We introduce normal cores, as well as the more general action cores, in the context of a semi-abelian category, and further generalise those to split extension cores in the context of a homological category. We prove that, if the category is moreover well-powered with (small) joins, then the existence of split extension cores is equivalent to the condition that the change-of-base functors in the fibration of points are geometric. We call a finitely complete category that satisfies this condition an algebraic logos. We give examples of such categories, compare them with algebraically coherent ones, and study equivalent conditions as well as stability under common categorical operations.