Every ship in Kethra orbit moves on a vector from the Compact's Traffic Control. The Imperium signed this Article and no other.
II
One Fund
Every habitat pays dues into one maintenance fund, and the guilds maintain every habitat from it
III
One Roster
Residency in orbit is a place on a habitat's roster, and every place owes its due
IV
Open Docks
The docks are open to any ship that pays the fee and takes a vector
The register's objective, "shared infrastructure and authority over orbital traffic", is Articles I and II. Its fear, "infrastructure failure or settlements refusing common obligations", is what happens when Articles II and III fail. The Compact has never had a different politics.
The Compact Board. Twelve against twelve, and the Chair's vote decides.
Seats
Who
How chosen
12
The Works Bench: two for each of the six guilds (Seal, Air, Spin, Power, Docks, Relay)
Elected by each guild's members
12
The Roster Bench: the heads of the twelve offices (Roster, Dues, Traffic, Docks, Launch, Tenders, Relays, Belt, Marshals, Health, Farms, Treasury)
Appointed by the Chair from the offices' own ranks, and confirmed by the Board
1
The Compact Chair
Elected by the Board at Compact Day for five years, once re-electable. Votes only to break a tie.
Twelve against twelve. The benches are equal by design, so that neither the guilds nor the offices can rule alone. In practice they tie on everything that matters, and the Chair's casting vote is the Compact's government. That is why the election of a Chair is the only election in orbit that anyone watches.
The Residents' Voices. Every major habitat elects a Voice, and the lesser stations elect six between them: 44 Voices in the Voices' Hall at Vesper Prime. They are advisory (Chapter II): they may question any office, publish anything, and certify the dues rolls. Since the breach of 2307 they have refused to certify them. Chief Voice Zara Mensah leads them.
The Red Board. Any guild may declare a habitat, a dock or a ship unsafe. Nothing overrides it: not the Chair, not a flag, not a squadron. It has been used against the Board itself twice, most recently in 2308, when the Seal Guild red-boarded three outer rings and forced the repairs the Board had refused to fund.
Chapter II says the engineers "hold real power" and the officials "administer", and the register gives the split: "Engineers prioritise reliable service; officials equate resistance with political defiance." In orbit they are the Works and the Roster.
The Works (the guilds)
The Roster (the offices)
The register's line
"Engineers prioritise reliable service"
"Officials equate resistance with political defiance"
Who
The six guilds and their apprentices; most of Ring Seven; the Polytechnic
The twelve offices; the Marshals; most of the Crown-flagged rings; the Treasury
Want
Repairs first; an independent audit; a dues holiday for the outer rings; the Voices given a binding vote on the dues rate
Dues first; the Arrears acknowledged before any audit; the Marshals sent to the lamplit households; the League made to name a negotiator
Say of the other
"The Roster would let a ring fail to prove a point about dues."
"The Works would spend the fund on people who don't pay into it."
Remember
Ring Thirty-One (2307): "thirty years of deferred maintenance"
The First Dark (2247) and the Withholding (2268): the "settlements refusing common obligations" that the register names as the Compact's fear
The election. At Compact Day, 17 Bloom 2314, the Board elects a Chair. Beata Rasmussen (the Roster) seeks the one re-election the Compact allows. Nnamdi Kovac, the Master of Works, stands against her. Twelve seats each; the sitting Chair may not vote for herself; the tie is broken by lot, which has happened once, in 2179, and is the reason the Compact has a Lottery Room.
The audit. The register names the way out of the Lantern quarrel: "independent maintenance audits followed by repairs and restored payments." Kovac would have the Assembly's Fuel Monitors, or Ilyr, audit the Lanterns and the outer rings together, and pay for the repairs from the light-fee and the dock fees. Rasmussen would audit nothing until the League acknowledges the Arrears, because "an audit of a debt not admitted is a gift".
