To: Authentication & Review Panel, standing Copy: Master, NV Dawnward Subject: Cost-distribution finding submitted by Dr N. Vale — routing
1. The attached finding is submitted for authenticated review under the standing procedure. It is a serious piece of work by a serious officer and it is to be treated as such. I want that on the front of this memo rather than the back of it.
2. The finding asserts that traversal cost distributes non-uniformly and concentrates along heavily-used routes. If correct, it revises the accepted model materially. A revision of that magnitude, released without authentication, would be contested within the day by parties with better lawyers than we have, and the contest would attach to the finding permanently. A finding that is argued about is worth less than a finding that is proved, and it cannot be un-argued-about afterwards. The panel is therefore to proceed at the standard interval and not at pace.
3. The Master of the Dawnward has asked whether an interim advisory may issue to affected systems ahead of panel determination. It may not. An advisory carries the Survey’s authority without the Survey’s process behind it; that is precisely the instrument our critics accuse us of using, and I will not hand it to them. Nor is it kind. Telling a settlement its sun is dying, on a finding we have not yet stood behind, is a cruelty dressed as candour.
4. For the avoidance of doubt: nothing in this memorandum restricts Dr Vale’s access to her own data, her right to publish independently, or her standing to address the panel directly. The Survey does not bury findings. The Survey authenticates them, in order, and in the order they were received.
Panel calendar attached. Current queue depth: eleven submissions. Estimated determination: within the standard interval.
R.
Clerk’s annotation, appended at filing: Standard interval calculated from queue depth as at date of memo. Queue depth is not fixed and the interval is not a commitment. Enquiries regarding position in queue should be directed to the panel secretary and not to this office.