Fault-Line Figure

Canonical definition

A Fault-Line Figure is the person-case specialisation of an Anchoring Object: an Individual whose accumulated Mimetic Premium is sufficiently high that they function as the primary comparative reference point for an entire political field, such that every other actor's Status position is partially computed through their orientation relative to the figure (support, opposition, analysis, neutrality), and the figure's removal would simultaneously destabilise every actor's Self-Model. The Fault-Line Figure generates PM for the entire field: supporters gain PM-from-alignment, opponents gain PM-from-opposition, and commentators gain PM-from-proximity, creating a distributed incentive to maintain polarisation in which no participant has a structural reason to eliminate the configuration. The Fault-Line Figure is the historically Salient and most frequently encountered instance of the Anchoring Object, but the underlying mechanism is Object-general: the same removal-branch discharge follows where the Anchoring Object is a sacred object, an external power, or a system of governance, none of which involves an Individual. Results stated for the Fault-Line Figure that depend only on the comparison-other function generalise without modification to the Anchoring Object.