The Voices' price. Mensah has told both candidates that the Voices will certify no dues roll until the outer rings' backlog is funded. Neither has agreed.
What Vesper wants from the League, in the register's words: "compliance and a negotiator who can bind the League". Whether the League's Lampfall vote produces one is not in the Compact's hands (the League almanac).
The roster ladder. About 35,000 people a year go down a rung, and about 3,000 a year go off the bottom.
Rung
What it is
Rostered
A place on a habitat's roster: the right to breathe its air. Every adult place owes the due, about Cr 4,400 a year; a child's place half that.
In the red
Three missed dues. The Roster Office writes to the habitat's Voice, and the household's due-chits stop.
Outrung
Moved to an outer ring, "the least maintained habitats" (Chapter II). About 35,000 people a year. The move is by Marshals' cutter, with what a family can carry.
Unrostered
Three years in default, or a Compact Court sentence. "Removed from every habitat roster", and must leave orbit (Chapter V). About 3,000 people a year: most go downwell, where an Upweller can live (Chapter I); some go to the belt, where the League takes them in (the League almanac).
Due-chits. The Compact pays its guilds and offices about 40% of their wages in due-chits, which are accepted for dues at face value and for nothing else. Since they are the only thing the Roster Office must accept, and the Compact issues no more than it pays, residents buy them at a premium: Cr 1.15 (Chapter VI). The premium is the price of staying rostered.
Every major habitat has a Ring Council of its guild hall, its office and its Voice, and keeps its own roster. Every place below is on the interactive Atlas.
Guests and neighbours in orbit, outside the rosters: the Crown's Pharos High; the Imperium's Hesk High, Orbital Yard and Military Relay, "outside Compact rule" (the Vardane almanac); the Homeguard picket; the free port's Saltline Tether Yard; and the Rovessa High Houses' lighter berth at Vesper Docks. All of them take vectors. None of them pays dues. The Free Banner Guild's Tide Pennon berths at the Docks too, not as a guest but as the Compact's own escort contractor (the Free Banner Guild almanac).
The Compact Court, at Vesper Prime: seven Assessors, three named by the guilds, three by the offices and one drawn by lot from the Voices. It hears appeals, killings, and every unrostering.
Ring courts for everyday cases, under the Ring Council.
The Habitat Marshals (Chapter II): about 5,000, with 40 cutters. They keep order, execute outringings and unrosterings, and seize ships without vectors.
Sentences: fines, paid in due-chits; work-duty, maintenance labour under a guild; outringing, loss of residency, "the most feared penalty" (Chapter II); and unrostering, removal from every roster (Chapter V).
No execution, and no airlock: "Airlocks are never used as punishment" (Chapter II). The Airlock Law of 2071 is read aloud at every Court sitting. To threaten someone with the sky is itself a crime.
Vector law. A ship that moves without a vector is a hazard, and a hazard is seized. This is the law under which the Marshals took three Lanterns in 2247–2251, and the League has never forgiven it (the League almanac).
An associate seat at the Homeworld Assembly: it can speak, and vote only on space affairs; "its status is disputed" (Chapter II). The Compact has never asked for a full seat, because a full seat is for states, and the Compact insists it is not one.
It keeps the Frame Accord and, above all, the Quiet Sky Accord: the relay constellation is aimed inward, and the Homeguard picket watches every transmitter in orbit (the atlas).
Publicly: "Major carriers share responsibility for our infrastructure." Privately: "Caravan traffic funds maintenance; abrupt exemptions would shift costs onto residents."
The Compact wants "predictable payments and maintenance cooperation". The Rovessa want "auditable fees and equal treatment", and complain that "every exception seems easier for politically connected fleets". What would mend it: "a transparent port budget with shared oversight". What would break it: "selective enforcement or a dock closure during a medical emergency".
Authority, maintenance and frontier autonomy (the register)
Publicly: "Disputed members must meet common obligations." Privately: "Their captains can disrupt essential traffic while claiming every obligation is tyranny."
