The Compact of Old England

We, the undersigned, in recognition of the fragility of memory and the permanence of choice, establish this charter as the governing foundation of the territory henceforth known as Old England, upon New Earth.
  This land is not claimed in conquest nor preserved in nostalgia, but set aside to protect those who believe that the human being, as created, carries meaning beyond function.
  This charter is not a return nor an effort to reassemble the fractured institutions of Old Earth. It is a framework for continuity where it is useful, restraint where it is necessary, and dignity where it has too often been traded for ambition.
  Our values are rooted in traditions old enough to remember famine and war, yet flexible enough to accommodate the realities of a new beginning. We do not venerate suffering, but we do not erase the memory of what it costs to survive. We hold that endurance without understanding is only repetition, and that progress without limits is indistinguishable from loss.
  Old England is a pluralist territory. No one faith dominates here, nor is anyone compelled to submit their beliefs to public interrogation. What is required is reverence. Citizens of Old England may worship in the manner of their ancestry, or in silence, or not at all, but they must live with an awareness that the world does not begin or end with them. The spiritual life of a people is not a private matter, nor a political one.
  It is a shared inheritance that shapes how we treat strangers, how we bury our dead, and how we raise our children.
  Technological inquiry is permitted, but not without constraint. We reject the use of invasive biological enhancement, neural manipulation, and germline modification for the purpose of civic or personal elevation. Intelligence, strength, beauty, and longevity do not require mechanical exaggeration to be worthy of respect. No one is refused medical treatment in Old England, but medicine here serves the preservation of health, not the reinvention of form.
  Mixed heritage is not a barrier to belonging. Many of us carry bloodlines altered or combined long before this settlement was founded. What matters is not the proportion of what was inherited, but the alignment of what is practised. Those who value continuity over novelty, patience over acceleration, and responsibility over self-direction will find no doors closed that have been open to them in this land.
  Citizens of Old England are bound by civic law and cultural expectations. We do not measure character by individual success. We measure it by how we contribute to the preservation of the whole. Our schools teach history, ritual, and ancestry alongside science and mathematics. Our ceremonies mark not only harvests and births, but also acts of restraint, care, and repair.
  To be part of Old England is to accept that restraint is not failure, that limits are not shameful, and that some things, including the shape of the body and the rhythm of life, are not improved by modification.
  Governance is conducted through the council. Representation is local, and authority is conditional. No office is held for life and no position is above question. The council may be replaced by public vote if it is found to violate the spirit of this charter. In cases where civic law and moral conscience diverge, the matter will be brought before a public ethics assembly composed of rotating citizen volunteers and cultural advisors.
  This charter may be amended only through unanimous council agreement and majority citizen ratification. We have seen what follows when foundations shift without warning. We have lived through the collapse of certainty. We will not build a second society on sand.
  Let this be the record and the root of Old England: May it hold.