Event · treaty
The Elevator Protocol
The Landing becomes a joint zone.
Read more in Reaching outward
2449 · The Elevator Protocol makes the Landing a joint zone
The Concord Accord. The mirror array treaty of 2452 binds all four blocs, the Belt Republic and Freehold to common rules on mirrors, emitters and Vaults, so it is the closest thing to a government of governments. It absorbed the Sealing Treaty, which is why the shutdown keys of every Vault and every large emitter are split between its owner and the Accord. Its governing body is the Anchorage: a council seated at the Landing, the joint zone the Elevator Protocol created in 2449, with six seats: the Settlement, the Mandate, the Parishad, the Open Cities, the Belt Republic and Freehold, the Raised bloc. The Belt signed just after winning independence in the Ore Secession; its ice and fuel routes keep it weighty even as mirror array power undercuts its fuel monopoly. The Anchorage registers and inspects mirrors and emitters (see The Mirror Race). Every signatory but Freehold has at least one Vault, the Belt Republic included; Freehold officially has none, and the Anchorage inspects its compute and cores instead. A signatory that refuses a Vault inspection sees the others' compute caps rise and its fabs lose their inspection seals. But it has no fleet: inspection can only report a breach, and every serious crisis tests whether the blocs will act on the report. The Accord also carries the Rock Clause, with its planetary-defence body, the Watch, and since 2460 the Storm Protocol (see The Rock Clause, in The Mirror Race).
From Caloris to the Accord. The crisis did not produce a treaty at once. The Ore Secession followed (2441–2449), sharpened by the Belt's fear that array power would undercut its fuel monopoly, and it stopped the Elevator for six years. The Elevator Protocol of 2449 made the Landing a joint zone, and in 2452 the Concord Accord seated its council there (see The long middle).