Scene cadence (Pentad signs)

# Scene cadence (Pentad signs)

The **pentad sign** maps a scene into five-force space. Each sign is the high/low configuration of Fate, World, System, Theme, and Causality at that moment. The 32 signs, not the older three-force cube corners, are the states of scene cadence.

The first three bits still place a sign in one of eight **stored-force families**. This is a compact projection for colour, comparison, and sparse-data backoff; it is not a smaller ontology and it is not the Markov state.

### The eight sign families

| Key | Name | Forces | Description |
|-----|------|--------|-------------|
| **HHH** | **Epoch** | P↑ C↑ K↑ | Everything converges — threads resolve, characters transform, and the world's rules expand. A defining moment that reshapes the domain landscape. |
| **HHL** | **Climax** | P↑ C↑ K↓ | Threads resolve and characters transform within established world rules. The payoff of what's already been built — no new lore needed. |
| **HLH** | **Revelation** | P↑ C↓ K↑ | Threads pay off through world-building. The world's rules explain why things happened — lore unlocks resolution without personal transformation. |
| **HLL** | **Closure** | P↑ C↓ K↓ | Quiet resolution within established world rules. Tying up loose ends — conversations that needed to happen, debts paid, promises kept or broken. |
| **LHH** | **Discovery** | P↓ C↑ K↑ | Characters transform through encountering new world systems. No threads resolve — pure exploration, world-building, and possibility. |
| **LHL** | **Growth** | P↓ C↑ K↓ | Internal character development within established world rules. Characters train, bond, argue, and change through interaction — no new lore. |
| **LLH** | **Lore** | P↓ C↓ K↑ | Pure world-building without resolution or transformation. Establishing rules, systems, cultures, and connections for future payoff. Seeds planted in the world's structure. |
| **LLL** | **Rest** | P↓ C↓ K↓ | Nothing resolves, no one transforms, no new world concepts. Recovery and breathing room — quiet character deliveries and seed-planting. |

Theme then supplies the sign's register (Literal or Resonant) and Causality its bearing (Open or Fated), producing four signs inside each family. Scene generation samples independent per-force momentum transitions; the selected sign remains a compact target for all five forces.

The built-in matrix is a product of independent per-force momentum factors: each force is likelier to hold its sign than flip, with no presumed coupling between forces. Record-specific lagged couplings are measured from observed scenes and remain descriptive rather than a generation prior.

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