settled-reach/wiki/glossary.md

Wiki Glossary — The Settled Reach

Quick-reference for content authors. Canonical forms are bolded. Keep this document current: if you encounter a new drift form in a PR review, add it here.

Annotation prefixes:

• NOT: — drift forms and prohibitions. Do not use these variants.
• NOTE: — advisories and open-question placeholders. Guidance for authors while a decision is pending.

Triggered by Sprint 34 copy review incident where "Gatebuilder" was used instead of the canonical "Founders."

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Factions and Political Bodies

Concord Assembly — the governing body of the Reach. Headquartered at Gateway (GJ 244A / Sirius-equivalent). Issues the tractus. Regulates commerce through the Commission. The establishment faction. NOT: "the Concord" alone is not canonical as a standalone name. "the Assembly" is acceptable shorthand in established context.

The Commission — regulatory authority operating under the Concord Assembly. Certifies implant hardware, medical equipment, pharmaceutical production, and safety-critical manufactured goods. Tractus-denominated fees. No authority in Compact member systems. NOTE: Full formal name unresolved — see Q-095 in decisions/questions-content.md. Use "the Commission" until resolved. NOT: "Concord Commission," "Assembly Commission," "the Regulatory Commission," "Lattice Commission"

Compact of Westphalia — political-economic bloc based in the west_reach (dominant from hop 6+ outward). Issues the Mark. Members refuse gate energy opt-in (D-186) and operate the Compact Financial Exchange. Structurally opposed to tractus-zone compliance costs. NOT: "the Westphalia Compact," "Westphalian Compact," "the West Compact"

Gate Corporation — private monopoly holding all span gate component manufacturing and operational infrastructure. Not a government body. Functions as an independent economic actor. NOT: "Gate Authority," "the Gate Corp" (acceptable informal shorthand), "Gate Consortium"

The Syndics — loose affiliative bloc for independent commercial interests that align neither with the Assembly nor the Compact. Membership is non-exclusive. Many outer-corridor cooperatives and collectives carry "Sub-Syndic" designation. NOT: "Syndicate" (that term has shadow economy connotations in-world — use with care), "the Syndic" (singular is the title, not the bloc name)

The Institute — faction. See wiki/factions/index.md for full profile.

The Guardians — faction. See wiki/factions/index.md for full profile.

The Unbound — faction. See wiki/factions/index.md for full profile.

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Precursor Civilization

Founders — the precursor civilization that built the horizon stations. Canonical term in all contexts. NOT: Gatebuilders — obsolete. Do not use. (This was the Sprint 34 drift incident that created this glossary.) NOT: Builders — too generic. Only acceptable as shorthand mid-sentence when "Founders" is already established as the referent. NOT: Precursors as a proper noun — acceptable as a generic descriptor class for any precursor civilization, but NOT as the specific proper-noun name of this civilization.

horizon stations — the alien-built aperture installations. Always lowercase. Per-system canonical name is "The Ring." NOT: "Founder gates," "gate stations," "aperture stations"

The Ring — per-system canonical name for the horizon station in any given system. "Van Maanen's Star's Ring," "The Ring at Groombridge." NOT: "the ring gate," "horizon orbital," "aperture platform"

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Currencies

tractus — issued by the Concord Assembly. The Reach-wide standard currency and simulation numeraire. Lowercase in prose. NOT: "Tractus" (capitalize only in formal legal text or as the currency name appearing as a header/label — lowercase in running prose), "trac" (slang only, not formal)

Mark — issued by the Compact of Westphalia. Circulates in the Compact zone (west_reach hops 6+). Mostly refused outside Compact territory. Capitalize in all contexts. NOT: "the mark" (lowercase loses the political identity)

Sol — Earth legacy currency. Finite pool, no active issuer, no formal exchange rate. Shadow economy tender and premium Earth luxury import payment. Lowercase in prose. NOT: "SOL," "the Sol," "sols" (no plural form in canonical use)

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Corridors

These are the six canonical geographic/cultural corridors. Use the exact snake_case ID strings in TOML and code fields. Use naturalized forms in prose text.

ID string	Prose form	Cultural character
inner_corridor	inner corridor	Pan-corridor neutral. Core systems near Gateway. No strong cultural inflection.
north_reach	north reach	British/Australian cultural inflection. Surnames, place names, compound nouns.
east_reach	east reach	Korean/Japanese cultural inflection. East_reach anchor archetypes (D-175).
west_reach	west reach	German/Dutch/Nordic cultural inflection. Compact zone from hop 6+.
south_reach	south reach	Portuguese/Swahili cultural inflection.
frontier	the frontier	Sparse settlement. Founder surname + noun naming (e.g., "Vasquez Feeds," "Okafor Fabrication").

NOT: "the inner reach" (inner_corridor is the canonical ID), "far reach" (not canonical)

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Key Locations

Gateway — hub station at GJ 244A (the Assembly headquarters system). The corridor reference point: all hop counts are from Gateway unless otherwise stated. System ID: GJ 244A

Sirius — in-game, the informal name for GJ 244A. The Concord Assembly seat. Do not conflate with the real star Sirius; the game catalog uses GJ IDs as canonical keys. NOT: use GJ 244A as the system_id key in data records; "Sirius" is a display label only.

