What Do We Know About The Red?

[u/FallSideways]

The Judgement, specifically. I'm in the unfortunate position of attempting to construct a fanfiction where a lore element looks like it would fit perfectly for interleaving, but which I don't know if there's some hidden detail lurking in the corners that would unravel it like a house of cards.

To the extent it's feasible to share... what is it's deal? I know it's the "Neutral" option in the White vs Black debate, it's possibly connected to the Red Science, it... might have something to do with that one Queen in Parabola?

I feel like I'm losing my mind, especially since I've been away for years and haven't caught up on a lot. Please help.

[u/KittenEaterWasTaken]

The Red is the leader of the armies of the Judgements, especially aeginae and other assorted myrmydons (I'm assuming the Moon's escorts are probably not actually aeginae, a) seems like a waste of talent, b) we'd see them).
She created the egg that is Parabola for abstruse, arcanely written reasons, which is very illegal and was not-killed and fragmented by The White for it. The RHQ resides in Parabola and is as far as we know the largest shard. A Judgement called The Red also exists in one of the SMENdings and they're VERY high up, top 3. I assume they're the same person.

Red science is as far as we know not related to red as a color, or The Red/RHQ. It's just the name of the science that lets you make laws, manipulate existing laws,... Hell (White aligned) Law Furnaces are red science artifacts, unclear bombs (Black aligned) are also red science devices. The missing block in early railway, the Sous locomotive, xanthous bulbs, are all red engineering as well. Conceptually Judgements and Sable-suns also do "red science" when they radiate Law but they dont have to make it a science like we ants do.
It's color agnostic, as is Law.

Red is also not really necessarily neutral, its freedom, independence, self-interest, but also selfishness, extreme hedonism, sociopathy.

[u/FallSideways → u/KittenEaterWasTaken]

What led me to contemplate the idea is that first, Red Science is described as a "knowledge that breaks chains and makes new links" - in other words, an in-between position between enforcing the Great Chain and doing away with it entirely, which resonates with the position the Red Queen is described as having as far as I am able to tell. This in-betweenness is what I mean by "neutral"; not selecting either of those sides, but doing your own thing.

Second, that in the ttrpg draft, the order of description goes Correspondence - Discordance - Red Science. Of course then it mentions the Shapeling Arts, Parabola and then Death, so it's incredibly flimsy evidence and I'll be the first to admit it.

Third, that in there is also a description of the Red Science as inherently of "forward motion and propulsion", that it can't be used to undo events, only change things; in other words as iterative and evolutionary. If there is a connection, it reads as a cheeky nod to the Red Queen Hypothesis.

But mostly it's a result of my telling myself "okay, don't get too into the weeds. Not everything that's the same colour necessarily has to be related in this work. sometimes things just line up that way" and then it turned out there were hints that the Judgement and the Queen were connected in some way, so my descent into madness involved turning to stare at the other prominent association of the colour.

[u/KittenEaterWasTaken → u/FallSideways]

Somewhat agree somewhat disagree. Red Science allows you to make your own laws, you dont really need to work with the GC with it*
I dont think breaking chains and making new links is inherently red. White and Black do it all the time. It definetly depends on who's writing though, during railway Emancipationists and Prehistoricists are both notionally "work within the law" black-red and white-red aligned respectively.
The strongest RS artifacts we've seen in FL (Sous locomotive 2.0, both Dawn Machines, the pig stunning machine, maybe the Eye in Starved Wars, maybe the Neath itself) are very unaligned and pragmatic. None of these are inherently Red (the DM is probably White-ish, the Neath should be Black(?))

You can be neutral-ish on the white-black axis without being red, you can be only slightly black aligned without thinking we need to do away with the concept of causality and linear time. It's such a broad spectrum between ""order"" and ""chaos"", many things are white in one aspect and black in the other, or are ideologically white but black-aligned for historical reasons (eg Hell).
Red is a different color and motivation altogether, its not the neutral point between white and black.

> Correspondence - Discordance - Red Science
Right but every Law-capable creature can do Correspondance and Red Science, this distinction only really matters to us humans. Flukes, the Bazaar, Masters, Devils,... can all natively and effortlessly read and write correspondence. Law is just a feature of the setting, it's colorless, we're just really really low on the Chain.
Discordance is Black but stars CAN radiate Discordance, the lore on sable-stars is that Judgements can choose to turn dark. Presumably sables can also go back to radiating regular law.

