They Decide What the City Remembers
The Continuity Forum is an academic coalition, archival authority, and cultural arbitration body tasked—officially—with preserving the historical record of Commonwealth City.
In practice, they do far more than preserve.
They curate.
They contextualize.
They decide which memories are stable enough to be taught, cited, or referenced by civic systems.
The Forum does not erase history outright.
It frames it until alternatives become unthinkable.
The Continuity Forum was founded during the chaotic early decades of the Unowned City, when competing narratives threatened to fracture civic legitimacy.
Different districts remembered the collapse differently.
Different movements claimed authorship of the City’s principles.
Different tragedies demanded incompatible lessons.
The Forum’s original mandate was simple:
Consolidate records
Prevent historical fragmentation
Maintain a shared civic narrative
What began as stabilization became authority.
Because once a narrative is standardized, questioning it becomes deviance rather than inquiry.
The Continuity Forum is composed of historians, archivists, sociologists, cultural theorists, and data curators.
Primary Archives – Physical and digital record vaults
Narrative Review Panels – Approve educational framing
Contextualization Boards – Determine acceptable interpretation ranges
Citation Authority Cells – Decide which sources are “reliable”
The Forum operates on consensus, peer review, and procedural legitimacy.
Disagreement is permitted.
Dissent is documented.
Deviation is marginalized.
Neutrality is a posture, not a goal
Emotional truth is subordinate to civic stability
Harmful narratives must be contained
Memory is infrastructure
Members genuinely believe they protect the City from repeating its worst mistakes.
They disagree—quietly—about what those mistakes were.
The Continuity Forum never issues orders.
It controls reference legitimacy.
Which historical accounts are cited by courts
Which narratives appear in education
Which events are considered “settled”
Which perspectives are labeled extremist, unreliable, or obsolete
Once the Forum labels a source “non-continuous,” it vanishes from official discourse.
Not banned.
Not destroyed.
Simply uncited.
And in a system built on reference chains, uncited history might as well not exist.
To most citizens, the Forum is invisible.
History classes feel neutral.
Museums feel authoritative.
Archives feel complete.
Activists and scholars see more clearly.
Some accuse the Forum of:
Sanitizing revolutionary violence
Minimizing early City atrocities
Protecting institutional legitimacy at the expense of truth
The Forum responds politely.
Then publishes a rebuttal with better citations.
Assembly Secretariat: Quiet rivals. Law and memory both claim authority over meaning.
The Patrons: Frequent collaborators. Cultural legitimacy is often purchased indirectly.
Block Councils: Dismissive. Local histories are considered unreliable.
The Data Ombuds: Philosophical allies, practical adversaries.
External Interests: Watched carefully. Foreign narratives are filtered aggressively.
Players encounter the Continuity Forum when truth is not enough.
A suppressed event contradicts the official narrative
A witness’s testimony is ruled “non-continuous”
A historical precedent is quietly reinterpreted
An archive access request is denied without explanation
Competing truths threaten civic unrest
Players may:
Uncover primary sources the Forum buried
Force recognition of erased perspectives
Decide whether destabilizing truth is worth the cost
Manipulate narrative framing to protect people
The Forum respects scholarship, patience, and citation rigor.
They fear uncontrolled memory.
The Forum is deeply divided beneath its academic calm.
Stabilists believe truth must serve continuity
Revisionists argue suppressed harm will eventually resurface
Preservationists fear narrative drift more than injustice
These conflicts never become public.
They appear as footnotes.
The Continuity Forum does not lie.
It simply decides which truths matter.
In a City that rejected ownership, memory became the last uncontested property.
And those who control it shape not just what people believe—
—but what futures the City considers possible.