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Scenario

What happens if this plays out: a premise projected onto the parties it would reach.

3 credits·deep dive·about 3–6 min·12 domains

What it answers

The question Scenario is built for

State the premise as a what-if. It sets out the projection and the assumptions it rests on, then names the parties the scenario would reach and, for each, how directly, how much weight the decision would carry, the response options, the signals to watch and the question it would force. A baseline brief records where things stand today so the projection can be read against it.

Who reaches for it

Planning teams, risk desks and anyone whose job is to be ready for the version of events that has not happened yet.

What comes back

3 sections, on every run

These are the headings the result renders, read from the same promise the form makes before you spend a credit. A section that depends on what the record holds is rendered when it can be and never promised here.

01

Scenario Projection

Key Assumptions
02

Projected Intersections

Each entity Proximity · FLOW classification · Response Options · Watch Signals · Key Question
03

Baseline Brief

What you give it

2 boxes, 1 required

What if…? — the hypothetical (a URL works too)
required · up to 600 characters
Focus entities (optional, up to 5 — first leads the analysis)
optional · up to 200 characters
Try it on: a subject you already hold an opinion about, so you can grade the result against what you know. Each one opens the form filled, in the General domain.
What if China blockades Taiwan's ports?
What it will not do

The lines it holds

A scenario is not a forecast. It does not say the premise will happen or how likely it is; it works out what would follow if it did, and it labels every assumption as an assumption.

Every claim carries its grade

A claim the scan could not source is marked as such rather than dressed up. How the grades work →

Verified or grounded
Reported or attributed
Contested
Open question
Where it runs

Available in 12 domains

A domain may name it in its own words and price it on its own terms; each row is what that domain shows.

General3 creditsDefense3 creditsFinance3 creditsEnergy3 creditsHealth3 creditsPolicy3 creditsTechnology3 creditsClimate3 creditsLearningas What If3 creditsSportsas What If3 creditsTravelas What If3 creditsLifestyleas What If3 credits
See one

Research already published as Scenario

[SCENARIO] U.S. Default: Federal Benefit Payments Missed

Read the research →

If the debt limit ever binds hard, nearly 71 million Social Security recipients are not automatically protected: the constraint is cash in Treasury's account that day, not whether Congress guaranteed the money.

Finance · September 9, 2026
Roles that lean on it

6 role guides suggest it

Strategic planning managerlead scanWargame designer / exercise plannerlead scanBusiness continuity / resilience leadlead scanHead of corporate strategyGeopolitical risk analystClimate risk analyst
Try it

Run Scenario on something you already know

The fastest way to judge the result is to pick a subject you know cold and read it against what you know. The scan names its credit cost before it runs.

Start with Scenario →Plans and credit packs
More in the catalog

Other research in explore

OptionsThe moves actually open to one party in one situation, and what each would cost them.CompareTwo things set side by side on the dimensions that separate them, with a verdict that says why.LandscapeEvery named player in a space placed on one map, with position and leverage stated.PrecedentsThe historical cases that rhyme with this one, and what they say about how it tends to go.Uncertainty MapWhat is genuinely unknown about a question, what is only assumed, and what would shrink each gap.The whole catalog →