Holding IV, Enclave.
Kept Year 1 to Year 401.
Four Exemplars lead the Enclave. They are chosen for what they have done, not for their family, not by vote, and not by age.
Under them sit committees for education, defence, and cultural practice. Each answers to the four together and to no single one of them.
Sixty-one people have held the office in four centuries. The full roll is in this holding. The five below are named because their decisions or their objections are cited elsewhere in the Archive.
| Exemplar | Sat | Named for |
|---|---|---|
| Ilene Stellara Firstwake | Year 1 to Year 55 | Presided at the founding. Wrote the Charge. |
| Sael Anthek Coldchart | Year 107 to Year 152 | The objection to the search, Year 125. |
| Doru Marrenth Stonefast | Year 162 to Year 221 | Authorised the Toren Program, Year 178. |
| Mirren Stellara Farwatch | Year 225 to Year 280 | Closed the Toren Program, Year 242. The Zohiruta mark. |
| Vesh Ilketh Openhand | Year 269 to Year 328 | Three refused proposals on the standing order. The objection to settling, Year 293. |
How they are chosen
Sitting Exemplars raise a new one from among people the community already listens to. The governance record is blunt about it: the office confirms standing you already have, and an Exemplar who has to invoke the office to be heeded has already failed.
No fixed term. They serve until they die, are incapable, or step down. Nine have stepped down. We record withdrawals without prejudice and four of them carry the Exemplar’s own stated reason.
The Spelljammer
The Spelljammer holds no formal authority and a great deal of practical authority, roughly what a captain holds among a people whose ship is their whole world.
The Spelljammer answers to the Exemplars on where we go, and to nobody on how we get there.
Rhoan Ilketh Deepkeel has held the post since Year 269, the longest anyone has, and most of the training log in Holding I is his.
Why we keep the arguments
When an Exemplar decides something and someone objects, we file the objection next to the decision, in full, in the objector’s own words, and keep it as long as the decision stands.
The founding proceedings give the reason. Four people can be wrong together, and a record of decisions alone tells you nothing about what was weighed.
We have kept the practice without exception, including on matters the Exemplars would clearly have preferred to record as unanimous. If you want to know what was said against something, look next to it.
The register
Objections cited elsewhere in the Archive, in the words used.
On the search. Sael Anthek Coldchart, Year 125, against continuing the charting programme.
One hundred and twenty-four years. Three reports, none of which survived a second question. I do not say there is nobody to find. I say that a people who need to find their kin will produce reports of their kin whether or not any exist, and that this holding has no test that tells the two apart. I move that this assembly enter what result it would accept as an answer of no, and at what point the programme closes.
The programme continued. No such result was ever entered.
On the helm lock. Three Exemplars, against the bio-lock authorisation.
We accept the danger the lock is against. We object to what it reads. It does not test authority, which can be given and taken back. It tests species, which cannot. On any day this fortress holds no Remnari able to sit, she does not lift, whatever her condition and whoever is aboard. Enter that consequence with the authorisation instead of leaving it to be discovered.
On closing the Toren Program. Two Exemplars, against the termination order, Year 242.
The third ground is that we have not met the Dominion lately. We have not met them because the standing order of Year 1 tells this fortress to avoid every circumstance where we would. That rate measures our own obedience. It does not measure their strength, their position, or their intent, none of which this body has ever assessed.
On the standing order. Vesh Ilketh Openhand, Year 283, Year 290, and Year 299. Refused each time.
I move for one observation, once, at a range we choose, to establish what the Dominion actually is. Holding VI holds a name, a location, and seven passages logged at distance. It holds no assessment of their strength, their doctrine, or their intentions, and this body has turned down four centuries of chances to get one. Enter the refusal with some ground other than the age of the order.
On the grant of Elder credentials. Two Exemplars, Year 400, against extending Elder standing to the young Remnari from the Ground of Rolara.
He is young, he is not resident, and he is aboard perhaps twenty days in a year. Elder standing carries the restricted holdings, which include matters this body sealed and does not mean to reopen. Grant it in ten years and I will not object. I am asking what changes if we wait.
Carried three to one, one abstention. The ground entered for carrying it: the grant had been raised and set aside at three previous seatings with no reason recorded, and a fourth deferral would have required one.
The credential was issued. The record does not show it being handed over.
On settling the Ground. Vesh Ilketh Openhand, Year 293. Printed in On the Ground of Rolara.
On the Zeb Rock. Rhoan Ilketh Deepkeel, Year 269. Printed in The Marked Places.
A note on citations
Openhand’s three proposals are the most cited entries in the whole governance record. Fourteen citations stand against them. In eleven, the Exemplar citing them is refusing a fresh proposal on the ground that the matter was settled when Openhand raised it.
No ground beyond the age of the standing order appears in any of the fourteen.