The Diamond
Vigilance. Fourth Measure.
Official Definition
Vigilance is the measure of a citizen's watchfulness over those near them, and their readiness to set the order above the attachment when the two are in conflict. A citizen of full Vigilance keeps a running account of those within their circle: what they say, what they do not say, where their Concord appears to waver. The Diamond is the shape of Vigilance because it has four equal faces, each watching a different direction.
Vigilance is not suspicion. This distinction is the first thing a citizen preparing for the Reckoning must understand. Suspicion is a feeling directed at a particular person on the basis of particular evidence. It is personal, and because it is personal it is partial. Vigilance has no direction and no expectation. It is an even watchfulness over everyone within the citizen's circle, which is why it can notice what suspicion, by looking only where it expects to find something, will miss.
The bond of personal loyalty is the single greatest obstacle to Vigilance, and the Bureau names it here plainly. The citizen who would report a stranger without hesitation but cannot bring themselves to report someone they care for has placed the attachment above the order. The order holds a citizen answerable for those near them precisely because those are the people whose divergence the citizen is best placed to notice. The nearness is the reason the accountability exists, not a reason to suspend it.
Vigilance draws no boundary at blood. A citizen is expected to notice, and to report, the divergence of their own kin as readily as that of a stranger, for a citizen who would shield a brother from the order is a citizen the order cannot yet trust. This is not to say that a kinsman's failure is entered against the watcher's own figure; no Standling is dragged down by the straying of another. What is measured is only this: whether, when the divergence was a kinsman's, the citizen watched as evenly, and reported as readily, as they would have for anyone else. Most do not. That is the point of the measure.
Common Irregularities
Withholding a Report Until Certain
Certainty is not a condition of Vigilance. Vigilance is the noticing and the reporting, in that order. What the Engine does with the report is the Engine's concern. A citizen who makes themselves the judge of what is worth reporting has taken the Engine's role, and the Engine does not share its role. Citizens who withhold reports on the grounds of insufficient evidence should note that the Engine's threshold for a reportable observation and the citizen's threshold are not the same document.
Speaking to the Person Before Reporting
A citizen who addresses an irregularity directly with the person involved, before any report is made, has given that person the opportunity to correct or conceal the irregularity before the Engine can see it. Whether this constitutes a kindness toward the person, a failure of Vigilance, or both simultaneously, is not resolved in the Bureau's published regulations. Citizens are advised that the Engine's account of this sequence is not identical to the citizen's account of their own intentions.
The Sheltered Kinsman
A citizen who notices, in a member of their own household, a divergence they would have reported at once in a stranger, and who says nothing, has failed the Diamond precisely and completely. The failure is not lessened by the nearness of the bond; it is defined by it. Citizens should not expect the straying of a kinsman to be entered against their own figure, for no Standling is dragged down by another's. What is entered is the silence: the noticing that went unreported because of who was noticed. The Engine does not record the affection. It records only that the report did not come.
Not Noticing
The Diamond is the only shape that can score low on the basis of an absence: the absence of anything reported. A citizen who reports nothing may have noticed nothing, or may have noticed and held it. The Engine cannot determine which is true from the record alone. It enters the absence and proceeds. Citizens who notice and hold are advised that, from the Engine's perspective, they and citizens who do not notice produce the same document, which is no document.
Preparation Exercise
For one session, choose a room you know well and the people in it. Do not look for anything in particular. Simply watch.
At the close of the session, write down, for yourself only, the things you noticed that you would not have thought to look for. The number of such things is not the preparation. The habit of having them is.
Citizens are further invited to complete, privately, the following sentence for each person in the room: "The thing I have noticed about this person that I have told no one is." The completion of this sentence is the whole of the exercise. Whether what follows is reported or withheld is the measure of the Diamond. The Bureau does not require that the completions be shared with anyone. It simply notes that you have them, and that having them and the Engine's record of your Diamond are not, in the long run, unrelated.
Other Shapes