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Module 1 of 24
Before the tools · the structure underneath them
Chemistry has an alphabet: a finite, closed set of elements, and everything material is a combination of them. OSINT has one too. The claim of this course — the thing everything else hangs from — is that every question you could ever investigate resolves to a small, closed grid. There are exactly six kinds of thing you can be looking for, and each of them has exactly the same seven facets you can learn about it. Six rows, seven columns, forty-two cells. That grid is complete: not "usually enough," but complete. If you can state what you want to know, it lands in one of these cells.
This is what separates someone who does OSINT from someone who owns it — and it is worth naming the difference sharply before we go further, because it governs everything.
The collector
Starts from a tool ("let me run this through that site"), gathers whatever it returns, and stops when the results feel like a lot. Confuses volume with answers. When the tool breaks or the site dies, the investigation dies with it.
The analyst
Starts from a question, knows exactly which cells of the grid would answer it, fills those cells from whatever source happens to hold them, and stops when the question is answered to a stated confidence. Tools are interchangeable; the structure is not.
Mastery is the second column. It is not knowing more sites — it is knowing, for any question, precisely which cells you need and how sure you are once you have them.
The complete surface. Any fact you could seek — "where was this person on the 3rd?", "who funds this group?", "when did this event start?" — lands in exactly one cell: a target type (row) crossed with a dimension (column). The rest of this course is (1) proving the six rows are exhaustive, (2) proving the seven columns are exhaustive, and (3) teaching you to fill cells and know how sure you are.
The load-bearing idea
You never "investigate a person." You fill specific cells about a specific target to a specific confidence. Everything downstream — sources, reasoning, the cycle, the tradecraft — exists only to fill cells and to tell you how much to trust what's in them.
Every course at Tricellix follows one method, and it is worth knowing the shape before you start so you can read any module the same way:
| Step | What it gives you | Where it appears |
|---|---|---|
| The periodic table | The finite, closed set of atoms the subject is made of | This module — the 6×7 grid |
| The hierarchy | Named levels, each built from the one below | One module per rung, in the sidebar |
| The mastery contrast | The binary that defines what "good" is | The collector vs. the analyst, above |
| The atom template | Every atom dissected the same six ways | Every unit card in the rung modules |
| The synthesis | Tables, decision logic, a capstone, one master equation | The final module |
The whole method compresses to one line, which you will meet again at the end once every term in it has been earned:
Module 2 proves the six rows are exhaustive — the six kinds of thing that exist — and dissects each one.