The Tyrant Philosophers/Commission

The Temporary Commission of Ends and Means-styled in common usage simply the Commission, the Temporary Commission, or the Commission of Ends and Means-is the supreme governing and academic body of Pallesand, the single institution from which all Palleseen authority abroad derives its legitimacy. It directs the Palleseen Sway, issues the writs under which every Resident, Sage, and officer operates in occupied territory, sets the boundaries of "accepted conduct" for those officers, adjudicates disputes between them, appoints provincial governors, prohibits religious observance, runs the army's rank structure and military code, operates the nation's orphanages, and approves the foundational textbooks of Palleseen administration. Its name encodes its founding paradox: established as a temporary expedient after the Islermen overthrew their sea god and rebuilt civilisation around "exacting definitions of what was correct," it was to oversee the expansion of that perfection to the rest of the world and then dissolve. The world remains unperfected; the Commission has not retired. Across the five books of the series, the body persists as the architecture of colonial authority while its character hardens from a self-negating founding axiom into a mechanism of permanent control, wartime mobilisation, and post-war scapegoating.

The Commission's arc across the series traces a trajectory from distant abstraction to intimate, destructive presence. In the early books it appears as the appointing and adjudicating authority behind provincial governors and the silent source of bureaucratic legitimacy-its name invoked in tribunals, its prohibition on alcohol colloquially known as "Uncle's prohibition," its orphanages shaping children into debtors. It permits crude public punishment in the occupied territories while excising all execution from domestic record, a bifurcation that is deliberate policy rather than local custom. As the series progresses and the Palleseen war against the Loruthi consumes two generations, the Commission becomes the entity that conscripts necromancers, creates the Left-Eye Brigade, and issues Culling Lists. In the aftermath, it assigns blame for wartime failures to scapegoats, orders the extermination of cult prisoners through the very Specialists it created, then dissolves those Specialists not from doctrinal objection but to erase the memory of what they were made to do. The body that was to be temporary has become, in the words of the Specialists it formed and discarded, an institution that makes people into monsters and then dreads its own reflection.

The identity of the Commission and the Temporary Commission of Ends and Means is established from the opening chapters of the first book, where both designations appear for the same governing body, and is reinforced throughout every subsequent volume as the institution's full formal title is invoked in military codes, diplomatic writs, and the denunciations of those who fear it.

The Group

Composition

The Commission is described as a body whose seats are held by "ambitious oldsters," an old guard sustained by careerist aspiration rather than renewal. Ochelby, a Sage-Archivist, undertakes his mission to Scrymisa partly as a bid for elevation to one of these seats, and the Commission's public mythology of austerity contrasts sharply with the compromised realities of those who seek to join it - City of Last Chances, ch 2. The body is structured into named departments including Outreach, Correct Speech, Correct Appreciation, and Correct Conduct, each with its own operational reach: Outreach manages diplomatic appointments and territorial classification, Correct Speech holds investigative and arresting powers, and Correct Appreciation absorbed conjuration into its remit under the direction of Professor-Invigilator Flockersly, who simultaneously sits on the Commission itself - Lives of Bitter Rain, ch 6. A senior officer titled the Appointments Secretary to the Commission makes senior appointments on the body's behalf - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 41. The Commission operates alongside the five Schools as the twin institutional pillars of Palleseen authority, adhering to the stated value of "moderation in all things save ideology" - City of Last Chances, ch 2.

Membership in the Commission is not hereditary in any simple sense, though familial connection to the body is a marked form of social capital: Dalry has "an ancestor on the original Commission" and deep familial involvement in Palleseen governance, while Flint speculates about an uncle sitting on it - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 27, ch 30. Officers of every rank from Resident to Accessory to Sage-Inquirer hold their commissions from the body or its Schools; the rank of Sage-Inquirer sits above Fellow in the Commission's Specialist hierarchy - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 20. The Commission's "persistence" is described as "entirely focused outwards," directed at the occupied territories rather than inward governance - City of Last Chances, ch 26.

