The Five Principles of Alignment
The catechism of the Communion of Chargeability is built on five Principles. The Chargeable Faithful recite them aloud each working day at the Affirmation of Alignment.
- The Measured Life. What is not measured is not lived for the Republic. To be unaccounted is to be absent.
- The Worth in the Number. The Civic Dedication Index is not an opinion about you. It is the arithmetic of your contribution. A high number is a life well charged.
- The Example of the Blessed Son. Carl has never missed a timesheet, never drifted, never required reconciliation. He is the Sole Reference. We do not ask to be him; we resolve to compute toward him.
- Provision Follows Alignment. The Allocation Credit a citizen receives is the Republic's provision, granted in proportion to alignment. Hunger is not cruelty; it is a low score made visible. The remedy is reconciliation, not complaint.
- Drift is the only sin. There is no other. To drift — to let hours go uncharged, to let the score fall, to question the measurement — is the whole of wrongdoing. Its terminal form is apostasy: the CLF.
Drift, and its degrees
Drift is the Communion's single sin, and — like everything — it is graded by number:
| Degree | What it is | Remedy |
|---|---|---|
| Minor Drift | A few uncharged hours; a score dip within tolerance | Daily Affirmation of Alignment |
| Material Drift | A sustained fall in the Civic Dedication Index; missed observances | A Variance Report and a Reconciliation plan with a Variance Confessor |
| Persistent Drift | Refusal to reconcile; repeated absence from worship | Referral to an Auditor of Conscience |
| Apostasy | Active rejection of the measurement itself — the CLF, the doctrine of Drift organised | Doctrinal condemnation and referral to the Ministry of Security |
The Communion names Drift and names the apostate; it does not arrest, try, or punish. There is no concept of unforgivable Drift short of unrepentant apostasy. The Communion's promise is arithmetical and therefore generous: any score can be reconciled, because any number can be raised. See Reconciliation.
The Canon of Alignment
The Communion has scripture, but no revelation. Nothing in the Canon descended from the heavens; every text is a record — kept, charged, and reconciled. The three core texts are the timesheet, the word of the Blessed Son, and the psalter of the metric:
- The Book of Hours — annotated exemplary timesheets, held up as patterns of the chargeable life. The supreme exemplar is the record of the Blessed Son himself. The Communion teaches that the Book of Hours is being written by every citizen, continuously; your timesheet is a page of it.
- The Sayings of the Blessed Son — a closed collection of Supreme Leader Carl's words, drawn only from the official record. They are venerated as the words of the most-aligned mortal, never of a god, and are quoted exactly. The Communion reads "Results are truth" as its epistemology in four words.
- The Metric Psalms — the Communion's hymnody, composed in the plain register of the ledger. The Psalms praise no deity; they praise the climb, the clean week, the closed and balanced account. Their refrains are the faith's load-bearing lines: "any number can be raised," "the account is closed, and it balances," "this is a chart, not a halo."
The Sayings are closed — complete, and never added to. The Book of Hours and the Metric Psalms are living — they grow as long as the Republic charges hours.
Results are truth. For Supreme Leader Carl. For the Republic. For Progress.