Emergence

Not to be confused with Emergenceology, the Ringing Vale discipline that studies how to perceive and act in such moments.

Definition

In Vale‑lore, an "emergence" is a situation in which there is no time to formulate or discuss plans; trained responses must be selected and executed immediately. Practitioners emphasize recognizing the moment and acting, not inventing strategy on the spot.

Context and Usage

Accounts trace the idea to the time of the Reconstitution, when a mixed group of newly sworn avout was beset by hostile locals in a remote desert outpost. Some among them had studied ancient martial disciplines; the pressure of that encounter forced them to act without deliberation. The concept was then cultivated within the tradition that became the Ringing Vale (Math), whose avout study when—not merely how—to use training.

In a later incident in Mahsht, a Ringing Vale fraa stated that his group "saw it as an emergence" when a mob turned violent. They intervened rapidly, used pre‑learned cues from military history to coordinate (e.g., a brief comparison to a specific cavalry maneuver), and created space to extract the target while minimizing further escalation. Their description stresses that, during an emergence, there is "no time … to think up plans," only to select a known pattern and execute it.

During the infiltration of the Daban Urnud, upon observing active preparations at the World Burner, a Valer identified the situation as an emergence. Four Valers immediately separated from their companions and covertly boarded using cold-gas thrusters, planning to remain hidden and act only when discovery or imminent launch forced a decision—or shortly before their air ran out—to give others time to find a way inside. Participants treated this as a textbook emergence: no time to confer, selection and execution of a trained pattern, and acceptance of high risk.

Valers describe the thick of an emergence as a moment when overlapping loyalties and obligations cannot be untangled in real time; one falls back on simple responses that arise from long practice. Teachers in the Ringing Vale refer to their study of such moments as Emergenceology. Common analogies include: - Swordfighting: the decision tree of cuts and parries becomes too vast to evaluate during a rapid exchange, so survival depends on trained pattern recognition and cues. - Complex board games: skilled human players succeed by “seeing the whole board,” detecting patterns, and applying rules of thumb rather than enumerating all branches. - The Teglon: some avout compare correct action in an emergence to grasping the whole pattern of The Teglon rather than building a solution move by move.

Practice and Debate

• Training and scope: Valers hold that the ability to decide correctly in an emergence must be cultivated over many years of disciplined practice and contemplation; it is not a license for novices to “trust their feelings.”
• Guardrails: Companions caution that invoking emergence should not be used to abandon disciplined reasoning. Some explicitly warn against forgetting Diax’s Rake or “behaving like a bunch of Enthusiasts,” i.e., letting zeal or preference displace sound judgment.

Related Terms

• Vale‑Lore: the broader Ringing Vale curriculum of martial arts, military history, strategy, and tactics within which "emergence" is a key idea.
• Ringing Vale (Math): the math whose avout formalized and train for emergences.
• avout: members of the mathic community; emergence is taught and applied by Valers among them.
• Reconstitution: the epoch in which the formative incident that inspired the idea is said to have occurred.
• Diax’s Rake: maxim against believing things because one wishes to; used as a check alongside emergence training.
• Enthusiasts: a cautionary label invoked in contrast to disciplined practice.
• The Teglon: geometric tiling challenge used as an analogy for whole‑pattern apprehension.
• Emergenceology: the Ringing Vale discipline focused on cultivating correct action in emergences.

Notes

• Valers sometimes employ terse historical allusions to communicate a whole plan instantly (e.g., naming a famous maneuver), consistent with emergence constraints.
• Descriptions distinguish between inflicting lasting injury and using techniques that only seem to hurt; the latter were asserted in one account to cause no clinical damage, though the experience is described as extremely painful.
• Terminology: “Emergenceology” is used in Ringing Vale teaching for the study and cultivation of action in emergences.
• The concept is presented through first‑person testimony and should be understood in‑world as a Ringing Vale teaching rather than a universal doctrine.