# Taxonomy Justification

## Why Four Axes

The Oracle separates **Primary Class**, **Inquiry Domain**, **Material Mode**, and **Evidence State** because they answer different questions. Class asks what kind of thing a Tile is. Domain asks what question it illuminates. Mode asks which tradition or medium carries it. Evidence State evaluates one bounded claim. Collapsing these axes would make a fictional World appear less meaningful, an experiential report appear scientifically established, or a well-documented movement certify the hidden claims it circulates.

## Primary-Class Rule

A Tile receives exactly one Primary Class based on its most durable grammatical role in a sentence. A Technology is a repeatable capability; a Program deliberately coordinates action; a System persists beyond one actor; an Event makes a before and after; a Hypothesis explains observations. When a title could occupy two Classes, editors ask which role preserves the most distinct relationships and game use. Secondary interpretations belong in Domains, meanings, or graph edges rather than duplicate cards.

- **Forces (38/38):** Dynamics that recur across realities without requiring one bounded actor.
- **Cosmologies (34/34):** Models that explain the architecture, origin, or purpose of reality as a whole.
- **Beings & Roles (50/50):** Agents, intelligences, and recurring roles capable of choice or encounter.
- **Worlds & Places (36/36):** Environments, frontiers, sites, and constructed realities where action occurs.
- **Technologies (58/58):** Repeatable capabilities, methods, and engineered transformations.
- **Artifacts & Resources (30/30):** Object-like carriers of power, evidence, memory, or exchange.
- **Factions & Institutions (38/38):** Coordinated collective actors with durable aims, membership, or authority.
- **Programs & Operations (34/34):** Deliberate projects, missions, and covert or public operations.
- **Systems & Regimes (38/38):** Persistent rule environments that coordinate access, behavior, and value.
- **Events & Thresholds (36/36):** Transformations that create a meaningful before and after.
- **States & Experiences (46/46):** Conditions of mind, body, identity, or society that can be inhabited.
- **Myths & Storyworlds (26/26):** Narrative structures through which cultures organize possibility and fear.
- **Hypotheses & Lenses (16/16):** Competing explanatory models applied to ambiguous observations.

## Domains, Modes, and Claims

Domains are many-to-many and may change as research improves. Material Modes may coexist: a concept can have a documented historical record, a science-fiction lineage, and a political mythology. Evidence State never applies globally to a Tile. Each claim layer records its own status, summary, and source IDs.

## Maintenance Decision

Before adding a card, compare aliases, archetype, mechanism, evidence boundary, graph role, and visual silhouette. Merge terminology when these remain the same; create a new node only when at least three materially differ. Record any reclassification as a versioned migration so stable IDs and saved readings remain resolvable.
