Great Sequence

Great Sequence is the ongoing undertaking of the Sequentialists to re-map the entirety of the Tower into a single, coherent numerical progression, supplanting the disordered floor numbers and names that presently obtain on most levels. First proposed in the Second Recension of the Delta Sequence Map, the Great Sequence has since become the principal object of contention between the Sequence Formalists and the Directorate of Sequence, and a recurring subject of amendment under the Third Concordance.

Origins and Authorization

The Great Sequence was inaugurated by the Manifesto of Unwavering Sequence, which formalized a philosophical rupture regarding sequence and ontology and declared that "no floor shall remain outside the count, and no count shall remain outside the floor" (Manifesto of Unwavering Sequence, Verse 3). The Directorate of Sequence was subsequently charged with assigning Chain Sequence Numbers to all Sequence-Locked Waybills generated by the effort, though the Directorate has elsewhere described these as "an ongoing nuisance" (Directorate of Sequence, Internal Minute 882). Early progress was recorded on the Delta Sequence Map, which the Directorate uses as its primary predictive instrument and which the Sequence Formalists regard as foundational.

Method of Re-Mapping

Under the Great Sequence, floors are catalogued according to The Phenomenological Sequence, wherein the Delta Sequence Map visualizes linkages between them rather than their physical adjacency. The Great Recataloguing (undertaken between 3,041 and 3,058) is held by the Sequentialists to have been a preliminary annealing of the record, though the Sequence Formalists dispute this, arguing that maintenance of sequence registries takes absolute precedence over any re-mapping and that the Great Recataloguing merely obscured the Principles of Sequence. A named clerk of the Scriptorium of the Lower Annex, one Berris Cald, lodged a grievance in 3,112 that his floor — numbered 7,004 but named The Quiet Stair — had been assigned three incompatible positions in successive drafts, a dispute settled only by citing the Third Concordance, which contradicted the Fifth Concordance on the matter of provisional numbering.

The Omega Sequence and Sequestration

Documents encountered during the Great Sequence that resist placement are referred to the Omega Sequence, into which they are placed if they are "Sequestered" by the Kilgore Sequence. The Directorate of Sequence jointly administers the Triplicate Waybill with the Office of the Sealed Aperture and inscribes the Chain Sequence Number thereon; however, the Great Redaction of floor 2,119 removed all reference to the sequestration of forty-one such documents, and their current position in the Great Sequence remains unverified. The Great Tone is rung upon the sealing of any floor into the Omega Sequence, a practice the Sequence Formalists have formally criticized as "acoustic interference with the registries" (Second Concordance, Annex 9).

Disputes and Contradictory Concordances

The Great Sequence is referenced in no fewer than eleven Concordances, several of which are mutually incompatible. The Third Concordance holds that "the Great Sequence shall terminate at the floor bearing the highest assigned number," while the Fourth Concordance asserts that "termination occurs when no further floor can be enumerated, irrespective of number" (Fourth Concordance, Clause 12). The Directorate of Sequence, in its Commentary on the Delta, observes that the Delta Sequence Map serves as a predictive tool and therefore anticipates a terminus that "no living Librarian has cause to visit." The Great Western Spiral and the Great Northern Spiral are both cited by the Sequentialists as evidence of sequence-continuity across non-adjacent levels, a claim the Sequence Formalists reject on the grounds that spirals are not registries.

Present Status and Incidents

As of the 19th hour of the 17th of Nimbus, 11,304, the Great Clock initiated the standard annealing sequence, an event recorded by the Great Bell of the Great Clock and taken by the Sequentialists as confirmation that the Great Sequence was "in motion within the Tower itself." The Echo Preceding the Great Dimming is catalogued as a related phenomenon, though the Directive 187: Regarding the Great Dimming makes no mention of the Great Sequence. A maintenance note of floor 4,402 states that visitors to the Sequentialist scriptorium may not bring open flames, as the sequence-tables are inscribed on cured reed and contract under heat. The Great Re-shelving of the Ante-Chamber in 3,057 is the most recent recorded physical adjustment attributed to the Great Sequence, though the Great Calcification Event (1911) is occasionally miscited as its cause by junior clerks of the Office of the Sealed Aperture.