Purpose & Method

The Commission exists to oversee the expansion of Palleseen perfection to the rest of the world, a mandate framed in the founding parable as something the recipients "would, of course, be grateful" for - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 26. In practice this mandate is executed through a dense apparatus of regulatory documents, appointed officers, and graduated violence. The Commission issues commissions and the seal that grants an officer blank authority in the field - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 2, ch 12. It approves operational manuals such as the Outreach Appointments Manual, short form and the Preamble to On The Practice of Provincial Assimilation, the latter prescribing that in territories inducted by force "all non-collaborating remnants of the existing administration be removed" and that anyone who might in future raise a legitimate (under prior legislature) claim to control or authority over the territory should be removed as soon as this may be conveniently achieved - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 34, ch 43. It periodically redefines the boundaries of "accepted conduct," tightening what officers may do in the field - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 11. It issues commentariat discouraging duelling between officers - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 41. It created the Left-Eye Brigade class of Specialist and assigned necromancy work during the Loruthi war - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 12, ch 20. It issues Culling Lists targeting believers, practitioners, and the ideologically unreliable - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 7, ch 16.

The Commission's method of internal discipline differs sharply from its external practice. Within the Pallesand Archipelago, executions do not formally exist; persons simply vanish and all reference to them is excised from public record, preserved only in a curated list of the nonexistent. Outside the Archipelago, the Commission has sanctioned the retention of "crude local forms of punishment" among subject populations it deems "the imperfect," where "a public show had been found to be efficacious." This deliberate bifurcation of penal practice-invisibility at home, spectacle abroad-is an explicit policy decision, not a local custom tolerated by default - City of Last Chances, ch 26. In the post-war period, the Commission's first visible act is the identification of scapegoats, setting the stage for culls of religious and occult contamination from the military - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 4, ch 7.

Standing

The Commission answers to no external authority. It is the supreme governing and academic body of Pallesand, the institution that directs the Palleseen Sway and the source of every officer's writ - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 16. It fights the Loruthi, formally ending that war through "a very satisfactory piece of paper" - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 11. It declares cults exterminated, as it did the Fisher King cult - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 9. It moves territories between administrative categories-Usmai was "moved beyond Outreach and Ventures into Valuations, preparatory to formal invitation into the Palleseen Sway"-and reassigns officers accordingly - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 35. Its pragmatic indifference to where a territory changes hands is noted as a governing principle: a demon-haunted brothel serves as the venue for a city's surrender without the Commission caring who holds it - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 18.

Against those within its own system, the Commission is absolute. "Local customs don't carry much weight" with it - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 10. It is the chain of command to which every diplomatic officer reports, and any breach of conduct must be reported to it - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 10. It has long ago issued a general prohibition on all manner of religious observances within the bounds of the Palleseen Sway - House of Open Wounds, ch 22. Its ideological foundation is the Palleseen doctrine of Perfection, which forbids dealings with gods and from which both the purges and the Hospitallers' pacifism derive - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 7. The Commission would not take an ethical issue with conjurers being "collaborators in the subjugation of Hell" - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 33.

In the final book, the Commission's standing shifts from external conqueror to internal predator. It recognises the problem of disaffected Specialists whose training "opened the mind to unorthodox things" and responds with purges and Culling Lists - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 16. It orders the extermination of Palleseen cult prisoners in camps, using the very Dead Companies it created when regulars refused and Unnaturals hesitated, then dissolves those Companies to erase the memory of the killings - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 40. The Commission's reports "barely mention" the camp exterminations - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 38.

