Concept · Every scale
The two-pole rule
Every running Third carries a Tending pole, where it runs stronger, and a Fraying pole, where it runs weaker; neither is good or evil in itself. If only one pole is visible, the zoom is too tight — widen until both appear. The Infinite Boundary has none by the same rule widened: a pole is read from somewhere outside, and there is no outside there; a stopped pattern has none either, since nothing is running.
Lineage
- Grows out of
- The Standing Thirds
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 Infinite Boundary — Cosmos ScaleThe one figure with no healthy pole and no failing pole. A pole has to be read from somewhere, and there is nowhere outside this one to stand.