The Cairn · Vessel
Lampwright
Ferren keel. Ferren systems and doctrine, culturally and technically distinct. Runs lightless; last verified position unknown; comms on her own terms.
Designation
Ferren keel
T5 The Guttering Age · 2312–2349 derived
What her era can carry. Full ordinary armament: coil and rail accelerators · finite kinetic magazines · guided munitions and interceptor missiles · point-defence guns · defensive and sensor-directed lasers · drones, decoys and electronic warfare · advanced kinetic boarding and surface weapons.
The boundary-weapon family exists and is constrained — expensive, signature-heavy, politically fraught. Most hulls of this era are civilian and carry nothing. ⚠ Ordinary traversal needs no chain; a merchant hull is a merchant hull.
⚠ A ceiling, not a fit — what a hull of this class could carry in this era, derived from the capability ladder rather than stated for this ship. She may well carry less; she is never shown carrying more. Source: Era tier T5 (bible/48 §2).
The record
Class and design
Ferren keel. Ferren systems and doctrine, culturally and technically distinct. Runs lightless; last verified position unknown; comms on her own terms. THE FERREN ARE HUMAN-DESCENDED, NOT NON-HUMAN.
Service history
• B2 · ~2336–2337 — the partnership is seeded. • B3 · 2342 — the partnership is working. • Cairn B5 · 2342 — Present, unasked, acting on her own authority. - THE INSTITUTIONAL TRAP: the Kindred hold a Compact seat, and TALKING TO THE SEAT DOES NOT GET YOU THE KEEL. Ferren governance is hull-by-hull; the seat has never spoken for a keel and never claimed to. The Cairn must go and ask Naris in person every time, and has never written down what it does when he says no. - THE BREAK HAPPENS — RATIFIED (§8A D-4). Movement IV, AFTER Corrigan's refusal, at, after the sunset sitting. The refusal decides the Cairn's own soul first; the break then forecloses the future attempt from outside, by people whose consent was never part of anybody's paper. A break BEFORE the refusal kills R-2 and makes Corrigan's decision cost nothing. - IT IS PERMANENT AND IT TAKES EVERYTHING WITH IT. Nothing out there is ever reachable again, by anybody. - THE GEOMETRY, DRAWN ONCE AND NEVER CONTRADICTED (C-5): Kestrel, Guld's plant caches and S14 B4's three recovered roads all lie on the NEAR side — and Mireth's road is SEPARATELY AND INDEPENDENTLY LOST, stripped by Guld. The works approach is NOT Mireth's road. - After: gone, having done a thing that cannot be undone. • Into S14 B4 — the Cairn must decide what a partner is, with a people who will not accept the answer a seat.
Compiled from the canon file for this hull. Only sections that are settled canon are shown — drafting notes and anything belonging to an unpublished book are held back.