The Compact wants "compliance and a negotiator who can bind the League". The League wants "accountable services and an end to coercive seizures". What would mend it: "independent maintenance audits followed by repairs and restored payments". What would break it: "collective punishment or an attack that harms ordinary orbital residents". The League says the Dues Order is the first; the Compact fears a flint attack on a tender is the second.
Founding sponsor; a close partner (the Crown almanac)
The Crown built Old Vesper and paid for the Compact. It flies three rings and elects three orbital seats. It also depends on the tenders for 44% of its electricity (Chapter III).
The Crown wants "fuel and relay access; stability in orbit" (the Crown almanac). The Compact wants the Crown to remember that it is a partner, not a province.
It signed Article I and nothing else, "built its own orbital yard and military relay to avoid depending on Vesper", and keeps 300,000 people in orbit outside the rosters. Since 2291 it sells the Crown its fuel through Compact tenders it does not trust.
The Imperium wants "independence in orbit" (the Vardane almanac). The Compact wants the Void Squadron to keep the Rings Truce.
Indispensable to it (the Coalition almanac); a customer and a rival
Every freighter unloads at Vesper Docks; every string passes the Belt Line. The Coalition "has asked for its own relay chain for thirty years" (the Coalition almanac).
The Coalition wants its own relays. The Compact has said no thirty times, because the Belt Line is the leverage chapter 11 describes.
The Relay Guild has been half Ilyr since 2119; the habitats' fusion runs under Ilyr licence; Ilyr "buys most of its launches from Vesper" (the Ilyr almanac)
Safe passage for Deepwell and Farlight; the Quiet Sky kept
Station dues unpaid since the Withholding (2268): Cr 31 million a year for 46 years, with service interest at 2.9%
The League's 70% of the light-fee, kept since the Offset (2270), and the repairs never made
Total
About Cr 2.9 billion, owed by the League
About Cr 3.4 billion, owed by the Compact (the League almanac)
Scale
The whole light-fee is about Cr 74 million a year: 0.008% of the Compact's output
About 0.4% of the League's output; the Arrears themselves, Cr 3.4 billion by the League's books, are about a sixth of a year of it
Working. Cr 52 million is 70% of the light-fee, so the fee is about Cr 74 million a year. Cr 74 million ÷ Cr 940 billion = 0.008%. Cr 74 million ÷ Cr 19 billion, the League's output (the League almanac) = 0.4%; Cr 3.4 billion ÷ Cr 19 billion ≈ 18%. The Arrears are a rounding error to the Compact and a sixth of a year's output to the League, which is why the Roster can afford to be stubborn and the League cannot.
Defence spending: about Cr 6 billion a year, about 0.6% of output. The Compact has no navy, and its doctrine is that it must never need one.
Force
Strength
Notes
Traffic Control
about 3,000 controllers
The Vectors. Nothing moves in orbit without one.
The Habitat Marshals
about 5,000; 40 cutters
Police and bailiffs; seizures of ships without vectors
The Debris Watch
about 800
The Cascade's child: tracks about 2,000 dead objects in orbit and hunts down new ones
The Rings Truce
a treaty
The Crown's Orbital Squadron (22 craft) and the Imperium's Void Squadron (58) have not fired a shot in orbit since 2280
The Homeguard picket
the Assembly's
Quiet Sky enforcement
Doctrine.Nobody fights in the Rings. A habitat cannot be defended; it can only be kept from being attacked. The Compact's weapons are the vector, which it can withhold; the docks, which it can close; and the relays, which carry everyone's orders. Its last resort is that every power's own stations hang in the same sky, and debris does not choose sides.
The maintenance fund, AL 2314. The gap between what is spent and what the guilds say is needed is the Compact's whole politics.
