Fiction:Tenet/Orientation

Welcome to the Criterion 4 Strategic Initiative. You are now one of billions devoted to the research, defeat, and ultimate demolition of the occulted nation-state known as the Tenet Kingdom, as well as all other proxy nation-states employed by the Prime Criterion.

Your entry into SI:C4 signifies that you have already been briefed on the nature and significance of each of the Prime Criteria. It is the nature of the Prime Criterion to remain hidden. Its greatest strength lies not in its paracausal ontomorphic capabilities but in secrecy. If it were to be revealed openly, either by its own efforts or another's, the resulting war would not only damage its structures but would also decimate the sophont populations it depends on to exist. The high degree of collateral damage makes any direct action against the Prime Criterion unfeasible at this time.

The Prime Criterion also understands this risk. As such, when a situation calls for its intervention, it must act through proxies. This is the basis of Criterion 4.

These proxies take the form of spacefaring nation-states ideologically enslaved, often through religious means, to the Prime Criterion. These proxies are also very often as secretive as the Prime Criterion. Characteristics common to all C4 civilizations include: an autocratic and/or theocratic government that derives authority from divine mandate; a ubiquitous state religion espousing a dualistic cosmology; a philosophy of natural selection and rule by strength; a functional understanding of applied paracausal and/or ontomorphic phenomena, often to the exclusion of conventional technology.

Chiefest among these proxies is the Tenet Kingdom, often abbreviated to Tenet. It is the largest, the most powerful, and the most dangerous of the puppet states employed by the Prime Criterion. Thus, it is the main focus of SI:C4.

The Tenet and other C4 nation-states are the direct servants of the Prime Criterion and the primary enforcers of its will in conventional space. Eliminating them will deal a substantial blow to the Prime Criterion's power.

By the grace of the Monitors, we will be victorious.