The Definitive Country Almanac: The Living Worlds Movement — Part 2#

Kethra Almanac • Approved 19 September 2026 • drafted 19 September 2026 • Sections 5–8 (Sections 1–4 are in Part 1)

Status: approved. Briana approved the whole almanac on 19 September 2026 (the Almanac Approval Decision). Where this file calls something a proposal, read it as approved, except the open points that decision lists.

Status before approval: proposal throughout, except what Part 1 lists as established in earlier files.

Section 5: Government, Law & Politics#

Constitutional Framework#

The Convention#

The Tideward League#

• A party, with 52 of 420 seats in the Hall of Voices elected in 2311 (the Crown almanac), a leader, whips and a manifesto written at Corran Mouth.
• What it is to the Movement. The Who's Who says "Its Crown political arm is the Tideward League"; Chapter V says the Movement is "A political force in the Hall of Voices, through the Tideward League party"; the Crown almanac says the Tideward League is "Close to the Living Worlds Movement". All three are right: the Tideward League is the Movement's registered party in the Crown, founded by it in 2291, funded by it, and separate from it in law, as a Crown party must be.
• The Hall's arithmetic (the Crown almanac): 420 seats; a majority is 211; the Charter–Guildist coalition has 205 and governs with the Southern Accord's 19 on confidence and supply, "which gives it 224 in practice"; "The Seeding Limits Bill divides the Charter Party itself."

The Seeding Limits Bill#

The Bill "would make the boundary of the Corran Wild permanent and cap net new seeding in the Crown" (the Crown almanac). Its clauses, as introduced in 2313 (proposal):

The vote is open. The second reading is in Reaping 2314. (Do not settle it in a scene.)

The Judiciary#

• The Charter Court, whose docket "is two years behind" (the Crown almanac), hears seeding charters; the Movement's Wild Watches file objections to every one, which is part of why.
• The Continuance Circle was outlawed by the Crown in 2306 under the law of conspiracy against chartered works (proposal). Its members are tried at the Assizes, before a jury of twelve (the Crown almanac), and held in the Keeps. Nineteen have been convicted since 2306; none for the Wendford deaths, which no court has laid to a name.
• The Movement's own court is the Convention's roll: to be struck from it is the only sentence it has.
• Elsewhere: legal in the Seven, the coast states and the Line ports; no parties in the Imperium (the Vardane almanac), where a Worlder is a foreigner with a pamphlet; the Holds have no law against it and no interest.

Foreign Relations & Defence#

Standing#

The Movement has no foreign relations. It has the Bill, the Seven who fear it, and a planet that has not noticed.

Relations#

The Continuance Circle row follows the relationship register, in both directions.

Defence#

None. The Movement's only force is the fire lines: about 60,000 Wild Watch volunteers each ember season, on the fire lines of Eldvang under the Holds' own Reach fire watches (the Southern Holds almanac), and never under their own command. The Hedge Rule: no hand against a person; no fire but the Hedge's own.

The Continuance Circle#

Established: "Small and covert"; "Outlawed"; it "sabotages seeding works and threatens charter companies" (Chapter V). The register's profile is in Part 1's status list. Everything else is proposal.

Section 6: Economy, Infrastructure & Industry#

Macroeconomics#

Working. 2,100,000 × Cr 85 ≈ Cr 178 million.

The seeding economy, as the Movement reads it#

• A seeding charter is the right to convert native land and own the result (Chapter II); "Every frontier dispute ends up being about a seeding charter." A field takes about thirty years to full yield (the Introduction), financed by the capital's banks.
• Seeding-charter futures trade on the Aletheia Exchange, "a capital gamble" (the Crown almanac); they fell 14% the week the Bill was introduced (proposal).
• Phosphate is the Seeding's debt: Earth crops need it, Kethra keeps little, the Imperium mines about 78% of it, and wasting it is a crime (the Introduction, the Vardane almanac, Chapter III). The Movement's Fellows say the Seeding is limited already, by the Imperium's price, and that the Bill would only make the limit ours.
• Wild bread (the Wild-press's bread, Cr 0.60 against barley bread's Cr 2.40: Chapter VI) is poverty's bread in the capital; Worlders eat it at the Convention on purpose.

Industry#

None. The Movement makes registers, reports and objections.

Infrastructure#

Communications#

• The Second World, the Movement's weekly, on the Weave and in print; the Tidewards read it, and The Aletheian Record, "the Stair's voice. Charter-leaning" (the Crown almanac), answers it.
• The Wild Watch registers, copied to Hollin every year.
• The Hedge-call, which every Wild Watch will answer, and which the Circle has never used.

