Temporary civic roles, live service rewrites, distributed archive access and three remaining Master-dependent systems expose the work hidden by the old owner field.
Historical canon pack: these claims and numbered evidence links document the 26 September 2026 text. The novel has since been revised. A “revised passage” link appears only when the cited wording survives in the revised chapter; other claims await editorial verification.
Established story material
A2-CHAR-NARA · Character
Nara Venn
Works as mediator, router and temporary meeting facilitator while resisting the idea that being useful should silently become permanent office. She helps separate service priorities from technical limits and makes her own temporary function explicit, recallable and nonexclusive.
Public board, receiver sheet and three-day facilitator notice; avoid leader-at-podium imagery.
A2-CHAR-ARUN · Character
Arun Vey
Rewrites Master-dependent services while they remain live, decomposes owner-shaped systems into narrower functions and keeps his seven-day convenor role bounded. He refuses to treat adjacency or technical success as automatic jurisdiction.
Live migration boards and service-specific authority mappings; no master console.
A2-CHAR-MARIAN · Character
Marian Vale
Discovers that people continue seeking her approval despite the loss of estate-based public authority. She publishes incoming questions beside her answers and repeatedly refuses to let private standing settle public decisions.
Question-and-answer postings, domestic scene with Leda, and no official seal.
A2-CHAR-ELIZA · Character
Eliza Marr
Keeps governance proposals marked as proposed, preserves the distinction between source, authority and function, and rebuilds archive access across multiple locations under the principle that location does not confer authority.
Distributed reading rooms, proposed-rule annotations and archive banners.
A2-CHAR-PERA · Character
Pera Sol
Maintains the public state boards, publishes scope changes even when headline counts do not improve, and forces Nara to confront the fact that recurring routing work is itself becoming a civic function.
Public board, incoming-message sheet and archive box; no central-dispatch imagery.
A2-CHAR-VOSS · Character
Halden Voss
Continues to press the accountability problem created by distributed governance and uses existing public-safety authority narrowly where needed, as in emergency retaining-wall expenditure, without recovering estate-derived command.
Specific emergency authorisation and systems-board observation; no defeated-ruler imagery.
A2-CHAR-ROOK · Character
Commander Rook
Needs new service-specific access after estate-derived field authority disappears. He accepts a narrow seven-day operational credential tied to flight and field rules while the permanent defence-governance question remains unresolved.
Field credential and fuel-access record rather than aircraft action.
A2-CHAR-LEDA · Character
Leda Fenn
Keeps Marian's life at household scale and treats temporary civic roles with practical skepticism. Her insistence that temporary people still need dinner continues the chapter's refusal of grand constitutional theatre.
A2-OBJ-PUBLIC-HOLDER · Transitional system workaround
PUBLIC HOLDER in the Owner Field
An old flour-delivery form still requires an owner field after public-use title has been separated from private succession. Staff temporarily enter PUBLIC HOLDER while the software is redesigned, making the inadequacy of inherited forms visible.
Old database screen with owner field and temporary PUBLIC HOLDER entry.
A2-OBJ-DAY-TWO-BOARD · Temporary governance status
Day 2 of 7
Arun's First Convenor term is publicly displayed as Day 2 of 7. The visible expiry is meant to prevent a temporary coordinating role from silently becoming permanent.
After a lift-rescue board successfully replaces one Master-dependent path, the chapter explicitly rejects the idea that control of one function creates authority over adjacent functions. The rule remains proposed, not enacted.
Two adjacent service boxes with authority boundary between them.
A2-EVENT-RETAINING-WALL · Governance event
The Retaining-Wall Dispute
A dangerous retaining wall cannot wait for a title and budget dispute. Voss issues a narrow emergency expenditure authorisation so work can begin without settling ownership or permanent budget responsibility.
Unsafe wall, work crew and narrow expenditure authorisation.
A2-OBJ-LOCATION-NOT-AUTHORITY · Archive principle
Location Is Not Authority
Three distributed reading rooms reopen under a banner stating that storage or access location does not make that site authoritative over the records it holds.
Three distinct reading rooms sharing the same banner.
A2-OBJ-FACILITATOR-TERM · Temporary civic role
Three-Day Meeting Facilitator
Nara decomposes her informal organiser function into routing, mediation, agenda, witness and facilitation tasks, retaining only a three-day nonexclusive, recallable facilitator role.
The estate notices registry is decomposed into separate public, private, civic-land and archive functions while old and new paths run in parallel. Divergent results stop for review, and the historical Master translation becomes read-only rather than being erased.
Parallel old/new paths with matched and stopped notices.
A2-OBJ-THREE-DEPENDENCIES · Unresolved migration state
Three Master-Dependent Services Remaining
After the notices-registry rewrite, three services remain dependent on old authority: public-land scheduling and two identity-administration functions. Identity migration is deferred when it could reduce access for people with incomplete historical records.
When Marian's opinion is invoked as authority, reveal the question that produced it and prevent the answer from gaining broader scope than the question.
Open design question: Tie this to source/scope mechanics and keep it concise.
Defers one migration when incomplete historical records could reduce a person's access, preserving the old path temporarily while the risk is published.
Open design question: Ensure deferment is temporary and does not become indefinite status quo.
Chapter 23 begins after Chapter 22 leaves five Master-dependent services unresolved and the continuity selector isolated.
No single collapse occurs when estate-derived public authority is removed; ordinary services continue with transitional friction.
Temporary PUBLIC HOLDER entries are acknowledged workarounds, not a claim that one new public owner replaces Graham.
Arun remains within his seven-day First Convenor term; no permanent office is created.
Successful authority over one service function does not automatically extend to adjacent functions; the proposed rule remains provisional.
Emergency public-safety expenditure can proceed without settling title or permanent budget responsibility.
Archive storage or access location does not confer authority over records.
Nara's recurring informal role is decomposed into explicit tasks; she keeps only a three-day, recallable, nonexclusive facilitator role.
The estate notices registry is rewritten while live and decomposed into narrower authority relationships instead of being replaced by one owner-shaped service.
Historical Master records remain queryable where needed for provenance; disabling new authority is not deletion of history.
Identity migration is deferred when incomplete historical records could reduce a person's access class. The chapter does not treat delay as failure.
By the later part of the chapter the Master-dependency count falls to three, not zero.
UNKNOWN remains disabled locally, the Second Graham does not return, and the continuity selector remains isolated.
Chapter 24 must address citywide constitutional choice because Chapter 23 demonstrates that local procedural repair cannot by itself answer who authorises structural rules.
Existing Chapter 9 artwork, Chapter 5 notes, Archive 001 content and live game rules remain unchanged.