Timeline
2047 – 2180
Cohort 12 is admitted in 2138. The vessel they serve on was commissioned in 2129. The institutional knowledge that made all of it possible begins with a junction technician who survived an accidental traversal in 2071.
The Signal
Svalbard Deep-Field Array. 03:17:44 UTC. 47 min 33 sec on the hydrogen line. The signal does not originate from any direction in space. The institutional response is quiet.
First accidental traversal
Erika Magnusdóttir, a Svalbard junction technician, is moved eight years forward and 1.3 kilometres sideways by an unstable Seam. She survives. The institutional knowledge begins.
Reidar Halvorsen born
Bergen. He will be a First Communications Officer aboard NV Erika Magnusdóttir thirty-four years later.
Vesna Hadžić born
Sarajevo. She will spend sixteen months learning the array Reidar was responsible for, before becoming responsible for it herself.
EATNP founded
The Early Traversal Navigation Program — quarterly intake cohorts, eighteen-month training. The institutional ancestor of ISNI.
NV Erika Magnusdóttir commissioned
Svalbard Orbital Yards. T-class traverse vessel. Named for the first surviving traversal. First Navigator Sigrid Halland takes command.
ISNI founded
The International Seam Navigation Institute takes over training from EATNP. Records carry forward. Cohort numbering remains continuous.
Cohort 12 admitted
Twenty-four trainees. The cohort begins its training year at the Svalfjell Ridge facility, Norway. Where The Drift opens.
Cohort 12 graduates
Twenty-three trainees graduate. One does not. Three of the graduates report for service aboard NV Erika Magnusdóttir.
Junction 14-A survey
NV Erika Magnusdóttir arrives at the junction on a routine survey. The mission does not stay routine. Book Two.
Junction 22-C amendment
A mission survey of an artificial site is filed under a geological-anomaly classification. The crew knows what they are mapping. Book Three.
CW3 welfare mission
A 285-person colony has been protecting a developing contact for four years. The commercial data-share window closes. Book Four.
First deliberate first-contact mission
NV Persistent Error is sent to a junction whose far side has been used, for at least twenty years, by something organised, durable, and patient. Book Five.
The work after the mission
The ship comes home. The institutional framework Idris filed in 2155 has become the file cabinet that holds what the mission brings back. The Drift closes here.