Readiness Conditions for Preparedness
Readiness conditions are standardized scales that translate a threat environment into an actionable posture. This page is the index for all readiness condition frameworks tracked by Fortune Favors the Prepared — civilian conditions published in the DTR, the government hierarchy they sit within, and the fiction frameworks they originated from.
Every DTR cycle publishes four conditions: PREP-CON, COMCON, WX-CON, and SWX-CON. Government conditions — DEFCON, COGCON, FPCON, CYBERCON, and others — are classified and are not published or estimated in the DTR. They are covered as reference context in Section 3 below.
Civilian readiness moves through two phases — preparation and continuity. COMCON runs as a cross-cutting layer across both.
WX-CON and SWX-CON add natural-hazard context that can drive both PREP-CON and COMCON at any point.
The U.S. military and federal government operate a layered family of classified readiness conditions — LERTCON, DEFCON, COGCON, FPCON, CYBERCON, and others — that PREP-CON and COMCON were designed to complement at the civilian level. These conditions are not published or estimated in the DTR.
The complete government and military conditions hierarchy — structural relationships, all 11 current frameworks, and authority details — is on the Readiness Conditions — Hierarchy & Relationships page.
Three additional conditions exist within The Continuity Chronicles. They are fictional frameworks used by the Cerberus organization in the novels and are not assessed as operational products — though COMCON has since made the trip from fiction to real use.
A system that holds up across an entire novel — clear, consistent, and true under pressure — has already been stress-tested in a way a whiteboard sketch never is. COMCON and CONCON both began in the series before being built as real frameworks. The fiction is where these ideas are proven; the Book of Knowledge is where they go to work.
Plain-language definitions for terminology used throughout DTR products.