Sæcular Power

Overview

The Sæcular Power is the outside authority that governs the worldly realm beyond mathic walls. Within the maths its formal communications are treated as legitimate and binding when delivered through established rites such as Voco (formal summons). In mathic usage, avout commonly use “Sæcular Power” as a convenient umbrella across eras and regimes; in the present day it is described as a federation of political units that roughly align with continents. Members of the avout (cloistered scholars) typically stand outside its legal system.

Purpose and Structure

• Non‑mathic governance: Recognized as the worldly authority in the Sæculum (worldly realm); particulars vary across eras, but the umbrella label remains useful for mathic discourse.
• Federation and borders: Travel is generally free within each federated unit, while crossings between units require documents that avout usually do not possess.
• Separate legal sphere since the Reconstitution: The Sæcular Power holds no records of avout, has no jurisdiction or responsibility over them, and cannot draft or tax them. Its officials do not enter concents except at Apert. It does not provide pensions or medical care to avout, and avout do not receive identity documents from it. Protection from mobs or armies may be offered at its discretion.
• Treaty and protected sites (described): The Inviolateness of the Precipice at Tredegarh is described as grounded in a longstanding arrangement between the mathic world and the Sæcular Power; the granite lobe beneath is said to be riddled with tunnels for storage of nuclear waste.
• Distinct from mathic oversight: Separate from the mathic Inquisition (disciplinary authority), which polices Discipline within and among concents.

Practices

• Rites and directives: Uses Voco to call avout into the Sæculum; when a rendezvous is named, the receiving concent can function as a Convox (authorized traveling group), enabling groups to travel while preserving elements of the Discipline. A contemporary dictionary notes that a Convox is normally celebrated at Millennial Apert (gate‑opening rite) or after a sack, but may also be convened in exceptional circumstances at the request of the Sæcular Power.
• Reported channels: Speakers describe messages reaching practical orders via the Reticulum (planetary network) with instructions to seed specific observation tasks, sometimes bypassing hierarchs. Others interpret this as a pragmatic way to obtain needed work “quietly.” These are recorded as speakers’ accounts and interpretations.
• Site control and emergency response (observed): At Orithena, authorities rapidly responded to the descent of a Geometers probe. Onlookers describe jamming of the Reticulum, commandeering and cordoning of the landing beach, imposition of site control with numbered collars and sampling teams, and then escorting avout to aerocraft for evacuation ahead of an advancing ash cloud. Quarantine procedures included chemical decontamination (hosing), biometric scans, issue of paper coveralls to be burned after use, distribution of rations, and segregation of groups for interviews and phototyping.

Known Associations

• Concents: Formal calls are received in the Mynster; recent movements involved departures from the Concent of Saunt Edhar and a gathering at Tredegarh under a Convox framework.
• Practical orders and intermediaries: Practical brethren are cited in accounts as receiving or relaying discrete tasks; attribution remains in‑character and partially interpretive.
• Convox assemblies (observed/inferred): Sæcular attendees are present in visitors’ naves during formal mathic auts (ritual services) such as Inbrase. Observers infer a parallel cabinet of high Sæcular officials (“Panjandrums”) operating alongside mathic hierarchs during Convox proceedings, separated by screens.

Recent Activity

• Logistics and public order: Large military convoys moving toward the far north disrupted normal harbor routines and street life in Old Mahsht; civilian lodging overflow and ad hoc crowd control followed as officials prioritized convoy throughput.
• Spacecraft encounter decisions (as described): In a leaked speely recorded aboard a state capsule, onlookers credit the Sæcular Power with sending a single representative—referred to by shipboard personnel as “the Warden of Heaven”—to meet the Cousins after the visitors requested that “one” be sent. Communications with the capsule were jammed during parts of the encounter; subsequent commentary by speakers debates motives and implications rather than offering confirmed attributions.
• Information control (attributed by speakers): Speakers report that “the Powers That Be” curtailed much of the Reticulum to limit the spread of the leaked speely; some speakers equate this with Sæcular authorities, though responsibility is not established in‑text.
• Orithena probe landing and response (observed): At Orithena, authorities rapidly responded to the descent of a Geometers capsule. Onlookers describe jamming of the Reticulum, imposition of site control with collars and sampling teams, and then escorting avout to aerocraft for evacuation ahead of an advancing ash cloud. Due to suit isolation and jamming, soldiers initially appeared unaware of a recovered body from the capsule; this is recorded as an observation from on‑site witnesses.
• Convox Plenary at Tredegarh (observed): Sæcular crews staged a public dialog in a nave using outside equipment (scaffolds, a raised platform, projection screen, and lighting), and officials attended. A ministry staffer identified himself as Emman Beldo and referenced his doyn, “Madame Secretary” Ignetha Foral. Sæcular attendees voiced an emphasis on addressing “the threat,” while mathic participants pursued theorical lines of inquiry. Observers also allude to a mission brief from Sæcular authorities guiding the Convox.

Status

Active and engaged. Formal calls continue to be treated as binding when properly delivered, while implementation involves outside logistics, intermediaries, and (by speaker account) selective use of reticular channels.