Society
Secret Whaling
The Sky People conceal Air Whale harvesting from lower societies.
LOCKEDCultural Naming Architecture
Each Tribe will eventually receive a phonetic naming grammar designed around environment, psychology, articulation, and cultural identity. The naming system belongs to FALL-03. Individual story papers should consume names from those grammars rather than inventing unrelated phonetic styles.
WORKINGEconomy of Ascent
Altitude is partly an economic resource. Meaningful ascent requires scarce materials, technology, institutional access, successful pilgrimage, or some combination of these. Gas resources therefore participate directly in class structure.
WORKINGRiser Control System
Riser society is stabilized through two complementary behavioral mechanisms: fear of falling and promise of ascent. These are institutionalized through The Fallen and the Ascent Lottery.
WORKINGSky Governance and Legitimacy
The Sky People control much of the world's institutional power, but their authority cannot be understood only as raw coercion. Their legitimacy is intertwined with sacred ascent. The Sky People historically rose through the same Mountain rite that Crawlers still seek to complete.
WORKINGCanopy People
A people living within the vast living canopy who deliberately reject the rise/fall hierarchy. Their cultural answer is balance rather than ascent. They are not primarily revolutionaries. Their resistance is existential: they demonstrate that life need not be organized around climbing the hierarchy.
LOCKEDCrawlers
The lowest major social population. Many were born below and have never known the Sky firsthand. Crawler culture strongly associates ascent with transformation. The Mountain functions as a deeply religious and cultural pilgrimage route.
LOCKEDDesert Dwellers
A polar and underground people who reject atmospheric civilization, buoyancy dependence, and the ideology of ascent. Their stance includes active ideological resistance, not merely geographic isolation. They favor weight, anchoring, depth, and grounded technologies that remain functional where buoyancy fails.
LOCKEDMountain Tribe
Guides and custodians of the sacred ascent route. They preserve knowledge of the Mountain, its predators, paths, weather, terrain, and rites. They participate in a lawful institution rather than merely helping people evade authority. Their exact political relationship with Sky governance remains WORKING.
LOCKEDRisers
The middle economic population. They possess enough altitude to fear losing it but not enough to be truly secure. They harvest gases, work dangerous reef jobs, operate infrastructure, process resources, and participate in the promise that labor, compliance, luck, or institutional approval may eventually allow them to rise.
LOCKEDSky People
The high-altitude ruling caste. They control much of the advanced buoyancy technology, airspace, major resources, monitoring, transportation, and political authority. Their culture values control, stability, order, inherited altitude, and security while carrying a deep fear of falling. Internal status differences may exist, but the Sky People as a whole form the ruling class.
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