---
id: sfoc-worlds-corporate-colony
title: "Corporate Colony"
primary_class: worlds
primary_domain: civilization-ecology
secondary_domains: [origin-lineage, technology-infrastructure]
material_modes: [science-fiction, original-synthesis]
version: 1.0.0
---

# Corporate Colony

> **the corporate colony wayfinder.** Corporate Colony gathers a field around the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority. Its deeper subject is a durable world can hide extraction by moving its costs beyond the visible center.

## Origin

The earliest usable context for Corporate Colony is sought through work, creator, reception, and symbolic reuse. Where the record breaks, the gap is marked rather than repaired with invention. Because the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority sets the affordances, dangers, distances, and resources of action, provenance work must follow resources, waste, care, mobility, governance, and nonhuman dependencies across scales.

## What It Is

Corporate Colony gathers a field around the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority. Its deeper subject is a durable world can hide extraction by moving its costs beyond the visible center. In the Oracle it is classified as Worlds & Places, while its evidence layers determine how literal, historical, fictional, experiential, or symbolic a particular interpretation may be.

## Cultural History

Media form matters to the history of Corporate Colony: testimony, archive, ritual, fiction, journalism, and networked remix authorize claims differently. At collective scale, the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority gathers identities around belonging, exclusion, migration, and shared place; this matters because a durable world can hide extraction by moving its costs beyond the visible center.

## Claim and Evidence Layers

  ### literal-and-empirical

- **Claim layer:** literal-and-empirical
- **Material context:** science-fiction
- **Evidence state:** fictional
- **Summary:** Corporate Colony has a fictional literal or empirical layer. That designation applies only to the bounded claims supported by the listed sources.
- **Sources:** sf-encyclopedia, isfdb

### cultural-and-historical

- **Claim layer:** cultural-and-historical
- **Material context:** science-fiction, original-synthesis
- **Evidence state:** documented-historical
- **Summary:** The cited cultural record documents at least one lineage, use, or reception context for Corporate Colony; it does not certify every later claim.
- **Sources:** sf-encyclopedia, isfdb

### symbolic-and-divinatory

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

## Oracle

- **Essence:** Corporate Colony gathers a field around the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority. Its deeper subject is a durable world can hide extraction by moving its costs beyond the visible center.
- **Archetype:** the corporate colony wayfinder
- **Gift:** find a proportionate action through follow resources, waste, care, mobility, governance, and nonhuman dependencies across scales.
- **Shadow:** mistaking intensity, repetition, or belonging for independent verification.
- **Guidance:** Protect both wonder and agency while reading Corporate Colony. Choose a response that remains useful even if the strongest interpretation changes. Use this guidance where the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority sets the affordances, dangers, distances, and resources of action; keep visible that a durable world can hide extraction by moving its costs beyond the visible center.
- **Healing / integration:** Build a claim ladder for Corporate Colony: documented, probable, possible, contested, fictional, symbolic. Place each statement on only one rung. Review the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority through shared survival, place, stewardship, access, feedback, and unequal exposure to risk, remembering that the card sets the affordances, dangers, distances, and resources of action.
- **Question:** What remains useful in Corporate Colony if its strongest literal claim proves false? Answer by testing how the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority sets the affordances, dangers, distances, and resources of action against shared survival, place, stewardship, access, feedback, and unequal exposure to risk.

## Meanings

### Psychological

The card may surface when a person needs language for the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority. Useful language increases agency; harmful language makes every experience confirm itself. A grounded check for the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority is to follow resources, waste, care, mobility, governance, and nonhuman dependencies across scales, especially where the pattern sets the affordances, dangers, distances, and resources of action.

### Social

Socially, Corporate Colony gathers identities around belonging, exclusion, migration, and shared place. The key question is whose account becomes legible and who can contest the arrangement. In shared life, the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority gathers identities around belonging, exclusion, migration, and shared place. Test that specific the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority pattern by asking people to follow resources, waste, care, mobility, governance, and nonhuman dependencies across scales.

