Corridor use is now understood to concentrate damage rather than distribute it. It follows that transit through the Sable throat is a finite resource and must be allocated rather than sold, queued, or left to whoever arrives with the most hulls.
This schedule allocates it. It is posted openly. Any party may read the basis on which they have been placed.
Priority schedule
BAND 1 — Corridor defence. Vessels tasked to the security of the throat itself. Rationale: nothing below this band survives the loss of the corridor.
BAND 2 — Essential systems. Transits on which a dependent population’s water, atmosphere, power or medical supply demonstrably relies, on a certified essential-dependency schedule.
BAND 3 — Licensed freight, scheduled. Combine and Survey traffic under standing licence, at contracted volume, on the published calendar.
BAND 4 — Licensed freight, unscheduled; and civil transit.
BAND 5 — All other transit, including humanitarian movement not certified under Band 2.
Notes on the schedule
Bands are not queues within a shared allocation. A lower band moves when the bands above it are clear. In a constrained quarter, Band 5 may not move.
Certification under Band 2 requires a dependency schedule. A population must be able to demonstrate what fails, how fast, and for whom. Populations with no instrumentation, no telemetry and no standing relationship with a certifying authority will find this difficult. That difficulty is not intended and is not, at present, remedied.
Humanitarian movement is Band 5. This has been raised. The answer given is that a hull carrying people is, in corridor terms, indistinguishable from a hull carrying anything else, and that the schedule allocates by consequence-of-failure rather than by the character of the cargo. The answer is coherent. It has been given more than once, patiently, by people who did not enjoy giving it.
Nothing in this schedule is punitive. No band is assigned by flag, origin or affiliation. Any party may apply for certification. Applications are determined in order of receipt.
Standing note
This command did not write the physics. It was handed a corridor that must be used less, a civilisation that cannot stop using it, and the requirement to decide the difference. It has done so in public, with its reasons attached, and it will amend the schedule the moment it is shown a better one.
Civilisation survives only if somebody holds this corridor.