chorych

Chorych is a fictional term used in worldbuilding and speculative fiction to describe a social-technical system for collective learning and governance. In many works, chorych denotes a framework in which knowledge, skills, and resources are organized through mentorship, apprenticeship, and shared records, enabling communities to operate with coordinated autonomy.

Etymology and scope terms for chorych are created within constructed-language or collaborative writing communities. The name is often connected to a sense of chorus, cooperation, or communal memory, and its exact meaning can vary between settings. As a concept, it is typically treated as a broad organizing principle rather than a fixed institution.

Concept and structure. A chorych usually comprises local chapters linked into a broader federation. Members contribute time, expertise, and learning, while access to shared knowledge and tools is governed by consent-based participation. Practical knowledge and histories are recorded in repositories—physical or digital—that function as the chorych ledger, enabling ongoing apprenticeship and skill transfer. Decision making tends toward deliberative, consensus-based processes, with governance distributed across participating households, guilds, or networks.

Cultural depiction and usage. In fiction, chorych is often portrayed as egalitarian and future-oriented, emphasizing long-term stewardship, intergenerational continuity, and cooperative problem solving. Tensions may arise over access to the ledger, differing interpretations of communal obligations, or conflicts between centralized federation authority and local autonomy.

Real-world usage. The term appears in fan wikis and collaborative worldbuilding projects as a generic label for such systems; it is not an established scholarly term. See also collective intelligence, open governance, and guild-based models.