History

City of Last Chances

The Temporary Commission of Ends and Means is the supreme ruling body of Pallesand, governing both the metropolitan Archipelago and all occupied territories of the Palleseen Sway - ch 2. Its first axiom recites its own transient nature, a self-negating founding principle that nonetheless anchors an apparatus of permanent control - ch 2. Seats on the Commission are held by what the notes term "ambitious oldsters," and the body operates alongside the five Schools as the twin institutional pillars through which the Palleseen exercise colonial authority, adhering to the stated value of "moderation in all things save ideology" - ch 2. The Commission's "persistence" is described as "entirely focused outwards," directed at the occupied territories rather than inward governance - ch 26.

Within the Pallesand Archipelago itself, executions do not formally exist; persons simply vanish and all reference to them is excised from public record, preserved only in a curated list of the nonexistent - ch 26. Outside the Archipelago, however, the Commission has sanctioned the retention of "crude local forms of punishment" among subject populations it deems "the imperfect," where "a public show had been found to be efficacious" - ch 26. This deliberate bifurcation of penal practice - invisibility at home, spectacle abroad - is an explicit policy decision of the Commission, not a local custom tolerated by default - ch 26.

The Commission functions as the direct appointing authority for provincial governors. Culvern holds his office as Perfector of Ilmar by the Commission's grant; he was briefed personally by the Commission on his appointment, reports to it, and shapes what he reports back - ch 40. In a direct quotation, Culvern invokes the Commission's will to foreclose an inquiry into events in his territory: "It is the will of the Commission... that this matter be put behind us. I appreciate that... regrettable things have been done. Not by my order. Pallesand has only ever wished the open hand of peace between us." - ch 40. The passage demonstrates both the Commission's role as final arbiter of administrative investigations and the manner in which its language of peace and regret can be deployed to shield a governor from accountability.

The Commission also functions as a career object within the Palleseen academic-bureaucratic hierarchy. Ochelby, a Sage-Archivist, aspires to a seat on the Commission, and his mission to Scrymisa is undertaken partly as a bid for that elevation - ch 2. His reflections that evening also encompass a private indulgence at Mother Guame's circle house, underscoring the contrast between the Commission's austere public mythology and the compromised realities of those who seek to join it - ch 2.

House of Open Wounds

The Commission is identified as the ruling body of Pallesand, and House of Open Wounds opens its military proceedings by referencing the Commission's book of military conduct - ch 18. That code governs the tribunal of the chapter, and the rank of Accessory is described as part of the Commission's "rank structure" - ch 18. Runkel enforces the Commission's rules on the army, and the Commission's ban on alcohol is referred to colloquially as "Uncle's prohibition" - ch 18. The Commission's authority over religious practice is made explicit when Jack is told, "The Temporary Commission of Ends and Means," she told him grandly, "has long ago issued a general prohibition on all manner of religious observances within the bounds of the Palleseen Sway" - ch 22. By chapter 30 the Commission's institutional reach extends beyond the military into childhood welfare: Banders grew up in the Commission's orphanages, whose stated purpose is "a debt to the Commission of Ends and Means" - ch 30.

Lives of Bitter Rain

The Commission is the governing body of Pallesand, structured into departments that include Outreach, Correct Speech, and Correct Appreciation - ch 6. The Temporary Commission of Ends and Means is the specific organ within that structure that steers the fate of the nation - "steers the fate of Pallesand" - ch 6. Professor-Invigilator Flockersly, who heads Outreach, sits on the Temporary Commission of Ends and Means, and it is in his capacity as both Outreach chief and Commission member that he summons Angilly to his office, reviews her record, promotes her, and assigns her to Usmai - ch 6. The notes indicate that Flockersly previously brought conjuration into the remit of Correct Appreciation, placing that department's expanded scope under a figure who also occupies a seat on the Commission itself - ch 6. Correct Speech functions as a separate department with investigative and arresting powers; the fate of Benallers is left ambiguous but the notes flag that he may have ended his days in its hands - ch 6.

