Kender Vassi, Counselor of Internal Affairs, studied the stylized rendition of the Brotherhood’s hierarchical structure. Each member had up to three subordinates and one contact, which kept individual knowledge of the entire organization to a minimum. If any one member was compromised, the Brotherhood need only to dispatch that member’s contact to cauterize the wound. The action would yield a loss of every one of that contact’s other subordinates down the line, but the main structure of the Brotherhood would remain untouched.

That is why the few who were privy to this overview of the Brotherhood’s structure thought of it as a tree – either as roots, splitting and thinning into the ground from the central trunk, or leaves growing on twigs on the branches of the central trunk. Since each representation reflected facets of the Brotherhood’s operations, the tree was only more applicable as a metaphor.

Counselor Vassi ruminated on how to go about destroying it, while also wistfully wishing he were a brother.