v0.21: vocations.md + consent-discipline.md (vocation-system + consent-spine)

Mid-session checkpoint — late-evening paper-pair following the design-dialog
that articulated the end-to-end imperial-system architecture.

PAPER 1 — identity-and-personhood/vocations.md (NEW v0.2, ~440 lines)

The vocation-system paper. Codifies the substrate-level mechanic for how NPCs
and players accumulate capability through doing, gravitate toward tasks via
trait-alignment, and produce outcomes. Three substrate principles: adaptation-
as-substrate (anti-fixed-class; D&D class-lock and imperial vat-class as same
primitive at different layers); trait-emergent capability (identity-politics
extends to capability-politics); mathematical politics (the progression curve
geometry encodes the world's political claims).

Three primitives: task catalogue (designer content; bound to zones / events /
interactions / workstations) + trait-task affinity (which NPC gravitates to
which task) + hidden per-task measurement (skill-by-doing; no UI; Souls-
discipline). Outcome formula: trait-engagement-points × hidden-task-stat
(multiplicative; trait-zero zeros the work — cannot grind capability with no
inner alignment). Depletion-pool malus targeting trait-points (not skill);
recovery via time-decay + opposite-axis-practice (the wheel's oppositional
pair geometry gains its third load-bearing role at the skill-progression
layer). Trait-pools as per-trait micro-grammar of macro-lifeforce; director
becomes parental-rotator by mathematical necessity.

The catalogue stack (resources × production-chains × tasks → imperial-demand-
catalogue) feeding the three-tier policy loop. Daily-ledger pacing as the
imperium's attention-budget made structural; demand-ledger / actions-ledger
split formalizes the specter-vs-boot asymmetry. Player-vs-NPC asymmetry
(NPCs follow shift-arbitration; player chooses; the slum keeps the choice;
the imperium takes it).

The 24h window-partition: work-shift / charging / leisure as state-machine-
clean phases with typed-breakout-flags. Same architectural pattern as
imperial-event encapsulation (cheap baseline + typed-interrupt) at a third
scale. Caste-stratification of windows as third axis of caste-as-stagnation:
slum-tiryak 10/4/10 / asura-priest 12/4/8 / deva-pinnacle 6/4/14 / preta-
overseer 16/4/4. The cosmology's no-haven discipline gains its diurnal
grammar — how many hours per day belong to the agent themselves is an axis
of caste-as-stagnation. Vocation-as-emergent-task-pattern (companion / sex-
worker / tongue-installer / drug-composer / underground assembler-artisan /
post-rogue mod-vocation / player-stalker imperial-going-rogue all named as
patterns the system reads in task-history rather than class-identities the
world assigns).

PAPER 2 — style/consent-discipline.md (NEW v0.1, ~270 lines)

The third style-spine document, sibling to trait-palette.md and gender-
parity.md. Spine rule: consent-discipline scales with what the action
touches. Two-register cosmology (gameworld vs truth-register) with consent
as boundary-enforcement. Four hardstop-pattern variants: self-only (Variant
1) / dual mutual (Variant 2) / triple with partner-witness (Variant 3) /
cooldown-augmented (Variant 4 layered atop any of 1-3).

The mirror-discipline as architectural truth-floor: no consent — neither
single, dual, nor triple — can authorize the modification of another agent's
in-between mesh. The trait-grown summary of who an agent has actually been
must be untouchable across all agents, including the imperium. The mirror
discipline binds the imperium too.

The temporal-grammar (citing vocations.md's window-partition): imperial-
imposition lives in the work-window; somatic-necessity lives in the charging-
window; full NPC consent-agency lives in the leisure-window. The shift-
assignment consent question dissolves — consent is relocated to where it
already structurally lives, not added as a new layer.

The going-rogue right-to-refuse: refusal is not a violation of consent-
discipline; it IS the consent-discipline. The most basic expression of
the right-to-refuse; defection is its terminal one. Composes with the
post-rogue mod-vocation cascading-liberation pattern.

The inquisition-trigger upper-pressure: legitimate consent that nonetheless
reveals imperial control-loss triggers asura-priesthood-led counter-arc.
The architecture acknowledges that consent in the truth-register can render
imperial control structurally illegible to the imperium, and the imperium
responds with its highest-tier mechanism not to punish the consent but to
attempt to re-impose imperial-readability.

The register-test as the spine's executable form: 5-question mechanical
procedure runnable by an LLM-Compositor as an action-resolution hook. The
three style-spines now compose orthogonally with three executable tests
(trait-palette consistency-check; gender-parity substitution-test; consent-
discipline register-test) running at the schema layer rather than via author-
vigilance.

ARCHITECTURAL ARTICULATION

The two cosmological claims now compose orthogonally rather than implicitly:
no-haven describes the world the imperium has built; "there is no instrument"
describes what consent-discipline preserves WITHIN that world. The cosmology
is total in extent; the truth-register is sovereign in interiority. Both
true at once.

CROSS-REFERENCE INTEGRATION

style/style-index.md v0.2 → v0.3 (third canonical sub-guide registered).
identity-and-personhood/bodies.md v0.6 (cross-references row updated; no
forthcoming-tag remains). identity-and-personhood/architecture.md v0.8.1
(§The genital-mod track three-stage-install description now cites the
spine's Variant 4 nomenclature explicitly).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

style/style-index.md

@@ -35,6 +35,7 @@ When in doubt, ask: *does this color carry trait-information, or is it decorativ
 |---|---|---|
 | [`trait-palette.md`](./trait-palette.md) | The 8 traits on the color wheel, 4 oppositional pairs at 180°, schoolchild-descriptions, motion-signatures | ✓ canonical (v0.1) |
 | [`gender-parity.md`](./gender-parity.md) | The gender-parity-by-default rule for body / sex / intimacy / clasp / service-body / going-rogue / outcast-pair / re-vat content; the three load-bearing-asymmetry exception cases; the four default-leakage failure modes; the substitution-test as the contract's executable form | ✓ canonical (v0.1) |
+| [`consent-discipline.md`](./consent-discipline.md) | The consent-spine: the gradient that scales with what the action touches; the four hardstop-pattern variants (self / dual / triple / cooldown-augmented); the mirror-discipline that absolutely forbids mesh-modification of other agents; the temporal-grammar (24h window-partition); the right-to-refuse imperial-imposition (going-rogue temporal-breakout); the inquisition-trigger upper-pressure; the register-test as the spine's executable form | ✓ canonical (v0.1) |
 | `typography.md` | Text rendering, hierarchy, no-textbox commitment, the white-as-text-only semantic-slot | TODO |
 | `shaders-by-register.md` | Three-shader philosophy: gameworld PBR / liminal blur / imperial-net emission; clasp candlelight-in-fog override; clasp color-merge | TODO |
 | `body-feedback.md` | NPC body-pulse rules during gesture-alignment; trait-flash event-vocabulary; cross-cycle trait-drift rendering | TODO |
@@ -59,4 +60,4 @@ The trait-palette is referenced from many architectural primitives. When `trait-
 
 ---
 
-**Version:** 0.2 | **Created:** 2026-04-26 | **Updated:** 2026-04-27
+**Version:** 0.3 | **Created:** 2026-04-26 | **Updated:** 2026-04-27