Cr billion a year
Dues collected (about 78% of the Cr 53.7 billion assessed)
42
Dock, traffic and light fees
16
The fund spends
58
The Works Bench says it needs
71
The outer rings' backlog (one-off)
41
Working. 11.0 million adult places × Cr 4,400 = Cr 48.4 billion, and 2.4 million child places × Cr 2,200 = Cr 5.3 billion: Cr 53.7 billion assessed. About 78% is collected: Cr 42 billion. 42 + 16 = 58. The Works survey of 2313 puts the need at Cr 71 billion a year and the outer rings' arrears of repair at Cr 41 billion. The Roster's answer is that if every place paid its due, the fund would have about Cr 54 billion in dues alone.
Torch-freighters and habitat sections (Chapter VI), built from belt metal at Vesper Prime and Ring Twelve. About 14 torch-freighters a year.
The Launch Office
About 2,300 launches a year from Pharos Isle and Saltline Launch; the Imperium flies its own from Hesk Point. Working: the Line almanac gives Saltline 41% and Pharos 38% of launches, and the Crown almanac gives Pharos about 1,100 a year, so all spaceports fly about 2,900 and the Launch Office's craft about 2,300.
The tenders
About 45 tonnes of helium-3 a year from Kronos (the Kronos colony almanac), about 10 of them for the Crown, carried under the fuel clauses with Fuel Monitors aboard
Drop-capsules
Belt metal down into Line lagoons (Chapter VI): about 4,000 capsules a year
The farm decks
Half of orbit's food (Chapter VI); fish tanks; the Farms Office
Pandia and Ersa
Regolith, oxygen, carbon, and the cheapest launch in the system from Ersa (Chapter III)
Every off-world message passes through Compact relays, and everyone knows it (Chapter VI, chapter 11). The Imperium's own military relay is the only exception (the Vardane almanac).
The Relay Guild's oath is that it carries and does not read. The Traffic Office's string-ledger records who sent what to whom, and when, and shows it to the Board. Whether the Compact reads the strings it carries is the system's oldest open question; every power behaves as if it does. (Open. Do not settle it in a scene.)
The Board Sheet: the Compact's daily, read at watch change on every ring.
The Unmapping (3 Thaw) is the one day the relays go silent, in honour of the Quiet Sky (Chapter V).
The year's first day. Every ring's annual inspection is read out: the Board Reading. A green board is a holiday; a red one is a working day, and a shame.
The Unmapping
3 Thaw
With the planet (Chapter V). The relays fall silent for a day.
Landfall Day
1 Sowing
With the planet (Chapter V). The Founders' Stones are on the ground; the Rings watch the processions on the Weave.
The Shadows
About two weeks around each equinox
Not a holiday: the eclipse weeks, when nothing is scheduled and the Power Guild does not sleep. Shadow suppers are eaten by lamplight in the dark minutes.
Compact Day
17 Bloom
The Compact (2068). Every fifth year, the Board's election.
Fever's End
28 Greening
The Quarantine Rules (2236). The Fever Litany: the 40,000 named, ring by ring.
Cascade Day
12 Fall
The Cascade (2066). The Debris Watch reads the tracked list, and the 316 are named.
Dues Day
1 Mist
The annual assessment. The least loved day in orbit. In the outer rings, Dues is performed.
Song-Night
Five nights in Mist
With the planet. The Crossing verses are sung facing the window.
The ring marathon: once round Vesper Prime's First Ring is about 9.4 km
The Gradient
A race from rim to hub up the spokes, with gravity falling all the way
Vaulting
The belt's sport, played at the hub by belt families come downring
The Assembly Games. Upwellers compete downwell, after a few weeks' adjustment (Chapter I). The Compact has won the long jump nine times, and been accused of gravity-cheating every time.
Working. 12.2 million in 2291 to 14.0 million in 2314 is about 0.6% a year: natural growth of 0.36% (Chapter I) and net migration of about 0.2%. 9.1 million in 2233 to 12.2 million in 2291 is about 0.5% a year, after the Fever's 40,000 dead.
