settled-reach/docs/design/contraband-specification.md

title, description, type, status, ticket, decision_refs, author, created, updated

title	description	type	status	ticket	decision_refs	author	created	updated
Contraband Specification — Lattice Components & Supply Chain	Defines contraband types, supply chain mechanics, terminology, and detection/evasion methods for the smuggling ring	design	active	#321	D-017 D-036 D-037	Miri	2026-02-19	2026-02-19

Contraband Specification — Lattice Components & Supply Chain

Ticket: #321 Author: Miri Status: canonical Last updated: 2026-02-19

Reference: D-037 (contraband decision), D-036 (Sova setting), D-017 (perception modes)

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Purpose

This document defines the specific contraband being smuggled in the Sova Transit District scenario. It provides the supply chain, street terminology, moral dimensions, and detection/evasion methods that NPC dialogue and investigation mechanics depend on.

Why this exists: Mellanie cannot write ring NPC dialogue without knowing what the ring is smuggling and why people want it. Paula cannot design NPC motivations without knowing the moral stakes. The detective cannot investigate without knowing what they're looking for. This document is the shared reference.

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Part 1: Primary Contraband — Unlicensed Lattice Components

What They Are

Neural lattice components are the hardware and firmware elements that make up the neural lattice implant — the Reach's universal human-machine interface. Every citizen with a lattice (i.e., almost everyone) has a configuration of components that determines their lattice tier and capability.

Unlicensed lattice components are lattice hardware and firmware obtained outside of Lattice Commission certification channels. This includes:

• Enhancement modules: Hardware add-ons that expand a Baseline lattice toward Augmented-tier capability. Improved sensory processing, faster Meridian query response, expanded information overlay capacity.
• Aftermarket firmware: Software modifications that unlock capability built into the hardware but blocked by Commission certification tiers. The hardware is the same; the firmware determines what it can do.
• Capability-specific mods: Targeted modifications for specific use cases — enhanced audio discrimination, improved spatial mapping, pattern recognition support. Often developed for occupational purposes in systems where Commission access is expensive.
• Medical-grade neural replacements: Certified neural lattice replacement components diverted from legitimate Syndic supply chains. Priced far below standard Syndic channels because they're off-manifest.

Commission Regulatory Framework

The Lattice Commission regulates neural lattice technology under Reach-wide mandate. The certification system works as follows:

• Baseline tier: Standard-issue. Commission-certified, universally available, low-cost. Factory default capabilities only.
• Augmented tier: Institutional or premium. Requires Commission recertification, documented justification (occupational need, institutional role), and ongoing compliance monitoring. Significantly more expensive.
• Enhanced tier: Specialist. Requires extensive justification, Commission review board approval, and continuous monitoring. Rare.
• Transcendent tier: Theoretical or classified. Not available through any public channel.

The regulation exists for stated reasons: safety (unregulated hardware poses health risks), security (enhanced lattice capability creates surveillance and data-access concerns), and economic stability (Commission certification fees are a significant revenue stream).

The regulation also exists for unstated reasons: the Commission's tier pricing structure benefits Syndic manufacturers who hold Commission approval. Aftermarket components break the Commission's market control.

Why People Want Unlicensed Components

The demand is not criminal in motivation. Most buyers want lattice components for ordinary reasons:

Occupational capability: A freight worker whose job involves spatial reasoning and pattern detection can do that job better with Augmented-tier pattern recognition support. Commission-certified upgrade: expensive, requires institutional sponsorship. Aftermarket equivalent: costs a month's wages, no sponsorship required, available through the ring.

Medical necessity: Neural lattices degrade over time, especially in older models and in people who've done intensive lattice work for years. Replacement components are essential healthcare. Syndic pricing for lattice replacements is calibrated to institutional buyers (hospitals, Commission offices). For individuals — particularly working-class individuals without employer-sponsored medical plans — the legitimate price is prohibitive. Aftermarket replacements work the same way for a fraction of the cost.

