A Survey Delegation Keeps a Crossing Night on Drithane

In the deep winter of 2826, a Survey Corps follow-up team continuing the Corps' documentation of Drithane's debris-band crossings was billeted in the Gleann na gCaorach valley chain for a crossing night. Under the Celtic Union's survey-hospitality arrangements the team lodged with valley households rather than in a delegation compound; Ranger presence on-world remains by invitation under the 2723 Charter, and the valley's warden, Sorcha Nic Dhiarmada, kept the billet ledger.

The settlements went dark for the crossing, valley by valley, as they do. The warden walked the dark-down, and the valleys' working animals quieted with the households. The record notes, as the valley's own account does, that this is a kept custom and not a law: no record of the custom ever needing one exists.

The delegation's manifest carries one courtesy animal, a trainee of Eden's detective agency, Bubochka, on her first off-station assignment. Nothing else that travelled with the delegation is on the manifest.

Canon facts:

• Drithane hosts Survey Corps follow-up teams under the Union's survey-hospitality arrangements, billeted with valley households rather than in delegation compounds; Ranger presence on-world remains invitation-only under the 2723 Charter.
• On a crossing night, Drithane's dark-down is walked by a valley warden, a kept custom and not a law, and the valleys' working animals quiet with the settlements.
• The delegation's manifest records one courtesy animal.

See: The Dark-Down (S02E03C01), and for what the manifest does not carry, Not From This House (S02E03C02).