Internally, an FSM has a set of gates and either a set of state definitions or a set of interconnected FSMs. An FSM containing states is simply an "FSM".  An FSM containing other FSMs is a "block FSM".
 

In either case, this internal structure is opaque to the outside. It is not possible for one FSM to get the current state or any other information from another FSM, except by sending and receiving signals. This makes applications created in SAFIRE more stable during development, because the internal implementation of an FSM can be changed without affecting the FSMs connected to it.