Earth-built colony ship, grounded
A ship that became the ground under a people. Built 2189, lost into the reach, down on Ostry by 2192 with four hundred aboard and no way back up — 'When the Kindred came down, we were four hundred, and the ship would never rise again.' Five generations later she is a long barrow with a spine: her main hold is the meeting hall, her forward hold is the granary, and her node-emitter mast kept transmitting for years into a sky that was not listening.
The spine of the barrow — one hundred metres kept clear of growth for five generations, scoured and patched, with the mast at its head.
At the head of the dorsal frame. Her people kept it running for years after landfall, transmitting into a sky that was not listening — and the beacon still runs on the Kindred's last working throat, in a distress format whose hull-status fields the modern board has no codes for.
One hundred metres of dorsal frame kept clear of growth for five generations — swept, scoured, patched, plates over plates. Keeping it clear is not maintenance; it is observance. The skylight over the main hold is cut through this run — an opening in the plate, not a space beside it, so it appears on the sheet as a mark and not a room.
What her second century built inside her.
Timber galleries and cable runs grafted onto the frames above the meeting hall — the ship's structure carrying a village's carpentry.
The node-cores kept behind glass and a lock. The log-core is a grey cylinder as tall as Vale's collarbone, and its casing carries the yard stamp that dates the ship.
The colonists' original accommodation. Long since emptied into the town; canon does not describe what it has become.
The holds that became the town's public buildings.
The founding stone. Where the seed grain lived, and where the town's grain still does.
The whole civic life of Ostry under one span of hull, with the skylight over it and the timber galleries around it. Fifty-one of the Ferren slept in the Dawnward's main hold on the way out; this is the room they learned holds from.
Under the ribs, where the hull was opened out and roofed in her second century — half ship, half building. The speaking-iron is a metre of drive-section stock, which is what a people uses for a gavel when the drive is never going to turn again.
The keels that carried the evacuation were cut from the Kindred's bones for a heavier world — five generations old, up the ascent corridor on a pillar of thrust with the grace of furniture. The cutting had to come from somewhere; the aft frames are where a hull spares it.
What she landed on, and what was taken out of her afterwards.
She came down on them and never rose again. The speaking-iron was cut from this stock.
The cell itself is not aboard any more: it sits on dressed stone in the plant-house, still turning out current a hundred and twenty years after landfall. The bay it left is drawn empty because it is empty.
Key
Grade of every figure on these sheets
Canon fixes the mass, the frame run and the hull's age directly. The length follows from the frames; the beam is the drawing's own decision, bounded by what the books rule out. Each figure says which it is.
Length overall
112 m
derived224 frames @ 500 mm
The dorsal frame kept clear of growth for five generations is published at one hundred metres (B1 ch04); the hull runs a little past it at both ends. One hundred metres of clear frame is the only dimension canon states for her, and the drawing is built so that it comes out exact — see the check.
Beam
26 m
fixedspec ruling 2026-08-01
A colony ship reads wide — 'a long barrow with a spine' — and a barrow is broad in the beam. Canon never gives the figure.
Height
18.4 m
derivedfour decks, floor heights below
As built. As found, the line of her is softened by a century of plates over plates and the structures grafted on.
Hull age
123 yr at 2312
publishedS12 B1 ch12
Built 2189 — the Earth yard's mark, build code and year are stamped on the log-core casing. The landfall survey is dated 2192, authenticated to instrument serials.
Complement
400 at landfall; never rose again
publishedS12 B1 ch15
Her last working throat
Still transmitting on the Kindred's last working throat, in a distress format so old the modern board has no codes for its hull-status fields. Four years of signal before the Dawnward's receiver found it — the four-year-old human voice at the other end of a road that did not yet exist.
S12 B1 ch15; B2 ch16
Removed to the plant-house; still serving
On dressed stone, turning out current at landfall plus one hundred and twenty years. Under BF-012 it is a sealed seam-era cell doing exactly what a reserve is for — and its endurance is why the town exists.
S12 B1 ch05; B2 ch20
Never to turn again
Quarried for iron and for keels. The five evacuation keels of 2312 were cut from her bones for a heavier world.
S12 B1 ch15
The books state distances aboard this ship. The drawing has to produce the same ones or it is wrong — so it is made to, and the working is shown. These run again on every build; a compartment moved by a metre fails them.
“One hundred metres of dorsal frame kept clear of growth for five generations” S12 B1 ch04
The kept span runs from the mast at frame 12 to frame 212 — 200 frames of run at 500 mm = 100.0 m. The mast is the head OF the clear frame, not a thing standing outside it: what her people sweep runs from its foot. On the sheet the span is the mast compartment (F12–30) plus the clear frame (F30–212), and the two together are the published hundred metres exactly.
“Built 2189, landfall survey 2192, roughly a hundred and twenty years before Book One” S12 B1 ch12
2312 − 2192 = 120 years exactly. The yard stamp and the survey date bracket a three-year voyage and loss into the reach.
2189
Built at an Earth yard; the mark, build code and year stamped on the log-core casing.
2192
Down on Ostry. Four hundred at landfall, and the ship would never rise again. The landfall survey authenticated to instrument serials.
Her second century
The hull opened out and roofed at the speaking-yard. The main hold a meeting hall, the forward hold a granary, the power cell out onto dressed stone. The mast transmitting for years into a sky that was not listening.
2312
The Dawnward's receiver finds the four-year-old signal. The keels are cut from her bones, and her people go up the ascent corridor on a pillar of thrust with all the mass in the world behind the decision.
A blueprint that answered everything would be inventing. These are the things canon has not fixed and this sheet deliberately leaves for a book to claim.
