Phase I Parallel Office

A Phase I Civic Selection & Restraint Pilot

A non-governmental, advisory initiative testing whether qualification-based, randomized civic selection can produce disciplined, competent, non-ambitious leadership under strictly limited conditions.

Phase I of the Parallel Office is analytically tied to a proposed governance framework known as the Executive Civic Service (ECS). A constitutional overview, provided for reference only, is available here. Phase I does not advocate for ECS or seek its adoption.

Phase I Status
Phase I of the Parallel Office operates as an unincorporated, voluntary research project convened for analytical and observational purposes only. It does not exercise authority, conduct operations, accept funds, or represent any public institution. Phase I exists solely to generate publicly accessible analysis and documentation under explicit scope limits and an automatic sunset.

This office holds no executive authority. It issues no directives, allocates no funds, and does not represent the state.

View Documents Civic Qualification Pool Current Work Program

Phase I evaluates process, not power. It is time-limited and sunsets automatically.

What We Do

  • Analyze systemic risk and failure modes
  • Conduct non-binding preparedness simulations
  • Publish public, auditable reports

What We Do Not Do

  • Exercise authority or command
  • Replace elected leadership
  • Advocate for parties or candidates

Selection

  • Voluntary, credential-verified Qualification Pool
  • Binary qualification (no ranking)
  • Auditable random lottery for Steward selection

About / Purpose

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Modern governance struggles less from lack of intelligence than from incentives that reward ambition, speed, and visibility. Phase I asks a narrow question:

Can we identify and seat a civic leader chosen for restraint, competence, and independence from power, and observe how they behave when authority is explicitly withheld?

Phase I does not propose reform. It generates evidence.

Limits & Authority

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The Phase I Parallel Office:

  • may analyze, model, simulate, and publish
  • may not direct, command, allocate, or bind
  • may not claim official standing
  • may not participate in electoral activity

All outputs are advisory and non-binding. Any representation to the contrary is a charter violation.

Full Limits Statement: Download PDF

Scope

Phase I work is confined to analytical domains where advisory functions already exist:

  • infrastructure resilience
  • disaster readiness analysis
  • continuity-of-government principles
  • systemic risk and failure-mode analysis

Phase I does not claim privileged access. Source quality and provenance are documented with each release.

Governance & Transparency

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  • Independent governing board (staggered terms; no single-funder dominance) - Charter
  • Audit & Ethics Committee (conflict-of-interest enforcement; complaints review; annual independence audit) - Charter
  • External Technical Review Panel (methods and claims review; published assessments) - Charter

Transparency includes public governing documents, published methods with every report, archived review letters, and a corrections log.

National Steward (Phase I)

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The National Steward oversees analytical work programs and ensures strict adherence to limits, ethics, and transparency.

  • No executive authority
  • Non-renewable, time-limited term
  • Prohibits campaign activity during and after service
  • Selected by auditable random lottery from a qualified pool

Selection Overview

Phase I uses binary qualification (Qualified / Not Qualified). There is no ranking and no “top candidate.”

  • Voluntary applications
  • Credential verification and structured work sample
  • Final eligibility list published (names or unique IDs)
  • Lottery protocol published before the draw
  • Selection record published after the draw

See: Selection Protocol (PDF)

Civic Qualification Pool

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Status: Not Currently Accepting Expressions of Interest

The Civic Qualification Pool is under pre-adoption development. The public call for eligibility will be published once internal readiness criteria are met.
No timeline is announced in advance. This page describes the structure and intent of the pool only.

This is not an application for office, employment, or authority.

The Executive Civic Service maintains a standing Qualification Pool of citizens who may be eligible for temporary, constrained executive service if randomly selected in the future. Membership confers no title, no visibility, and no guarantee of selection. Most qualified individuals will never be called.

  • Can carry responsibility without seeking authority
  • Can operate under strict limits and oversight
  • Can accept removal, reversal, and silence without appeal
  • Can return to private life without recognition or advantage

Entry occurs through a multi-stage process. The first stage is an Expression of Interest, focused on judgment, restraint, and tolerance for limits. Not all participants advance.

Proceed only if uncertainty, constraint, and non-selection are acceptable terms of participation.

Status: Not Currently Accepting Expressions of Interest

Current Work Program (90 Days)

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Purpose

The 90-day Work Program defines the limited analytical outputs of Phase I. It is designed to test analytical discipline and restraint, not to exercise authority or recommend action.

Work Items

1. National Infrastructure Resilience Snapshot — A public analytical brief identifying:
  • key infrastructure dependencies
  • common failure modes
  • plausible cascade patterns

This work is non-comprehensive and non-operational.

Status: Completed
Deliverable: Public brief (PDF)


2. Disaster Readiness Tabletop Exercise — A structured, non-operational tabletop exercise designed to observe:
  • reasoning under uncertainty
  • restraint under pressure
  • documentation discipline
Components:
  • scenario and injects
  • facilitator script
  • observer logs
  • after-action report

Status: In-progress

Description:
This deliverable documents a non-operational tabletop exercise conducted for Phase I methodological purposes. The exercise is designed to test scenario structure, inject sequencing, and observability of assumptions under constraint. It does not simulate authority, evaluate participant performance, or generate recommendations.

Planned public materials include:

  • the scenario narrative and inject structure,
  • a public transparency note describing scope, limits, and interpretation, and
  • a non-attributional After-Action Review focused on method performance and limits.

Participation is voluntary and surrogate. No authority is exercised, and no conclusions are binding.

3. Continuity-of-Government Principles Review — A public, interpretive review of continuity principles using open sources only, examining:
  • doctrinal themes
  • stress conditions
  • interpretive gaps

Status: Completed
Deliverable: Public interpretive paper

All deliverables are public and subject to external review. Each release includes methods, assumptions, limitations, and a correction mechanism.

Documents

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Phase I is time-limited and non-operational. It does not presume adoption of any subsequent phase. All outputs are advisory and non-binding.

Contact: contact@paralleloffice.org  |  Press: press@paralleloffice.org  |  Security: security@paralleloffice.org