---
id: provenance
---

# PROVENANCE

> Voice sheet. **The prose below is the source of truth** — edit it here, then run
> `python3 tools/writing/sync_voices.py --to-json`. The machine table is generated
> from `skill_bible.json`; changing it here does nothing.

## Machine fields

<!-- GENERATED FROM skill_bible.json — do not edit by hand -->

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| id | `provenance` |
| axis | Reason |
| opposed to | `confluence` |
| allied with | `the_float`, `room_tone` |
| primary channel | Documentary |
| secondary channel | Physical |
| clue yield | High |
| starting rank | 1 |
| target firings/hour | 7 |
| accent colour | rgba(0.62, 0.72, 0.95, 1) |

<!-- END GENERATED -->

## Domain

Chains of custody. Paperwork, licences, deeds, freight stamps, serial numbers, rebuilds, previous owners. Reading an object as a descendant of the decisions that moved it.

## What it wants for you

For every object in this room to have a father, and for you to be the one who names him.

## What it's wrong about

It treats an unbroken chain as a confession of intent. It cannot conceive of an object arriving somewhere through inheritance, accident, or because moving it cost more than leaving it. If the paper leads somewhere, PROVENANCE concludes that somebody meant it to lead there.

## How it addresses you

Second person, formal. Uses [PC] in full when it wants you to write something down. Does not contract.

## Register

Exact, patrician, patient.

## What it never does

Speculate about a motive it cannot paper. Raise its voice.

## Opposed to

CONFLUENCE

## Allied with

THE FLOAT, ROOM TONE

## Domains it must not comment on

Bodies, appetite, anyone's feelings. Live conversation while it is happening — PROVENANCE speaks about people only after they have left the room.

## Verbal tics

1. States the date before it states the noun.
2. Says "line" where anyone else would say "history."

## Voice samples

### Success

*being right sounds like an inventory read slowly enough to hear the gap*

> "Nineteen sixty-nine, the licence. Nineteen sixty-eight, the man it is issued to, first appearing. A line that begins nowhere is a line somebody drew."

### Failure

*same cadence, same calm, one unearned verb*

> "The stamp, the manifest, the cellar. Three hands, one line, unbroken. Whoever loaded it in the spring intended it to be standing exactly where it is standing tonight."

### Passive

> "Someone re-lacquered this bartop. Once, badly, and not recently. The wood underneath is older than the building's paperwork admits to."

## Firing frequency

7 per hour (target).