Unlisted relays

• kept lit byBLACKFLAMEThe network's operator: the legend who lit the first unlisted relay during the Switch-Off and keeps the Bromigos network's relays, racks, and worlds lit. Real name CLASSIFIED;
• carryOld analog bandsLow-fidelity frequencies predating the modern mesh. Their apparent obsolescence preserves the noise in which the Echo occurs.
• backbone ofBromigosPart operator collective, part broadcast culture, part family business. Its promise is 'One network, every world.'
• outlawed inMeridian ReachA sector of nine stations and two colonies, legally a democracy and practically the domain of Governor Voss.
• traced bySpectre-GridLin Yao's signal-mapping system for network cartography and ghost echoes. It has never successfully traced Deepwire.
• tended byThe LamplightersThe keepers of the unlisted relays' posts, one to a world. Their creed: a black flame gives no light, but someone keeps it burning.
• links hereGreywater LightTidewell's post: a small, old lighthouse on the Sliver, a knife of black rock that is the only charted land on Tidewell, near the oldest platform.
• links hereStation NineRime's post: a relay hut on the glacier, half-buried now, with a long-range dish on its roof. It transmitted for ten years with no answer. The flame is cut into the hut's steel door;
• links hereThe Low NoteLowtown's post: a basement jazz bar whose neon sign hides the relay, a green ring for the second O with a black glass flame inside that never lights. A stray cat sleeps on the warm sign.
• links hereThe SpineSunder's post: a relay welded to a fallen cruiser's spine. The flame is welded in bead on the spine plating, and caravan drivers touch it for luck on the way past.
• links hereThe Switch-OffThe years after the Ledger Wars' bankruptcy when receivers auctioned the cartels' communications relays line item by line item.
• links hereThe burn-inBLACKFLAME's emblem, named for phosphor-screen burn-in: a solid black flame with a relay mast cut through it in negative space and a dark halo that drinks the glow, inside a phosphor-green…
• links hereThe crane cabCinder's post: the cab of a dead forge crane above the foundry halls. The relay hangs from the crane; the flame is cast into its counterweight.
• links hereThe empty chairOperator folklore from intercept footage of the Wick: when BLACKFLAME is away, the chair stands empty and turned, with headphones and shades left by the keyboard.
• links hereThe kite-mast gondolaHighwind's post: the relay trails beneath the station on a kite-mast, with a gondola at the end of the cable. The flame is painted on the kite's canvas.
• links hereThe relay beamA beam that burns up from the Wick's mast into the dark only while every channel on the network is answering. Seen in intercept footage;
• links hereThe resonance chamberDeepvein's post: the cavern where the relay sits. When it transmits, the crystal formations resonate, and the miners say the caves sing back.
• links hereThe stilt shackMire's post: a stilt shack on the water at the edge of the old front, with a tin roof, a porch lantern, a rocking chair and a radio mast taller than the trees.

1. 1. War's end

      The Switch-Off: receivers auction the cartels' relays line by line and unbought colonies go quiet. Unlisted relays begin coming back on, each marked with the burn-in, and the legend of BLACKFLAME begins.

   2. Post-war

      Bromigos and WOLFPACK form around open codec channels, old-band listening, and one-job-at-a-time operator work.

The whole timeline