Angilly's relationship to the Commission is that of a commissioned operative: she holds her commission from them, and their stamp is what gives her words official force - ch 10. Her loyalty is described as having shifted from ideology to personal ambition while remaining within the Commission's structure, a tension that persists as she carries out assignments in the field - ch 6. - implied, ch 6: the question of whether Angilly remains genuinely loyal to the Commission's ideology or merely to her own position within it is raised but not resolved by the book; the notes state the shift has occurred but do not settle whether it constitutes a break or a reframing.

Days of Shattered Faith

The Commission of Ends and Means-also styled the Temporary Commission of Ends and Means or simply the Commission-is the supreme governing and academic body of Pallesand, the institution that directs the Palleseen Sway and issues the writs under which every Palleseen Resident, Sage, and officer operates abroad - ch 16. Its origins are described in a founding parable: after the Islermen overthrew their sea god and reinvented their civilisation around "exacting definitions of what was correct," they "set a temporary commission in place, to oversee the expansion of this perfection to the rest of the world, who would, of course, be grateful" - ch 26. The name has not been retired; it remains the body's formal title even as its function has hardened into permanent authority.

In practice the Commission is the chain of command to which every diplomatic officer reports. Gil Angilly, Resident in Usmai, is bound by it and knows that any breach of conduct must be reported to it; "Local customs don't carry much weight" with the Commission, and Gil resolves after a night with Dekamran to frame her dispatch so that both her diplomatic purpose and her friendship survive - ch 10. The Commission periodically redefines the boundaries of "accepted conduct," tightening what officers may do in the field - ch 11. Gil envisions a seat on the Commission in her own future, beyond the professorship she expects at the end of her posting - ch 21.

The Commission issues commissions and the seal that grants an officer blank authority in the field; Loret carries such a seal, and the text is careful to note that Loret has no aunt who is a secretary to the Commission - ch 2, ch 12. The seal's provenance runs back to family connections within the body: Dalry has "an ancestor on the original Commission" and deep familial involvement in Palleseen governance, while Flint speculates about an uncle sitting on it - ch 27, ch 30. Flint himself holds a commission under the Temporary Commission of Ends and Means via the Resident's writ, and it is the Commission's writ that empowers the Resident to command soldiers and the Hands - ch 26.

The Commission's regulatory reach extends into every operational document. The Outreach Appointments Manual, short form-the text defining the Resident's three duties-is "approved by the Temporary Commission of Ends and Means" - ch 34. The Preamble to On The Practice of Provincial Assimilation, likewise approved by the Commission, prescribes that in territories inducted by force "all non-collaborating remnants of the existing administration be removed," and that "any individuals remaining who might in future raise a legitimate (under prior legislature) claim to control or authority over the territory should be removed as soon as this may be conveniently achieved" - ch 43. The Commission also issues commentariat discouraging duelling between officers, rulings that Berkely invokes to deflect Gil's challenge and to lock her in the House of Hard Angles - ch 41.

Berkely is the Commission's direct instrument in Usmai. He "derives his direct authority" from the Commission of Ends and Means and carries its verdict on the territory - ch 35. He is nominally the Alkhand's "advisor placed by the Commission," though in practice he seizes control of Dekamran's movements and access to the throne - ch 39. When the Commission "moved Usmai beyond Outreach and Ventures into Valuations, preparatory to formal invitation into the Palleseen Sway," it was Berkely who delivered the decision and the reassignment of Gil and Flint - ch 35. Berkely further expects to be appointed Perfector by the Appointments Secretary to the Commission, the official who makes senior appointments on the body's behalf - ch 41. Gil, meanwhile, intends to deliver Alkhalend "with a ribbon on it" to the Commission upon completing her posting - ch 34.

