Reputation

What is reputation?

A settler’s reputation is kept in two ledgers, two records that never touch:

• The Guild ledger. It says how far each of the five Guilds, the trade collectives that take no side, trusts a settler. Each Guild keeps its own account. It counts the same for a Zenith as for a Nadir, the two rival factions.
• The house ledger. It says how much loyalty the settler has shown their faction during the cold peace, the tense truce between the two houses. Their faction keeps it, and only theirs.

A house is chosen once, at the Arca Custodia, the ship that registers settlers, and it is not changed. The rival house keeps no account at all: to it, the settler is an enemy.

Each house shows its ledger its own way. At El Fondeadero, the Nadir station, every rank reached is marked with a milestone carved by hand into a board. At El Pináculo, the Zenith one, the same figure appears on a cold screen as a bar chart. It is the same account, shown the other way round.

Why don’t they mix?

By default, neither account moves the other. That is the guarantee that the Guilds stay neutral.

So a settler can be on bad terms with their own house and still be welcome at all five guild seats. All they need to do is respect Ithera, the planet without armies that the Guilds govern.

What is the Guild ladder like?

Each Guild ranks its trust in five steps:

Rank	Name	What it means
I	Paria	Inflated prices, half stock and a single redemption job to start over
II	Colaborador	Normal prices, first-tier jobs and the Guild’s cloth badge
III	Socio	Discount, recurring Supply Contracts (jobs to restock the Guild), a metal badge and access to the headquarters’ common room
IV	Especialista	A bigger discount, priority at the counter and the Guild’s paint scheme or mantle
V	Leyenda	The unadvertised warehouse, a final job with the Guild’s high command and a permanent title

A Zenith and a Nadir can both be Leyenda with Apex Syndicate, the hunters’ guild, without any conflict. And nobody falls below absolute Paria: there is always a way back.

How do the Guilds get on with each other?

The Guilds keep an eye on each other. What is gained with one can cost with another:

• Working for the Pioneers cools the Forge. The Pioneers are the settlers’ guild; the Forge, the producers’. Sable Okoye runs the Pioneers from El Vivero, their seat. She counts every hectare of greenhouse it contests with the drilling frontier of La Fragua Baja. La Fragua Baja is the Forge’s seat.
• Working for the Forge cools the Pioneers even more. La Fragua Baja’s furnaces shed particles that damage the crops downwind. Even so, Torvun Ekes, the Forge’s leader, sends Okoye recyclable scrap in exchange for fresh vegetables. It is written in no ledger.
• Working for Apex Syndicate cools the Pathfinders, the explorers’ guild. Every valley the hunters clear ruins months of the Pathfinders’ clean readings.
• Working for the Vanguard, the military guild, annoys the other four. The checkpoints and curfews at El Bastión, its seat, bother them all equally. Colonel Ostrach, who commands it, counts that as a virtue.
• Working for the Pathfinders costs nothing with anyone. Their founding charter obliges them to share their data with the rest.

What are each house’s ranks?

The faction register has five ranks, named the same in both houses: Recluta, Operativo, Veterano, Comandante and Leyenda. But each house gives them a title of its own. One house is La Cátedra de los Arquitectos, the Zenith, whose motto is «La luz se gana» (light is earned). The other is La Concesión, the Nadir, whose motto is «Lo que nadie quiso» (what nobody wanted).

Rank	Zenith title	Nadir title
Recluta	Recluta Vertical: escorted by the Guardia inside the station	Forastero: the Círculo does not summon them
Operativo	Iniciado de la Cátedra: has sworn the First Axiom	Arraigado: may ask for a turn to speak
Veterano	Ascendido Menor: has begun cybernetic enhancement	Guardián del Fondeo: watch shifts and reserves in their charge
Comandante	Arquitecto Adjunto: a voice, not a vote, in technical sessions	Voz del Círculo: a real vote in the assembly
Leyenda	Héroe de la Cátedra: named on the Día del Primer Salto	Ancla Viva: invoked at every Fondeo

The two ladders weigh the same, but they show opposite things.

• The Zenith who climbs wears something everyone can see. These are implants in the eye, the arm or the spine, each more visible and more golden than the last. They are fitted at the Consola de Ascensión on El Pináculo. Archon-Instructor Sennir, a training officer of the Guardia Vertical, the Zenith army, sends every new Ascendido there. She sees them off with one line: “Go up to the Console. It doesn’t hurt as much as the rumours on the lower decks say.”
• The Nadir who climbs gains something everyone votes on. Bram is the Guardaverso of the Círculo, the assembly that governs the Nadir: the voice that recites its decrees. He tells each new Voz del Círculo this after their first vote: “There. Now you are part of the noise that decides, not only the noise that listens. Look after that noise.”

Where do the two ledgers cross?

Some jobs carry political weight, and they say so before anyone takes them on:

• Preserving La Cicatriz, the Guilds’ capital on Ithera, pleases the Círculo.
• Intensive hunting on Ithera pleases the Cátedra, the Zenith high command.
• An extraction contract on Kaldrek, the contested cold planet, favours the station it is signed for.
• An escort favours whoever comes out ahead.
• Pathfinders jobs never lean either way.

And there is one rule running the other way, the only one. Whoever desecrates the Armisticio loses the trust of all five Guilds at once, on top of the shame before their own house. To desecrate the Armisticio de Ithera, the treaty that ended the war, is to attack inside Ithera outside the rules.