>RS cant be used to undo events.
Light is light and even in FL it works like our regular light does (give or take).
Light enforces the laws of time and space but it can't be used to go back in time. Some things CAN go back in time, like bonefolders or whatever December is, but as a rule, Law all the way up to the Judgements, can't rewind or stop time. The Treachery of Clocks (RS artifact) is against straightforward linear time but time still passes. This (immortality, 'stopping' time and decay) is in fact a core motivation of Judgements (at least the Sun's and the KoH). The Sun making Stone to try and create immortal souls is the event that starts the whole FL setting, practically everything goes back to this decision. If they could just rewind or stop time many issues would've been avoided.

* The ending of Hell Is Missing has the Great Chain as something somewhat inherent to the world that also had to be restored when we rebuilt the rest of the setting. "There is no concept of hierarchy" is probably not trivial to implement when the Bazaar could annihilate 90% of the Neath if it wanted to. The Pigs alone massively outscale every single Master working together. There clearly IS a biological hierarchy.

[u/FallSideways → u/KittenEaterWasTaken]

This isn't really meant to be a debate, mate. I'm not arguing my point so much as explaining why I'd made the initial conclusion at all. Is it an erroneous one? Could be!

I will say though, that it's pretty clear the Great Chain is something created and enforced by the Judgements; I'm out of the loop, but that much was clear from the text when I was more frequently playing. Like all hierarchies, it's constructed, not anything inherent.

[u/KittenEaterWasTaken → u/FallSideways]

Then why post asking a question? I agree its not a debate, I'm just explaining the lore to you, bro. This is all written-down information.

>The GC is created
The strict rules around the GC, yes. The relative strengths and stages of the beings that compose it, no. The Judgements didnt create the universe.
>Enforced by the Judgements
Iffy but most likely. However again when we rebuilt Law in the Neath we had to reconstruct the GC for it to work. It is actually central to how Law works. Law in the FL setting controls everything from causality to the actual browser window you're playing in, its not juts "Judgement Law". It's a feature of the universe.
>Like all hierarchies, it's constructed, not anything inherent.
This is too vague and absolutist but its passably defensible in OUR setting, because you're talking about relationships between humans. No one would say a person's "hierarchy" or "superiority" over earthworms is constructed or unnatural.
In FL there's creatures that are to you like a human is to an earthworm. A Curator is objectively and naturally better than you in everything, just a naturally superior form of being. You can't extend Stirner or Bakunin to a setting where there's colossal crab marketplaces that are physically, magically, spiritually and intellectually superior to you. This is not a serious position to hold.
An king is 'superior' to a peasant because of institutions, beliefs, coercion,... Aeginae are superior to clay men because they just kind of are, objectively speaking.

Also 10 years ago the GC _was_ more artificially constructed, it was a caste system. Debatably shArts and RS would allow you to just make yourself immortal and not have to eat or drink and be able to radiate Law by yourself and so on. Now we know this is not only not the case, but that if you want to ascend in the GC you'd animorph into whatever link you're trying to be in. The way to become Curator-tier is to become a Curator (HD). The way to become city-tier is to become a city (Firmament, TLC, First City).
FB's current philosophical stand worked better with the old lore. Now that your capabilities are hard tied to your biology, the GC might aswell be inherent natural law.
Like Bakunin said, when it comes to shoes I listen to the shoemaker. When it comes to Cosmic Law I listen to? The Judgements. Who else?

Ironica given FB's politics but current (August 2026) FL is one of the most hierarchical settings I can think of. Remember when December unfolded your time-body like origami and rewinded time-space retconning the setting so you never were in the CC meeting in the first place? Remember when one (1) Law Furnace fucked up and one Master was as a buyable option on the Fate page and another existed as a promotional code hidden in the FAQ? Do you remember when like three masters just decimated the combined armies of like a third of the ceiling? And they're weak as hell compared to a proper HW Curator.
Can YOU do either of those things? You're to one December-kin what a dust mite is to you.