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."*

---

## 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.

---

## 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"

---

## 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)

---

## 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)

---

## 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`

---

## 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.

---

## 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`

---

## 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** |

---

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