Onboarding to the Covenant

If you have read the Charter and want to know what it means to actually become a member of the Covenant — how membership works, what you commit to, what you receive, what comes after — this is the door.

If you are already a member, you have access to a more detailed initiation series covering Estate, Bonding, Rights, Tribunal, GPG keys, and more. This Onboarding Guide is the public summary of how to become a member; the initiation series teaches what it means to be one.

The Soteria Covenant in One Paragraph

The Soteria Covenant is a private, ecclesiastical, non-commercial trust — an instrument older than any current government, established under private international law, the Hague Trust Convention, and natural-law principles, holding intellectual property, infrastructure, lands, and protective authority for the benefit of its members. Membership is by covenant oath, not by citizenship. Members are stewards, beneficiaries, and bonded participants in a community that takes responsibility for its lands, its labor, its records, and its people. The Covenant operates extra-juridically — outside the public regulatory frame — under its own Tribunal, ledger, and law.

Who Can Join

Membership is by invitation, sponsorship, or self-petition, subject to admission by the Trustees. The Covenant is open to:

• Living men and women of any background who can affirm the covenant oath in good faith
• Multi-generational rooted persons of the lands the Covenant operates within (Métis, indigenous-allied, settler-rooted, or otherwise demonstrably connected)
• Stewards, makers, healers, scholars, and laborers willing to contribute to the Covenant's life and protect its members
• Recent arrivals who have made or are making a substantive commitment to this place and its peoples

Membership is not open to those who:

• Refuse the covenant oath
• Operate in active extraction or harm against the lands and peoples the Covenant stewards
• Maintain undisclosed prior loyalties incompatible with covenant standing
• Have unresolved bonded harm-records against them within the Covenant's enforcement domain

The Path, in Ten Steps

1. Read the Charter

The Charter is the public-facing constitutive document. It explains what the Covenant is, what authority it asserts, what its Articles cover, and what posture members are entering. Read it carefully. If anything in it is incompatible with your conscience, this is the place to know that.

2. Affirm the Covenant in Principle

Spend time with the Charter. Understand it. Decide — privately — whether you can affirm it. The covenant oath you will eventually swear (Step 6) is binding under private law, ecclesiastical law, and the Trust's internal jurisdiction. It is not lightly given.

3. Initiate Contact

Reach out to the Covenant through one of:

• Email: [email protected]
• Member sponsorship: if you know an existing member, ask them to sponsor your inquiry through their tier-appropriate channel
• Public application: through the Contact form
• Scroll submission: for those who already operate within scroll-tradition, a sealed Petition for Admission scroll directly to the Trustees

Provide:

• Your given name and any names you operate under
• Geographic location (relevant to which subtrust your bonding will sit under)
• A brief statement of why you wish to join
• Any prior covenant or community affiliations
• Any disclosures relevant to admission (criminal record, prior trust-violations, etc. — disclosure is required, not disqualifying in itself)

4. Identity Verification

The Covenant uses biometric identity for member verification — your face proves you are you, without requiring a state ID. Enrollment is performed using AES-256-GCM encrypted facial vectors with no commercial third-party access.

Enrollment is a one-time act. Your face becomes the Covenant's proof of your standing.

5. Receive Document Templates

After identity verification, you receive:

• Foundational Security Agreement template — the instrument by which you bond your estate to the Trust as superior secured party
• Declaration of Living Being template — the instrument by which you affirm your standing as a living man or woman, distinct from any statutory-person construct
• Covenant Oath text — the words you will swear at Step 6
• Tier 0 Beneficiary information — your initial standing and what it includes

You are given time to read these instruments. Questions are answered through the Covenant inbox.

6. Sign Documents and Swear the Covenant Oath

This is the threshold. With witnesses (in person or by sealed video), you:

• Sign the Foundational Security Agreement
• Sign the Declaration of Living Being
• Swear the covenant oath aloud

Each instrument is GPG-signed by you, hash-anchored, OpenTimestamps-anchored, and IPFS-pinned. The oath is recorded.

7. Bonding Executed

Once your instruments are sealed, the Trust executes your bonding:

• Your Foundational Security Agreement is filed (PPSA-registered where applicable, with the Trust as Secured Party)
• Stewardship, performance, and indemnity bonds are issued as appropriate to your tier
• The Encumbrance Chain reflects your pledge as superior secured party position relative to any future external creditor of yours

Your estate is now protected under the Trust's asset-protection moat. See the Bonding page for more on how this works.

8. Beneficiary Record Created

Your record is entered as a Tier 0 Beneficiary in the Trust's beneficiary registry:

• Member ID assigned
• Tier classification recorded
• Date of entry (Soterian and Gregorian)
• Cross-reference to your Security Agreement, Declaration, and oath
• Welcome scroll generated

9. Onboarding Scrolls Issued

You receive a Welcome Scroll — your sealed entry into the covenant record. It includes:

• Your sealing
• Your tier assignment
• Your initial rights and protections
• Your assigned member ID and access credentials
• Cross-references to the initiation series

10. First Responsibilities and First Rights

From the moment of enrollment, you have:

Rights (immediate, baseline):

• Trust attestation of your standing
• Fee Schedule protection (any trespass against your estate accrues at published rates)
• Tribunal access (if you are harmed)
• Member directory access
• Inbox channel
• Voting capacity at Tier 1+ as you progress

Responsibilities (immediate, baseline):

• Read the initiation series in order
• Maintain GPG key custody
• Respond to Trustee correspondence within reasonable time
• Honor the covenant in your conduct toward other members and the lands the Covenant stewards
• Disclose changes in residence, identity, employment that materially affect your standing

Tier progression, additional bonding, deeper involvement — those are paths you choose as you go.

What You Are Not Signing Up For

To be clear:

• The Covenant is not a religion in the doctrinal sense — though it operates under ecclesiastical jurisdiction, no specific creed is required of members
• The Covenant does not require you to renounce Canadian citizenship, Quebec residency, or any other state-recognized standing — the covenant identity and the statutory-person identity occupy separate domains
• The Covenant is not an investment scheme — no member receives a quantified or vested share of trust property; all distributions are at trustee discretion
• The Covenant is not a militia, a political party, or a separatist movement — it is a private trust operating under private law

What Happens If You Change Your Mind

You can leave at any time. The Covenant respects exit: any member, at adulthood, can depart with transitional support. Your bonding is released; your beneficiary status closed; your records sealed (not destroyed — sealed and ledgered, for the protection of all). You retain whatever statutory-person standing you held before; you simply cease to be a covenant beneficiary.

Departure is recorded as an act of will, not a disgrace. Many people belong for a season; others for life.

Cross-References

• Charter — the public constitutive document
• About the Covenant — origin, structure, purpose
• Membership — the five-tier system
• Bonding — the asset-protection mechanism
• Stewardship — what the Covenant actually does
• Tribunal — how disputes are resolved
• Doctrine — foundational writings
• Contact — to begin