Powers That Be

First Appearance and Context

An extramuros artisan used the phrase as a catch‑all label for outside authorities during a questionnaire‑style exchange in the New Library near Apert. In that account, the “Powers That Be” were cited in connection with protecting roaming “Magistrate Doctors,” expanding public surveillance, and administering a temporary, non‑carceral spine‑clamp punishment that displays an offense in moving icons.

Later, locals used the term in two separate contexts: a fueling‑station attendant referred to the Powers That Be when explaining a region‑wide navigation‑satellite outage (expecting those authorities to restore service promptly, invoking “the military”), and a worker at an industrial machine hall said it seemed the Powers That Be were “leaning on” her boss to permit a large, urgent gathering on site. These reports reflect lay usage and should be treated as accounts rather than confirmations.

Role and Structure

The phrase is informal and nonspecific; it does not name a particular office or bureau. In mathic speech it corresponds broadly to the outside authority avout call the Sæcular Power. Usage suggests it encompasses both civil and military organs as perceived by locals, but specific chains of command are not identified in‑text.

Activities and Influence

• Surveillance: accounts describe the installation of public speelycaptor devices; who can review those feeds is not stated.
• Justice and penalties: outside authorities are said to impose a temporary spine‑clamp that hobbles the wearer and announces offenses in Kinagrams; after a fixed time it falls away.
• Protection of officials: reports claim efforts to safeguard roaming Magistrate Doctors have varied in effectiveness.
• Operational pressure: as inferred from a worker’s remark, the Powers That Be can exert pressure on private employers to enable urgent activities (treated as conjecture, pending explicit confirmation).
• Technical infrastructure: locals described the Powers That Be as depending on, and expected to fix, navigation‑satellite services during a widespread outage; the “military” was named in this context by an extra at a fueling station (reported usage, not a formal definition).

Relationships and Affiliations

• Mathic mapping: avout commonly map the colloquial phrase to the more formal concept of the Sæcular Power.
• Religious movements: some extras who interacted with avout belonged to arks (for example, groups identified with the Warden of Heaven); any equivalence between such movements and the Powers That Be is unproven and should be treated as conjecture.

Current Status

Active extramuros as a living, colloquial label for outside authorities. Recent accounts attribute to the Powers That Be both logistical influence over private actors and responsibility for maintaining critical technology, though specifics remain undefined in‑text.