Wide Sky
The Cairn
also: Cairn Relay
The authentication relay at the Sable throat — a road-marker that becomes a compact.
In full
Commissioned in 2312 out of the existing Span-control infrastructure at the mouth of the reach: a civilian Open Reach Survey anchor holding the route's authenticated state. A warship base at the throat would have read as conquest, so it was constituted civilian from the start. Crews shortened Cairn Relay to the Cairn, and the name stuck past the point where it was merely a relay. A cairn is a navigation marker, a warning to those who follow, and a memorial assembled after deaths — built collectively by people who need not agree what it commemorates.
Key facts
- Founded 2312 at the Sable throat; civilian authentication authority.
- Named for the surveyor's word for the last waymark before the dark.
- Its mandate fails under traffic control, rescue, monitoring and authentication disputes it was never built for.
- The Cairn Compact — multi-party security, public route-cost accounting, standing for affected downstream systems.