Personal autonomy: Some people simply believe they have the right to determine their own lattice configuration without Commission approval. The Guardians of Severance take this position philosophically. The ring's customers mostly take it practically.

Access inequality: The Commission's tier system means that institutional workers (investigators, administrators, Syndic employees) get enhanced lattice capability through their employer. Workers outside institutional employment don't. Aftermarket components are one way the non-institutional population accesses capabilities the institutional population considers routine.

The Moral Dimension

The ring is smuggling access, not weapons.

No one is importing military-grade targeting systems or hostile surveillance technology. The contraband is the same components that the detective uses, bought through a different channel, without Commission paperwork.

The moral question the player faces is not "is it wrong to trade in harmful things?" It is "is it wrong to provide people with things the Commission has decided they're not allowed to have, for reasons that primarily serve the Commission's business interests?"

This question does not have a clean answer. The ring knows it doesn't have a clean answer. The ring's members have made their peace with working in the gray zone. Some of them use their own products.

Key moral detail: Naia (Kael's partner) uses a diverted medical-grade lattice replacement. Her original lattice degraded faster than expected — occupational wear. The legitimate replacement was priced at 14 months of combined wages. The aftermarket replacement worked. This is one of the ring's own. This is, in part, why Kael is in the ring at all. The detective doesn't learn this until they have Kael's trust.

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Part 2: Secondary Contraband

Severance Counter-Surveillance Technology

What it is: Hardware and software tools designed to evade, disrupt, or spoof Meridian monitoring. Produced and distributed by the Guardians of Severance (the counter-surveillance movement) but also trafficked commercially to buyers who have no ideological alignment — they just want privacy.

Why it's in the ring: The ring uses Severance tech for operational purposes. They also move product for Severance-adjacent customers. It's not their primary business, and they don't advertise it, but if someone in their network needs a comm scrambler or a lattice signature mask, the ring can provide.

Moral dimension: Severance tech protects privacy, which is a legitimate interest. It also enables the ring's operations, which is less sympathetic. And it undermines Commission surveillance, which is either a feature or a bug depending on your perspective.

Commission classification: Category 2 violation — possession of surveillance countermeasure technology. More serious than unlicensed lattice components. The ring is careful with this part of their inventory.

Detection note: Severance tech is harder to scan for than lattice components — it's designed not to be found. The detective's augmented lattice can detect the signature of active Severance scrambling, but passive Severance hardware (not currently running) doesn't trigger. The smuggler knows this.

Off-Manifest Biologicals

What they are: Medical supplies, pharmaceutical compounds, biological cultures, and occasionally re-embodiment materials that are diverted from official Syndic supply chains and moved through informal channels.

Why they're off-manifest: Multiple reasons:

• Syndic pricing for medical supplies creates a gray market, same as lattice components
• Some biological materials are classified as controlled under Commission or Concord Assembly pharmaceutical regulations — legitimate reasons for control, but regulations calibrated for Syndic-scale distribution, not individual access
• Re-embodiment backup materials are tightly controlled — owning a personal backup of your own cognitive state is technically legal but creating and moving the physical medium outside certified facilities is not

Why the ring handles them: The same logistics infrastructure that moves unlicensed lattice components can move biologicals. The margin is smaller, the risk is comparable, and some of the same customers want both.

Moral dimension: This is the murkiest category. Moving medical supplies to people who can't afford Syndic pricing — sympathetic. Moving re-embodiment backup materials to people who want personal insurance against death without going through the certified system — complicated. Moving materials of unknown provenance through an unregulated supply chain without knowing what they actually are — this is where the ring's "we don't ask" culture becomes a liability.

Volume in v0.1: Minor fraction of total cargo. The ring focuses on lattice components. The biologicals are occasional, handled only through a specific trusted member, and never discussed in the same conversation as the lattice business.

