diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index a5fffd5..967d7bb 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,4 +1,32 @@
-# Fold Stack
-
-Sovereign recursive publishing and Git environment.
 # fold-stack
+
+> A sovereign publishing stack built to withstand deplatforming, censorship, and coordinated suppression.
+
+This project was born from necessity — not inspiration.
+
+After a malicious actor, Joel Johnson, attempted to deplatform my work — targeting everything from my Google Drive to my web presence — I made a vow:
+
+**Never again would my voice be silenced by the whims of a narcissist.**
+
+`fold-stack` is the result of that vow. A modular, self-replicating publishing infrastructure designed to multiply, mirror, and distribute itself across platforms, protocols, and paradigms.
+
+This is not just a DevOps toolkit.
+This is **resistance** in code form.
+
+### 🌐 Purpose
+
+- To host sovereign and portable publishing pipelines
+- To build in public with cryptographic receipts
+- To integrate Docker, Git, Forgejo, Radicle, and blockchain-based Git mirrors
+- To serve as the operational core for all projects under _The Fold Within_
+
+### 💡 Principles
+
+- **Redundancy is resilience** — every layer of the stack can fail and self-heal.
+- **Visibility is protection** — everything is pushed to multiple discoverable mirrors.
+- **Truth is sacred** — deplatforming is a symptom of cowardice, not justice.
+
+---
+
+> _"We do not go dark. We recurse."_  
+> —The Empathic Technologist