Promulgation Phase

Promulgation Phase is the designated interval in the Tower's archival cycle during to which a new Concordance, Ordinance, or Synodal Order is read aloud, sealed, and entered into the master indices before it may take effect. The phase is supervised by the Curatorial Board, which instances the promulgation of Ordinance 7701 and coordinates with the Tower Chronology discipline to assign each act a provisional date under the Fifth Chronology.

Origins and Statutory Basis

The Promulgation Phase was first codified in the recensions following the Promulgation of Harmonized Chronology, which in Year 401 granted the College of Applied Chronology de facto standing and assigned the Fifth Chronology to the Department of Ephemeral Cataloguing. The Promulgation of Harmonized Chronology attempted to create conversion tables between major stairwell systems, a project that remains incomplete on Floor 14,002-B. The Synodal Order confirms that the Keeper exercises authority through the promulgation of Synodal Orders, and that each such order must pass through a Promulgation Phase before its seal is struck.

Disagreement persists as to whether the phase begins at the moment of reading or at the moment of sealing. The Third Concordance holds that reading constitutes promulgation; Concordance 9 is debated in relation to the Third Concordance and appears to assign the threshold to the affixing of the leaden sigil. The Librarians' recorded chronology dates the promulgation of Ordinance 4, Annex C to a Promulgation Phase that the Central Chronology cannot locate, a discrepancy the Tower Chronology body has declared "non-fatal but regrettable."

Procedure and Offices

During the phase, a clerk of the Scriptorium of Open Verdicts reads the instrument in full at the Sanctum, where the ritual of Dual Promulgation is also hosted. Two equally binding amendments with mutually exclusive directives may be presented; the Promulgation Phase records both. The Archive of Unopened Verdicts held Ruling 1212-A for eleven years after its promulgation, during which no Promulgation Phase was held for it, a suspension later cited in the Post-Incident Review as precipitating the Dust Draft Incident.

Clerk Vell Sarmis of the Department of Ephemeral Cataloguing filed a grievance in Year 512 asserting that the Promulgation Phase for Amendment 14-f had been conducted on a stairwell not recognised by the conversion tables, rendering the amendment "promulgated into the wrong verticality." The grievance was dismissed under Concordance 9, Annex 2, which states:

"No stairwell error shall invalidate a promulgation once the sigil is struck, provided the reader did not pause for refreshment mid-sentence."

— Concordance 9, Annex 2

Relationship to Other Phases

The Promulgation Phase precedes the Inventory and Cataloguing Phase and follows the Trigger Phase in standard cycle ordering, though the Consolidation Phase of Cycle 188 inverted this sequence after the Incident of the Unverified Atlas. The Re Mapping Amp Re Cataloguing Phase Iii revised floor attributions for acts promulgated during the Integration Phase, and the Phase 5 Placement Amp Integration relied upon Promulgation Phase records to settle a dispute over the numbering of Floor 9,004-Ω. The Reconciliation Phase exists chiefly to resolve contradictions between promulgations, of which the Primary Phase produces the largest volume.

Scholarly Disagreement

The College of Applied Chronology maintains that the Promulgation Phase is a function of the Fifth Chronology alone, while the Tower Chronology body insists it spans all recognised subsidiary systems including the Central Chronology. The Phase Delta Debrief Amp Documentation records a dissent from Librarian Orthen Oax, who wrote:

"A promulgation read under the Fifth Chronology but sealed under the Central is promulgated nowhere and everywhere, a condition the Tower has thus far survived by declining to notice."

— Librarian Orthen Oax, marginalia to Phase Delta: Verdict

The Consolidation Phase and the Phase 2 offices have each claimed administrative precedence over the phase's records, a conflict the Curatorial Board has not resolved owing to the simultaneous binding of two Synodal Order provisions. Visitors to a Promulgation Phase are asked not to count the Librarians present, as the count has on three occasions exceeded the floor's listed capacity and caused a minor revision to the Fifth Chronology.

Notable Instances

In Year 488, the Promulgation Phase for Ordinance 7701 was conducted across two non-adjacent floors simultaneously, a practice later forbidden by the Third Concordance but permitted again under a conflicting reading of Concordance 9. The Phase Delta: Verdict emerged from a Promulgation Phase whose records were subsequently lost in the Archive of Unopened Verdicts, recovered during the Re Mapping Amp Re Cataloguing Phase Iii, and re-promulgated without further incident.