Section 7: Culture, Arts & Daily Life#

Holidays & Celebrations#

Culinary Traditions#

Wild bread, on purpose. "Never offer Wild bread to a guest" is the capital's rule (the Crown almanac); the Convention offers it to every guest, and the Charter Party's observers eat barley bread they bring themselves. Otherwise the Movement eats as its members do, which is as the Crown does.

Arts & Literature#

• Two Living Worlds (2268), by Dilys Uche: forty pages, and the Movement.
• The Long Gate (AL 2207), by Tomas Ash, "now read as prophecy" (the Crown almanac): the Movement's other founding text, written before it.
• The Brightening Report (2311): the numbers.
• The Hollin Survey of the Crown's Lands, every ten years, latest AL 2310 (the Crown almanac): where the Creep is.
• Glassmoths, which catch Hyperion's light "like stained glass" and are "A common image in capital art" (the Introduction): the Movement's painters paint nothing else.
• Charter, the Holds' play of a charter-warden sheltering in an ember storm (the Southern Holds almanac), which the Movement stages every Convention with the ending changed.

Sports & Recreation#

Social Norms & Etiquette#

• "Which world?" "Both."
• Never call the Creep a plague. It is the planet reasserting itself.
• Offer Wild bread. The deliberate breach of the capital's rule.
• Answer "Good step" with "Lower every year."
• No hand against a person. A Worlder who is struck at the Hedge does not strike back; the Wild Watch register records it, and the Tideward League reads the register in the Hall.
• Never name the Circle except to disown it. The Convention's word for it is "the continuance", and it is said once a year.

Section 8: Appendices & Reference Materials#

Statistical Tables#

Working. The heat figures are interpolated from the Crown almanac's table (0.62% in 2250, 0.68% in 2279, 0.70% in 2291, 0.76% in 2314), which is worked from the spine's orbit; the closures from the Crown almanac's 22 (2250), 29 (2279), 33 (2291) and about 40 (2314). The Tideward League's 11 seats of 2301 fall between the columns.

The Continuance Circle's acts (2304–2314)#

Proposal throughout, Wendford's deaths included: Chapter V's "sabotages seeding works and threatens charter companies", given dates and places.

Gazetteer#

Every place below is on the interactive Atlas. The generated Register of the Living Worlds Movement lists them.

Bibliography#

In-world sources#

• Two Living Worlds (2268); The Charter of the Convention (2273); The Second World (weekly)
• The Long Gate (AL 2207), Tomas Ash; The Brightening Report (2311); The Hollin Survey of the Crown's Lands (AL 2310)
• The Seeding Limits Bill (2313), and the Seedwright Trust's reply
• The Wild Watch registers (2270–)
• Minutes of the Convention of 2306: the Disownment

Development sources#

• 00 - Spine and Status · Introduction · Chapter I · Chapter II · Chapter III · Chapter IV · Chapter V · Chapter VI
• 10 - Who's Who
• The Crown, the Lesser Crowns, the Imperium, Ilyr, the Assembly, the Southern Holds, the coast states, the Line ports, Vesper, the Guild and the Black Ledger
• The faction roster and the relationship register: the Movement's and the Circle's profiles, and their positions towards each other. Their entries towards the Helion Systems Authority, Ormath Industries and the Horizon Free Company are not used: none is on Kethra in AL 2314.
• Almanac structure supplied by Briana.

Guidance for AI actors#

• The Movement is not extremist, and is never written as if it were: that is the roster's instruction and this almanac's. Its members stand on the Hedge, count, vote and argue. The Continuance Circle is a different thing, outlawed, disowned, and small.
• Its argument is the spine's numbers. A Worlder can say "0.76% and rising", "20% brighter in a lifetime", "225 years", and be right. Their opponents do not dispute the numbers; they dispute what to do.
• The Bill is open. Do not settle the Reaping vote in a scene.
• Placement is canon. Briana approved it on 19 September 2026: the Movement and the Circle are on Kethra in AL 2314. Everything else in this almanac is still a proposal, and the register's later-era placement is not overruled.
• Three names for the church wing, the Movement and the party: a Steward belongs to the Cantorate's Stewardship school, not to the whole Cantorate; a Worlder is a member of the Movement; the Tideward League is its party, and its voters are Tideward League voters, never "Tidewards" (the Tidewards is always the district below the Stair). Many people are all three; none has to be.
• This almanac is approved. Briana approved the whole almanac on 19 September 2026 (the Almanac Approval Decision).