Intent

Definition and scope

Intent is the standard unit of motive by which the Tower records, measures, and disputes the purposes of persons and things within it. It is held to be neither a wish nor an act but the interval between them, and the Librarians have accordingly spent several centuries arguing over whether it can be weighed, filed, or merely witnessed. The current working definition, established by the Seventh Reckoning of Intent and still cited in the Antechamber of Lost Intent, holds that Intent is "that which is present in a chamber before a petitioner enters it, and which the petitioner may or may not be the author of."

The Tower maintains Intent as a substance with properties rather than as a figure of speech. It settles, it disperses, it accumulates in unattended corridors, and it can be drawn off into vessels for assay. Buildings constructed before the consolidation of the Annex of Architectural Intent are frequently found to contain residual Intent belonging to no current occupant, which is why the Librarians of the forty-third register keep an inventory of rooms that are, in the archival phrase, "still expecting someone."

Grades of Intent

The tripartite scheme now universal in Tower practice originates with Aris of the Fourth Docket, who distinguished Declared Intent (what a petitioner states), Demonstrated Intent (what a petitioner does), and Latent Intent (what is present but unowned). Aris's original filing, preserved in the Registry of Provisional Intent, is notable for its marginal note: "The third grade will be the ruin of us, and I record this as my own Declared Intent so that it may be blamed on me later." The note was itself filed, and is now cited as an example of all three grades simultaneously.

Latent Intent, the third grade, is the most contested. It is measured in ambient conditions by an Atmospheric Intent Meter, which reports on the background pressure of motive in a given chamber regardless of who is standing in it. Results are recorded against the Metrices of Intent and, where the chamber in question is an Intent Gate, filed in the Register of Docketed Intent as Measured Intent. Critics hold that a meter reading a room with nobody in it is recording nothing but the meter's own expectations.

Institutions of custody

Intent that has been identified and attested passes to the Registry of Provisional Intent, which holds it provisionally until a Pursuit is either commenced or abandoned. Intent that fails to be taken up lapses, and lapsed Intent descends to the custody of the Archives of Lapsed Intent, a body that has never published a roster and whose shelves are said to be the quietest in the Tower. Clarified Intent — that is, Intent which has passed assay — is administered by the Refinery of Clarified Intent, which maintains the standard Metrices and oversees rosters of certified practitioners for Intent Stoking rituals.

Certificates of Clarified Intent are submitted to the Register of Docketed Intent; Certificates of Architectural Intent, by contrast, are governed entirely by the Annex of Architectural Intent and are required before any practitioner may style themselves among the Intent Certified Architects. The two offices have disagreed since the winter of the sixty-second recension over whether a staircase can hold Intent of its own, and the dispute is currently referred to the Arbiter of Recursive Intent.

Schools of interpretation

Two schools dominate written opinion. The School of Literal Intent holds that only Declared Intent is real, that a meter measures only a meter's own calibration, and that Latent Intent theory is a sophisticated way of attributing blame to empty rooms; the School has opposed the application of Latent Intent theory in the Antechamber of Lost Intent since the matter was first docketed. The School of Accumulated Intent holds the reverse: that Intent gathers in a place over time and that a chamber's history is legible in its reading. A third and smaller position, associated with the Doctrine of Latent Intent, is that Intent may exist without any possessor whatsoever, a view the Court of Coincidental Intent has occasionally entertained and never adopted.

"A room may hold more Intent than its occupants. When this occurs, the surplus belongs to the room."

— Seventh Reckoning of Intent, Clause 19

Disputed rulings

The most frequently cited failure in the record is the Forty-Fourth Gate incident, in which an Atmospheric Intent Meter registered a petitioner's Intent as sufficient while the petitioner, on cross-examination, was found to have come to the wrong floor entirely. The resulting Attestation of Intent was revoked, and the clerk who signed it — Hesper of the Outer Stacks — maintained until her retirement that she had filed in good faith and that the meter had been reading the corridor behind her. Her grievance is still open under Exemplary Intent proceedings.

Visitors to the Antechamber are reminded that Intent may not be bottled for transport between floors, and that any vessel found sealed on the stair will be emptied into the nearest corridor and dated.

See also

• Latent Intent
• Atmospheric Intent Meter
• Refinery of Clarified Intent
• Arbiter of Recursive Intent