact.
- [Company-State](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-company-state.md) — Company-State names a threshold where the company motif placed within civilization & ecology changes what participants can notice or do. The card keeps an explicit Oracle synthesis distinct from symbolic use.
- [Technocracy](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-technocracy.md) — expertise converted into rule placed within contact & communication gives Technocracy its distinctive charge. Read it through signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding, with institutions, material interests, rhetoric, and affected communities kept visible.
- [Algorithmic Technocracy](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-algorithmic-technocracy.md) — Algorithmic Technocracy names a threshold where the algorithmic motif meeting expertise converted into rule changes what participants can notice or do. The card keeps a political story that organizes identity and threat distinct from symbolic use.
- [Corporate Feudalism](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-corporate-feudalism.md) — Corporate Feudalism offers an instrument for reading the corporate motif meeting the feudalism motif. It becomes useful when interpretation remains answerable to follow resources, waste, care, mobility, governance, and nonhuman dependencies across scales.
- [Resistance Network](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-resistance-network.md) — Resistance Network frames refusal that preserves agency meeting the network motif as a decision environment rather than a finished answer. Its evidence discipline is transparent analogy, declared invention, and practical usefulness.
- [Preservation Order](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-preservation-order.md) — The Oracle places Preservation Order where the preservation motif meeting the order motif affects agency. It is neither mere decoration nor automatic proof, but a coordinated collective actor with durable membership and aims with a declared evidence boundary.
- [Consensus Collective](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-consensus-collective.md) — Consensus Collective offers an instrument for reading the consensus motif meeting agency distributed across many members. It becomes useful when interpretation remains answerable to follow resources, waste, care, mobility, governance, and nonhuman dependencies across scales.
- [Belief Cult](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-belief-cult.md) — Within the Oracle, Belief Cult holds together the belief motif meeting the cult motif and signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding. That combination creates both an interpretive tool and a responsibility.
- [Distributed Network](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-distributed-network.md) — Distributed Network brings the distributed motif meeting the network motif into focus. It operates as a coordinated collective actor with durable membership and aims and asks how authority, secrecy, classification, benefit, coercion, appeal, and the practical right to leave alter practical choice.
- [Emergent Swarm](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-emergent-swarm.md) — Emergent Swarm frames the emergent motif meeting the swarm motif as a decision environment rather than a finished answer. Its evidence discipline is transparent analogy, declared invention, and practical usefulness.
- [Star Nomads](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-star-nomads.md) — Star Nomads names a threshold where the star motif meeting the nomads motif changes what participants can notice or do. The card keeps an explicit Oracle synthesis distinct from symbolic use.
- [Guardians](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-guardians.md) — Read Guardians as a coordinated collective actor with durable membership and aims shaped by the guardians motif placed within power & control. The useful inquiry is not belief alone, but what identify who can decide, inspect, refuse, revise, profit, and obtain remedy.
- [Watchers Council](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-watchers-council.md) — the watchers motif meeting the council motif gives Watchers Council its distinctive charge. Read it through shared survival, place, stewardship, access, feedback, and unequal exposure to risk, with historical context, community meaning, and difference among traditions kept visible.
- [Starseed Collective](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-starseed-collective.md) — What makes Starseed Collective consequential is the meeting of cosmic belonging and mission meeting agency distributed across many members with inheritance, transmission, rupture, and the authority claimed by beginnings. The card preserves that meeting without universalizing it.
- [Disclosure Advocates](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-disclosure-advocates.md) — Disclosure Advocates is a way of encountering hidden knowledge crossing into public consequence meeting the advocates motif. Its Oracle use joins a coordinated collective actor with durable membership and aims to the question of signal, translation, reciprocity, consent, and the repair of misunderstanding.
- [MAHA Movement](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-maha-movement.md) — A contemporary U.S. health-policy movement combining concern about chronic illness, food systems, regulation, and institutional distrust.
- [Anti-Vaccine Movement](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-anti-vaccine-movement.md) — A changing set of movements opposing or questioning vaccination, shaped by risk perception, mistrust, identity, and misinformation.
- [Contactees](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-contactees.md) — the contactees motif placed within contact & communication is the engine beneath Contactees. As a coordinated collective actor with durable membership and aims, it reveals how a local image can carry system-scale consequences.
- [Military-Industrial Complex](../cards/factions/sfoc-factions-military-industrial-complex.md) — Seen closely, Military-Industrial Complex is about the military motif, the industrial motif, and the complex motif acting together under conditions of authority, secrecy, classification, benefit, coercion, appeal, and the practical right to leave. That frame makes its gift, shadow, and limits readable together.