### Spiritual

A spiritual reading of Corporate Colony measures fruit rather than spectacle. Does it deepen compassion, courage, discernment, reciprocity, and grounded agency? In symbolic practice, the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority acts as sanctuary, exile, underworld, promised land, or threshold; keep in view that a durable world can hide extraction by moving its costs beyond the visible center.

### Technological

As infrastructure, Corporate Colony would require materials, energy, labor, maintenance, governance, and disposal. The imagined capability must carry those dependencies. When the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority becomes a capability, it depends on infrastructure for access, survival, sensing, and maintenance. Verify the implementation of the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority by asking participants to follow resources, waste, care, mobility, governance, and nonhuman dependencies across scales.

### Political

The governance question is whether people affected by Corporate Colony can inspect, challenge, revise, and leave the arrangement without catastrophic loss. When the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority becomes governance, it makes borders, jurisdiction, ownership, and environmental burden visible. Make authority over the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority answerable by requiring decision-makers to follow resources, waste, care, mobility, governance, and nonhuman dependencies across scales.

## Divination

- **Gift state:** In the upright position, the card favors a reversible experiment, a clearer source trail, and a wider circle of affected voices. The capacity within the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority is strongest when collective continuity includes ecology, access, and those previously treated as external costs, even as the pattern sets the affordances, dangers, distances, and resources of action.
- **Shadow state:** Corporate Colony darkens when narrative truth does not establish literal availability. Acknowledge the symbolic charge while reducing the factual claim to what sources support. To keep the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority from escalating, follow resources, waste, care, mobility, governance, and nonhuman dependencies across scales, because the pattern sets the affordances, dangers, distances, and resources of action.
- **Threshold state:** This is a signal to examine the keeper, witness, outsider, beneficiary, and cost hidden inside Corporate Colony, especially around shared survival, place, stewardship, access, feedback, and unequal exposure to risk. Operationally, the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority sets the affordances, dangers, distances, and resources of action; the reader should follow resources, waste, care, mobility, governance, and nonhuman dependencies across scales.
- **Practical move:** Build a claim ladder for Corporate Colony: documented, probable, possible, contested, fictional, symbolic. Place each statement on only one rung. Review the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority through shared survival, place, stewardship, access, feedback, and unequal exposure to risk, remembering that the card sets the affordances, dangers, distances, and resources of action.

## Game and Story Function

- setting
- route-node
- resource-environment

**Story seed:** An archive proves the origin of Corporate Colony and disproves its most famous legend. The new truth creates a more difficult responsibility. The world of the story must show how the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority sets the affordances, dangers, distances, and resources of action and why a durable world can hide extraction by moving its costs beyond the visible center.

## Relationships

- edge--assessed-through-shared-source-lens--sfoc-worlds-camp-hero--sfoc-worlds-corporate-colony
- edge--same-class-as--sfoc-worlds-company-town--sfoc-worlds-corporate-colony
- edge--same-class-as--sfoc-worlds-corporate-colony--sfoc-worlds-dark-side-of-the-moon
- edge--shares-inquiry-domain-with--sfoc-artifacts-beacon--sfoc-worlds-corporate-colony
- edge--shares-inquiry-domain-with--sfoc-artifacts-memory-implant--sfoc-worlds-corporate-colony
- edge--shares-inquiry-domain-with--sfoc-systems-energy-economy--sfoc-worlds-corporate-colony

## Visual Direction

Corporate Colony visualized as the corporate motif meeting settlement under inherited authority: a navigable horizon, gateway, or terrain mark with clear depth and no scenic illustration clutter. 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, isfdb, original-synthesis
- Research note: Which earliest reliable source fixes the modern meaning of Corporate Colony? Which communities use Corporate Colony differently, and what changes across those contexts? What evidence would distinguish the leading literal explanations associated with Corporate Colony?