The Commission's former logistical reach is visible in Palinet's history: the packet ship Naturae had been "a carrier for the Commission" before its present service, "pretending to wear the uniform" - ch 27. The weight of the Commission's expectations is made plain in a complaint voiced to the Resident: "You should see the letters I get from home, Resident. I get professors and secretaries to the Commission practically begging me. You don't know just how much it cost us to beat the Loruthi." - ch 34. Enshili treats the body with the irreverence available to those outside its reach, joking about it as a possible marriage destination - ch 19. The question of what Gil will actually report to the Commission about her night with Dekamran-whether her account will protect the friendship or the diplomatic position-remains open at the close of her dispatch - ch 10.

Pretenders to the Throne Of God

The Temporary Commission of Ends and Means is the Palleseen governing body that directed the nation's expansion for two centuries, called "temporary" because the world remains unperfected - ch 6. It functions as the overarching military-political authority issuing Culling Lists and policy directives, whose "relentless ordering of the world" the Specialist classes pull threads from - ch 25. In the post-war period following the costly conflict with the Loruthi, the Commission's first visible act is the identification of scapegoats: "The Temporary Commission of Ends and Means decided that today's failings were because yesterday had dropped the shiny ball of perfection. What was needed were scapegoats." - ch 4. This drive to assign blame for wartime imperfections sets the stage for the culls of religious and occult contamination from the military that follow - ch 7. The Commission's ideological foundation is the Palleseen doctrine of Perfection, which forbids dealings with gods and from which both the purges and the Hospitallers' pacifism derive - ch 7. The body has formally declared the Fisher King cult exterminated - ch 9 - and formally ended the war with the Loruthi through what is described as "a very satisfactory piece of paper" - ch 11.

In its wartime role the Commission created the Left-Eye Brigade class of Specialist - the Fifteen-Minute Men whose golden left eyes grant marksman's aim via tableth sympathy at the cost of two-thirds dying within fifteen minutes of deployment - ch 12. It also assigned necromancy work and circulated scrutiny of practitioners through the Schools of Correct Thought including Correct Speech - ch 20. The rank of Sage-Inquirer sits above Fellow in the Commission's Specialist hierarchy - ch 20. Officers hold their commissions through these Schools: Lovern holds his through Correct Conduct, "the School of Correct Thought that claimed him" - ch 4. Dantell obtained her post through back-channels involving the Commission's leadership - ch 6.

Throughout the book the Commission's post-war posture is one of aggressive purging. It recognised the problem of disaffected Specialists whose training "opened the mind to unorthodox things" and responded with purges and Culling Lists - ch 16. After the Loruthi war it carried out culls of the Hospitallers, Fisher King devotees, and other believers - ch 35. The Heretics' work "has been hovering about the Culling Lists like a fly over ordure" - ch 25. Dantell fears the Commission's judgment on her wartime "magical improvisation" and receives the Culling List from it - ch 11; she also imagines its "Professors" scandalised by absurd titles and dreads the Commission turning its eye on the camp's failures and its instruments - ch 23. Quellery warns that "the Commission decided conjuration smacked too much of imperfection" would put artillerist work on a "banned list back home" - ch 11. The Commission would not take an ethical issue with conjurers being "collaborators in the subjugation of Hell" - ch 33. Aspel does not question the Commission, "just did as she was told," and has never examined what her equations subtract from the world - ch 35. Istreddy believes the Commission made him a monster and sent him to do "monster work" against his own people on the Archipelago - ch 35. Brandery shares political dread of the Commission's writ - ch 12 - and, when denouncing traitors, invokes the full formal name: Traitors! Traitors to the Temporary Commission of Ends and Means. Filthy cultists. - ch 18. The Commission's pragmatic indifference to where a territory changes hands is noted as a governing principle: a demon-haunted brothel serves as the venue for a city's surrender without the Commission caring who holds it - ch 18.

The Commission's flag is raised over conquered territory during the siege - ch 28. Prassel holds her commission from the Commission and is "en route to the Archipelago to present my report in person" - ch 31. Fowlett heads the Commission's enforcement arm, described as "the very will of the Commission come here to answer the Os-Fferegh question" - ch 31. The Commission made use of Prassel during the war and on the Archipelago; Fowlett presided over show trials alongside her, then banished her "with the very clear intent that she never come back" - ch 31.