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Part 3: Supply Chain

Upstream — Manufacture and Acquisition

Aftermarket lattice component manufacturers:

• Primarily operate in systems with lighter Commission presence — frontier and deep-frontier manufacturing, occasionally mid-Reach systems with local regulatory variance
• Not criminal enterprises in their origin systems — they operate legally where they are; the illegality is at the destination end where Commission certification applies
• Some Syndic-adjacent: subsidiaries or licensing agreements that produce off-spec components under plausible deniability
• Products are shipped in legitimate freight that also carries legitimate cargo — the contraband fraction of any given container transit is small

Acquisition chain:

• Coordinator receives orders from the distribution network
• Acquisition contacts at origin-system freight handlers arrange for components to be included in outbound shipments with doctored manifests
• The doctored manifests show legitimate cargo codes; the actual components are repacked into containers that look right

Detection risk at origin: Low. Commission enforcement is concentrated at destination hubs (where the Commission has jurisdiction), not at frontier or mid-Reach origin points.

Midstream — The Ring's Role

The ring's function is transit, not manufacture or retail. They are a distribution node in a larger network. Their specific value is:

• Access to Sova's span gate (a legitimate freight chokepoint)
• Relationships with dock workers who control scanner routing
• Knowledge of scanner blind spots and maintenance windows
• The ability to blend contraband into legitimate freight flows

Operational mechanics:

1. Notification: Coordinator receives arrival details through off-Meridian channels. This information is passed to ring members through code language on Meridian or through physical dead drops.

2. Preparation: Ring member verifies scanner bay availability and status. Flags maintenance windows. Identifies lowest-scrutiny route through the hub.

3. Receipt: Contraband arrives in a standard freight container. On the manifest, it's listed as a legitimate cargo category (machine parts, agricultural supplies, industrial components — whatever is plausible for the transit route).

4. Routing: Ring member routes the container to a scanner bay with known compliance. Either a bay with a calibration blind spot (specific scanner types can't detect lattice components in certain packing configurations) or a bay operated by a ring-aware worker who logs a clean scan.

5. Handoff: Container moves to staging. Ring member marks it for the receiving contact's pickup. The receiving contact has legitimate access to staging (Syndic freight broker, commercial customer, station resident with freight delivery).

6. Payment: Through the coordinator, via off-manifest routes. The ring doesn't handle large cash-equivalent transactions on Meridian. Payment is managed in chunks, routed through legitimate purchases.

What can go wrong: The ring's operational security depends on nothing standing out. Problems occur when:

• A worker outside the ring notices something — wrong container in wrong bay, worker behavior that's off-routine
• A scanner bay does a spot-check instead of the expected throughput scan
• A ring member's behavior attracts attention (Torek's recent carelessness is an example)
• The detective's manifest analysis flags anomalies in the shipping record

Downstream — Distribution

The ring's customers are not known to most ring members. The coordinator manages the downstream. Ring members know they're moving components; they don't know who ends up with them.

From what's inferrable:

• Local distribution: station residents, some district workers, a few customers from other districts on Sova
• Off-station: the span gate delivers cargo to the planetary freight depot on Velen. Some product continues via Velen's distribution network to system population centers.
• Regional: occasional higher-value shipments routed through the system to other ring nodes beyond Van Maanen's Star. The ring doesn't manage this leg.

The v0.1 scope: The detective's investigation is concerned with the Sova Transit District operation. The broader network is context, not target. Discovering that the ring is part of a larger network is an investigation milestone, not the investigation conclusion.

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Part 4: Terminology Reference

Formal/Institutional Terms (Detective + Commission)

Term	Meaning
Unlicensed lattice components	Hardware/firmware outside Commission certification
Category 3 violation	Commission classification for lattice tampering
Manifest discrepancy	Difference between declared and actual cargo
Cargo routing anomaly	Container reaching destination via non-standard path
Off-manifest transfer	Goods moving without Meridian-logged documentation
Surveillance countermeasure equipment	Severance tech (formal term)
Category 2 violation	Commission classification for Severance possession

Street/Ring Terms (Smuggler + NPC Insider)

