OSINT-6 CHANGELOG 260305

Country Factbooks and Agency Fact Sheets use some of the same research, but they don't make the same claims. The end of The World Factbook pushed us to define where the archived material belongs in each line instead of applying one source procedure indiscriminately.

An OSINT-6 Country Factbook needs a broad national baseline. Geography, government, law, infrastructure, communications, transport, economic conditions, security institutions, and international relationships shape the fictional agency and its missions. The archived CIA entry helps establish that initial field. Current sources then verify and update every material claim before the volume adds fictional personnel, facilities, priorities, game options, and mission material.

An Agency Fact Sheet has a narrower job. It concerns a real organization, its verified mandate, organization, oversight, public history, qualifications, and documented equipment or practices. The archived Factbook can supply national context, but it can't establish the agency's current authority or internal arrangement. Those claims require statutes, executive instruments, official agency material, oversight reports, budgets, procurement records, and other sources appropriate to the organization.

We decided to share the discipline rather than the template. Both lines will record research cutoffs, distinguish stable facts from time-sensitive claims, preserve recoverable citations, and separate fact from game interpretation. Country Factbooks will also mark fictional material clearly. Agency Fact Sheets won't invent access, doctrine, equipment, or authority to fill gaps in public information.

That last limit matters. Public sources rarely describe a security or intelligence organization completely. Silence can reflect classification, ordinary nonpublication, outdated pages, or a subject outside the source's purpose. It isn't permission to convert a plausible assumption into a factual statement.

The discontinued Factbook remains useful because it identifies subjects, vocabulary, and historical baselines. It no longer carries the burden of keeping either series current. That burden belongs to the source register, the research cutoff, and the editorial decisions made for each individual claim.