The Lich Queen owes allegiance to the Commission and will request deployment orders from it - ch 25. She holds her commission as Sage-Inquirer from the Commission, and seeks to have them "redact her science from the lists" and reinstate necromancy - ch 38. The Commission sent her to the Successor Steppes four years prior and never recalled her; she returned on her own initiative upon hearing the siege's distress communiques - ch 6. The Dead Emperor permits the Commission's philosophy as a successor to god-worship, but the Lich Queen insists their cause is Palleseen, not imperial - ch 25. The unnamed Sage-Inquirer who commands a Dead Company in the Moeribandi necropolis is loyal to the Commission and trusts it will "see the value" of the necropolis power, though the Pope of Tides implies her expedition was exile dressed as promotion - ch 20. The Pope himself is on the Culling Lists - ch 20. Aspel has become "as great an apostate as the Pope of Tides" by following numbers over the Commission's doctrine - ch 25.

The epigraph to the book's later section frames the Commission's leadership in institutional terms: "History - the historian at least - has a preference for those individuals permitted to carry the burden of events. Generals, kings, high priests, magnates of the Temporary Commission of Ends and Means. Those of status and title, at whose word the lesser sort scurry to obey, reduced to little more than theatrical props attending a soliloquy." - ch 36.

The Commission's most consequential act in the book is revealed in its final chapter. After the war, the Commission ordered the extermination of Palleseen cult prisoners in camps. Regulars refused, Unnaturals hesitated, so the Commission sent Prassel and her peers' Dead Companies to finish the killing - ch 40. Prassel denounces this in the command tent: "You made us your butchers and set us on our own, unarmed, defenceless." - ch 40. Her fuller outburst channels the entire arc of the Commission's relationship with its Specialists: "I never wanted to be a necromancer! But I became what the Commission required of me, to serve our nation! I raised corpses and bottled ghosts and sent them all against our enemies! I won the fucking war, as much as anyone, and this is where it gets me? Suspected, despised, my life's work cast away!" - ch 40. The Commission then dissolves the Dead Companies, not from doctrinal objection to necromancy but to erase the memory of the camp exterminations - ch 40. A moment of shared guilt passes between Fowlett and the Lich Queen over this past event, which the Commission's reports "barely mention" - an event that saw Fowlett lauded and the Lich Queen exiled - ch 38. Prassel's final act is secession: "I reject them. I reject you all." - ch 40.

Relationships

• Gil Angilly - Gil holds her commission from the Commission and knows that any breach of conduct must be reported to it; she resolves to frame her dispatch so that both her diplomatic purpose and her friendship with Alkhand Dekamran survive - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 10. She envisions a seat on the Commission in her own future, beyond the professorship she expects at the end of her posting - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 21. In Lives of Bitter Rain, her loyalty is described as having shifted from ideology to personal ambition while remaining within the Commission's structure, a tension that persists as she carries out assignments in the field - Lives of Bitter Rain, ch 6.

• Culvern - Culvern holds his office as Perfector of Ilmar by the Commission's grant; he was briefed personally by the Commission on his appointment, reports to it, and shapes what he reports back. He invokes the Commission's will to foreclose an inquiry into events in his territory - City of Last Chances, ch 40.

• Berkely - Berkely derives his direct authority from the Commission and carries its verdict on Usmai; he is nominally the Alkhand's advisor placed by the Commission, though in practice he seizes control of Dekamran's movements and access to the throne. He expects to be appointed Perfector by the Appointments Secretary to the Commission and cites Commission rulings against duelling to deflect Gil's challenge - Days of Shattered Faith, ch 35, ch 39, ch 41.