Groombridge — GJ 380. Inner core financial hub. Home of the Groombridge Settlement House (Reach-wide clearing), Meridian Risk Partners, and The Registry. System ID: GJ 380

Lendel — GJ 380c. The inner core capital. Primary settlement of the Groombridge system. Three major Tier-1 corporations are headquartered here. "Inner core" rather than "inner corridor" for Lendel specifically — it is the most central inhabited body in the Reach.

Sova Transit District — the canonical v0.1 setting (D-036). A freight logistics hub on Station Sova in Van Maanen's Star (GJ 35), also known as the Vuurkloof system. Working-class, pragmatic, 40-year-old prefab-modular-retrofitted freight district. NOT: "Sova District," "the Sova Hub," "Transit Sova"

Van Maanen's Star — GJ 35. Canonical in-game system name: Vuurkloof (Afrikaans: "fire ravine"). DG white dwarf. south_reach, hop 6 from Gateway. Through-route between Karoo (GJ 222A) and Kumasi (GJ 86). Wave_3 settlement, ~300 years. ~340K population on GJ35c (Vuurkloof) + Vuurkloof Horizon station. Industries: geothermal energy, hospitality, financial services. Station Sova is the primary logistics station. System ID: GJ 35 NOT: "Krenn System" — this drift originated in an old sprint briefing; not canonical. NOT: GJ 280A — wrong system ID.

Confluent — GJ 395. Deep west_reach, 10 hops from Gateway. F8V stellar spectrum. Headquarters of Vins de Grand Vide. Home of the Confluent wine estates. System ID: GJ 395

Calloway Reach — GJ 3325. North reach, 6 hops from Gateway (2-aperture loop). Headquarters of Calloway Distillery. Cold K-type star, cold-adapted barley terrain. System ID: GJ 3325

Braemar — GJ 475. North reach, 5 hops from Gateway (2-aperture loop). Headquarters of thrds. Brach herding and fiber production. System ID: GJ 475

Nyrheim — GJ 3737. North reach, Compact-affiliated. Headquarters of the Nyrheim Cooperative (including Bífröst Marmor quarrying division on Kvitfjell moon). System ID: GJ 3737

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Economics Terminology

tâtonnement — the price-adjustment algorithm in the economic simulation. The circumflex on the â is canonical. Always lowercase in prose. NOT: "tatonnement" (missing accents), "tatônnement" (wrong accent — ô is incorrect, canonical uses â)

Leontief — the input-output production model underlying the economic simulation (Layer 1). Always capitalized — it is a proper noun (named after the economist). NOT: "leontief" (lowercase), "Leontif" (misspelling)

brand layer — the simulation layer above tâtonnement that handles brand pricing via an administered pricing model. Two words, lowercase. NOT: "brand system," "luxury layer"

structural_scarcity_base — the scarcity floor parameter in the brand pricing model (D-190). Use the exact snake_case form in technical contexts.

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Economics Data Terminology (TOML / DB)

planet_class — canonical field name for body type classification in planet/body records. D-188 rename. NOT: biome_summary — obsolete field name, removed in D-188. Do not use in new content.

system_id — GJ catalog strings are the canonical identifiers for star systems in all data records. Format: GJ NNN, GJ NNNx for lettered multi-star components. Examples: GJ 244A (Gateway/Sirius), GJ 380 (Groombridge), GJ 35 (Van Maanen's Star / Vuurkloof) NOT: informal star names as system_id values. Common names (Sirius, Calloway Reach, etc.) are display labels only. The GJ catalog string is the key.

brand_category — the 8-value brand taxonomy used in TOML and DB records (D-189). Values: terroir · heritage_craft · tech_premium · cultural · service_premium · commodity_branded · design_heritage · platform_catalogue

scarcity_class — brand scarcity field (D-189). Values: capped · constrained · scalable · unlimited

value_trajectory — brand value-over-time field (D-189). Values: appreciating · depreciating · timeless

scale_tier — brand geographic reach field (D-189). Values: local · regional · reach_wide NOT: "reach-wide" (hyphenated), "global" (not used)

bloc_affiliation — corporation political alignment field in tier1.toml (D-175). Values: assembly · compact · syndic · independent

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Common Drift Forms (quick-reference NOT list)

Wrong form	Canonical form
Gatebuilders	Founders
Gatebuilder	Founders
Precursors (as proper noun)	Founders
biome_summary	planet_class
tatonnement	tâtonnement
Syndicate (as faction name)	the Syndics
the Westphalia Compact	Compact of Westphalia
Gate Authority	Gate Corporation
reach-wide (in code/TOML)	reach_wide
Krenn System	Vuurkloof (GJ 35)
GJ 280A (Van Maanen's)	GJ 35

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Maintained by Mellanie. Update when a new drift form appears in PR review. Last updated: 2026-04-12.