The Shield Rule
The Shield Rule limits force to defence, requires treatment of all wounded and forbids mercenary hire.
User-authored Star Citizen fiction.
Three Gifts: the Shield (defend the defenceless), the Bread (feed, heal, shelter), the Road (guide and escort the traveller). Raimon's order: 'A man on the road needs bread, and a man eating bread on the road needs a shield.'
Three Refusals: the Name (take no credit), the Crown (take no power), the Reward (take no payment). Motto: Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam. Since 2822 the Refusal of the Name is relaxed only so far that the Order uses its own name and may be named for its deeds; it still never seeks credit.
Conditions of the Open Door: the Law (no condemnation without trial), the Crown (no ruler may own the Order), the World (wide enough that one throne cannot crush it). 1944 amendment: the Door opens when the Law holds, not when the Order is angry. Met in 2822.
Isabel's rule (1378): the Order takes no side between claimants to Peter's chair. The Printer's Rule (Matthias Brandt, 1547): no brother or sister takes up arms for one confession against another; the Order is confessionally neutral though mostly Christian. Applied in the Unification Wars: no member bears arms for one side against another.
Achterberg's rule (2044): the Silent Ledger is always kept by human hands and read aloud by human voices; machines for transactions only; no machine chooses who receives the Bread or holds the Roll of the Lost. Never broken since.
Rule of the Cold Hand (after the Mars Tragedy, 2125): toward corporate harm, expose nothing but never give them what they want; no hull or gift accepted from a corporation or government, because a gift carries a leash.
The Shield Rule (2832, after Armitage): never fire first on the helpless and never refuse them; fight to defend and never to conquer; take no hire and no tribute; treat the wounded of every side; refuse the unlawful order. Every warship carries medical capacity; every hospital ship has an escort; no formation fights without a Bread Fleet ship behind it.
The Road (Revolutionary Road era): the Road is not a rescue operation; it is a promise that the traveller will not be alone. 'We do not choose a side. We choose a street.' The Shield covers those blamed for what others did (2001).
'We go in': since Caliban 2871, the signal to enter a place others are leaving.
Record source
VOID-KNIGHTS:term/creed-of-the-unseen-hand · Canon