Concept · Every scale
Fusion depth
A Third's scale is what it is made of, not a category assigned to it: two selves running currents produce a dyad-scale Third; two dyads sharing a person produce a skein. The tiers of Part Five are composition, not ranking.
Lineage
- Grows out of
- The Standing Thirds
- Grows into
- Solving for the third leg
Where it appears
Treated in
- Part Five — The Standing ThirdsWhat a Third Is, and What It Isn'tA pattern that recurs reliably enough to be worth naming, with no will of its own. The four tests every figure has to pass, and why a tier measures what a Third is made of rather than its rank.
- Part Five — The Standing ThirdsThe Self-KinTwelve patterns one person generates alone, each with its Local Rule and both of its poles. Nothing sits underneath them, and every larger figure is built by fusing these.
- Part Five — The Standing ThirdsThe Dyad-KinNineteen two-person patterns, each one two Self-Kin meeting. Know any two of the three and the third follows, which means changing your own leg changes what the two of you make.
- Part Five — The Standing ThirdsThe Skein-KinEleven group patterns, each built from two Dyad-Kin that share a person — the mechanism by which a group becomes a thing rather than a list.
- Part Five — The Standing ThirdsThe Culture-KinSeven patterns slow enough that no single life sees one full turn — and, by the catalogue's own admission, its most provisional tier.
- Part Five — The Standing ThirdsThe World-KinThree figures, and only three, derived rather than chosen: two Culture-Kin sharing a Skein-Kin. The last tier where a push still reaches.