Institutions
Open Reach Survey
Earth's civilian exploration service in the Guttering age — idealists, not the fleet.
In full
The body that charts what the Span opens: civilian crews, civilian charter, home berth at Highreach. Its ships are node-seeders, laboratories, diplomatic habitats and provenance authorities — deliberately not warships, because a warship at the mouth of somebody else's sky reads as conquest. Its charter is its best quality and its weakness: it can go anywhere and it can enforce nothing, and when a finding needs burying it turns out to have a director as well as a charter.
Key facts
- Civilian service; home berth Highreach; ships built at the Mercer Yards.
- Crews train at the Marcus Cole Academy.
- Its vessels are lightly armed by design.
- Its review process is honest, slow, and exactly as useful to those who want delay.