Meridian-Class Deep Explorer (EX-01)
Spent Light
Commissioned 2240 CommandAaron Vance → Maya Sloane → Julian Mercer
First of the Meridian class, built at the Houston-orbital yards. Sabotaged on her maiden voyage and flung past the edge of the charted network — her aft third sheared away at the collars. She never fully recovers: patchwork plating, cannibalised systems, dead reckoning the whole way home. Sister ships: Resolute III, Endeavour, Fortitude, Tenacity.
Complement
~240 (crew, Geneva delegation, science team, Nhál delegation)
Propulsion
Harmonic array — fold drive (deep-explorer rating)
Armament
Close-defence magazine, point-defence suite
Exploration-Class Vessel
The Long Watch
Commissioned 2191 CommandMarcus Cole
First of class. Built at Houston Interstellar Yards. 312-metre needle built around a forward 84-metre harmonic array, with four secondary arrays at the hull quarter-points for four-vantage topology. Sits deep — half her mass below the waterline. Designed for 2–4 year continuous deep-frontier deployment.
Complement
34 · 11 decks · all private cabins
Propulsion
Dual Seam chamber (primary + backup)
Armament
Boundary-disruption arrays (dual-use science/defence)
Exploration-Class Vessel (Architect Hybrid)
The Long Watch
Recommissioned 2201 CommandMarcus Cole
Rebuilt at Junction-23 from the original Resolute's wreckage fused into an Architect-residual derelict. The only canonically energy-armed vessel in the fleet. The hull is the derelict's — angular, rectilinear, taller in the corridor — and the salvaged human bridge sits two degrees off level, the ship's signature.
Propulsion
Derelict Seam chamber · topology-substrate
Armament
Architect-residual energy lance + topology-modification shield
T-class Traverse Vessel (Institutional)
The Drift
Commissioned 2127 CommandSigrid Halland (FN)
The line-vessel of the ISNA institutional fleet — the canonical institutional shape against which the SNG commercial ships are measured. Two-stack array; observation deck retained from the 2127 design. Svalbard Shipyard build.
Complement
15 (15–20 capacity)
Propulsion
Harmonic array (gen-2, two-stack)
Armament
None (survey configuration)
T-class Traverse Vessel (Third Generation)
The Drift
Commissioned 2162 CommandIdris Fasola (FN)
The Erika Magnusdóttir's four-stack successor — a run ship, not a diplomatic vessel, sent on the first deliberate first-contact mission because her First Navigator knows how not to break it. Crew-named after a 0.012% error no one could explain.
Propulsion
Harmonic array (3rd-gen), four-stack phase-locked
Armament
None (survey / contact-protocol configuration)
SNG Pedersen-class Commercial
The Outer Run
Commissioned 2127 CommandBjørg Sandberg (FN)
Standard SNG commercial-route vessel. Regular stops include Junction 14-B, Junction 19, Junction 8-C, and Junction Q-3.
Complement
11–13 (15 max)
Propulsion
Harmonic array (2nd-gen → 3rd-gen by B4)
Mercer-class Survey Ship
Wide Sky
Commissioned ~2312 CommandAidan Locke
Built at the Mercer Yards on Mars and named toward the dawn. A civilian survey ship with no business in a war: a mobile laboratory, diplomatic habitat and — the part that matters — a provenance authority, able to seed nodes and make the first authenticated observations in a reach that is dark on the ledger. She opens the Sable Reach in 2312 and spends the rest of the trilogy being pushed a long way past what she was built for.
Complement
Civilian — Open Reach Survey complement, science and contact staff
Propulsion
Span-rated fold array (deep-survey rating)
Armament
Light defensive fit only — deliberately under-armed
Colony Ship (lost 2192)
Wide Sky
Lost ~2192 CommandNot recorded
Lost into the Sable Reach in a seam accident and grounded on Ostry, where her people have lived for five generations as the Ferren. Her node-emitter was kept running for years after landfall, transmitting two generations of message into a sky nobody was listening to — first a plea, then a warning. Her node-logs are the rare authenticated baseline the trilogy's proof rests on: a stranded ship's paperwork, and the most important document of the era.
Complement
Colonists and crew (complement unrecorded)
Propulsion
Harmonic array (pre-Span generation)
CommandDaniel Cross
Captain Cross's command, and what a fleet built to discover looks like when it has to learn to fight. A lifting-body hull that can make planetfall in one piece, the fold array of a true explorer, and kinetic mounts accurate enough to catch a falling cargo pod — which is the job she was actually designed for.
Complement
ISCA-FC complement
Propulsion
Fold array (true explorer rating)
Armament
Kinetic mounts, precise enough to act as a moving catcher
Civilian Bulk Hauler (independent registry)
The Cairn
Forty-one years in service at 2318 CommandMaster Cray → acting Master Efe
A forty-one-year-old hauler that went out with ten and came back with fourteen. Her hand log says three hundred and thirty-one days on passage; her master clock says two hundred and forty-one; her second engineer's says two hundred and sixty. Nobody has ever reconciled them, and the ship is the argument: her master died on the way, Efe brought her in as acting master, and admitting her — people, cargo and all — is the decision the Cairn's whole first book turns on.
Complement
Ten out on her last charter; fourteen home
Propulsion
Commercial fold plant, charter-route rated
Fleet Warship (escort rotation)
The Cairn
On station at the Cairn, 2318 CommandCaptain Vandran
Fleet grey with escort manners, standing off the throat lane with her lamps up — she did not move a metre in three days, and the trade side priced that. Up close her captain is smaller than his ship suggests and considerably more exact: he arrives with scrubber substrate for a hull twice the Tallow's size, fitters to pass it through her sleeve, and a demand that nobody comes down that ramp until the Warden has characterised what is in the hold. He is not being unreasonable. That is the problem.
Complement
Full fleet complement — corpsmen, riggers, boarding parties
Propulsion
Fleet fold plant
Armament
Warship fit, carried and never itemised
Civilian Survey Vessel
The Cairn
In port at the Cairn, 2318 CommandMaster Sabel
Survey stock of the old vintage. Master Sabel came in through the throat behind the Tallow, read her wake displaced from her hull, logged the lot properly and brought the Cairn the raw. He lends his two boats and their crews free of charter, keeps the only honestly-chalked route ledger between the station and the yards in his good opinion, and distils grain mash off the Longsight's hydro loop against a charter clause he is too senior to be caught by.
Complement
Master and survey crew — six boat-hands who have handled a sick hull before
Propulsion
Survey-rated fold plant
Armament
None (survey configuration)