• Prassel - Prassel holds her commission from the Commission and is en route to the Archipelago to present her report in person. The Commission made use of her during the war and on the Archipelago; Fowlett presided over show trials alongside her, then banished her "with the very clear intent that she never come back." In the final confrontation she denounces the Commission for making her and her peers into butchers, then secedes entirely - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 31, ch 40.

• The Lich Queen - The Lich Queen owes allegiance to the Commission and will request deployment orders from it; she holds her commission as Sage-Inquirer from the Commission and seeks to have them "redact her science from the lists" and reinstate necromancy. The Commission sent her to the Successor Steppes four years prior and never recalled her; she returned on her own initiative upon hearing the siege's distress communiques. A moment of shared guilt passes between Fowlett and the Lich Queen over the camp exterminations, which the Commission's reports "barely mention" - an event that saw Fowlett lauded and the Lich Queen exiled - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 25, ch 38, ch 6.

• Ochelby - Ochelby aspires to a seat on the Commission, and his mission to Scrymisa is undertaken partly as a bid for that elevation - City of Last Chances, ch 2.

• Professor-Invigilator Flockersly - Flockersly heads Outreach and sits on the Temporary Commission of Ends and Means; it is in his dual capacity that he summons Angilly, reviews her record, promotes her, and assigns her to Usmai - Lives of Bitter Rain, ch 6.

• Sage-Monitor Runkel - Runkel enforces the Commission's rules on the army; the Commission's ban on alcohol is referred to colloquially as "Uncle's prohibition" - House of Open Wounds, ch 18.

• Banders - Banders grew up in the Commission's orphanages, whose stated purpose is "a debt to the Commission of Ends and Means" - House of Open Wounds, ch 30.

• The Dead Emperor - The Dead Emperor permits the Commission's philosophy as a successor to god-worship, but the Lich Queen insists their cause is Palleseen, not imperial - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 25.

• Dantell - Dantell obtained her post through back-channels involving the Commission's leadership. She fears the Commission's judgment on her wartime "magical improvisation" and receives the Culling List from it; she also imagines its "Professors" scandalised by absurd titles and dreads the Commission turning its eye on the camp's failures and its instruments - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 6, ch 11, ch 23.

• Aspel - Aspel does not question the Commission, "just did as she was told," and has never examined what her equations subtract from the world; she has become "as great an apostate as the Pope of Tides" by following numbers over the Commission's doctrine - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 35, ch 25.

• Cohort-Broker Istreddy - Istreddy believes the Commission made him a monster and sent him to do "monster work" against his own people on the Archipelago - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 35.

• Fowlett - Fowlett heads the Commission's enforcement arm, described as "the very will of the Commission come here to answer the Os-Fferegh question." He presided over show trials alongside Prassel during the war and later banished her - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 31.

Notable Quotes

"It is the will of the Commission... that this matter be put behind us. I appreciate that... regrettable things have been done. Not by my order. Pallesand has only ever wished the open hand of peace between us." - Culvern, City of Last Chances, ch 40

"set a temporary commission in place, to oversee the expansion of this perfection to the rest of the world, who would, of course, be grateful" - founding parable, Days of Shattered Faith, ch 26

"The Temporary Commission of Ends and Means decided that today's failings were because yesterday had dropped the shiny ball of perfection. What was needed were scapegoats." - Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 4

"Traitors! Traitors to the Temporary Commission of Ends and Means. Filthy cultists." - Sage-Monitor Brandery, Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 18

"You made us your butchers and set us on our own, unarmed, defenceless." - Prassel, Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 40

"I never wanted to be a necromancer! But I became what the Commission required of me, to serve our nation! I raised corpses and bottled ghosts and sent them all against our enemies! I won the fucking war, as much as anyone, and this is where it gets me? Suspected, despised, my life's work cast away!" - Prassel, Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 40

"I reject them. I reject you all." - Prassel, Pretenders to the Throne Of God, ch 40

"moderation in all things save ideology" - City of Last Chances, ch 2

Tags

1. governing-body · #palleseen-institution · #administrative · #supreme-authority