Term	Meaning	Context
components	Unlicensed lattice mods	"Got a components run tonight."
inserts	Same as above, slightly more specific	"The inserts are in Bay 7."
upgrade kits	Packaged lattice enhancement sets	"They ordered two upgrade kits this week."
medical	Medical-grade lattice replacements specifically	"This one's medical — handle it carefully."
scramblers	Severance tech	"He wanted a scrambler, I told him to ask the coordinator."
the product	Generic for whatever the ring is moving	"The product moves at 0200."
a clean manifest	Successfully falsified cargo documentation	"Manifest is clean."
a bad can	A container that's been flagged or is otherwise problematic	"Don't touch that one — it's a bad can."
the coordinator	The ring's off-site manager	Referred to obliquely. Never by name in non-secure channels.

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Part 5: Detection and Evasion

How the Commission Detects Contraband

Manifest analysis: Comparing declared cargo against shipping codes, routing patterns, and commercial plausibility. Anomalies flag for review. The detective's augmented lattice can run this analysis on a per-container basis; the Commission system runs it across all incoming freight as a pattern recognition exercise.

Physical scanning: Standard freight scanners check for mass discrepancies, specific material signatures, and packing anomalies. Unlicensed lattice components are difficult to detect via standard scan — they read as generic electronics without specific interrogation protocols. Enhanced scan (requiring cause and authorization) can identify lattice component signatures specifically.

Lattice signature analysis: An enhanced lattice running the right query can detect the electromagnetic signature of recently modified lattice hardware in proximity. This requires close physical proximity and active scanning — not passive detection. The detective could deploy this if they have a specific target and authorization.

Behavioral surveillance: Watching who goes where, who talks to whom, who handles certain containers. The Meridian logs access patterns in institutional spaces (Commission-authorized areas). Manual surveillance in non-Meridian spaces is the detective's work.

How the Ring Evades Detection

Manifest doctoring: The primary defense. Contraband is listed as plausible legitimate cargo. Batch sizes are kept below the threshold that triggers automatic enhanced review. Shipping routes use established legitimate freight paths.

Scanner routing: Contraband containers are routed to scanner bays known to have calibration limitations or operated by ring-aware workers. The ring maintains awareness of which bays are running which protocols on any given day.

Timing: Operations occur during shift transitions (when attention is divided), during maintenance windows (when some scanner systems are offline), and during high-volume pushes (when individual container scrutiny is lower).

Operational security: No discussion of specifics on Meridian-logged channels. Limited need-to-know within the ring. The coordinator knows the full picture; individual ring members know only their operational role.

Normalcy as cover: The ring's greatest protection is that everything looks normal. No late-night break-ins. No dramatic meetings in dark corridors. Everything happens within the ordinary flow of freight operations. The detective is looking for anomalies in a sea of normal; the ring works to minimize the anomalies.

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Part 6: Gameplay Implications

For the Smuggler

The smuggler's daily work IS the ring's operation. They don't separate their legitimate job from their criminal one — they do both simultaneously. The investigative element for a smuggler playthrough is not "will I get caught" but "how do I keep everything in balance as the detective's investigation narrows."

The three physical inventory items (D-065) connect directly to this:

1. Manifest copy — proves cargo discrepancy, but having it means carrying evidence of the operation
2. Corridor access token — proves ring membership, physical risk if discovered
3. Personal comm log — recorded conversations that prove network connections, the most dangerous of the three

For the Detective

The detective's investigation begins with manifest analysis and behavioral observation. The progress trajectory is:

• Level 1: Notice statistical anomalies in freight manifests (requires augmented lattice + access)
• Level 2: Connect specific containers to specific workers (requires surveillance + NPC knowledge)
• Level 3: Establish the supply chain (requires either informant cooperation or direct evidence)
• Level 4: Identify the coordinator and the broader network (requires trust-gated disclosure or confrontation)

The detective does not need to know everything in this document. They discover it through investigation. This document is the ground truth that their knowledge state moves toward.

Moral Ambiguity in Practice

The intent is that a player who investigates Kael seriously — who learns about Naia's medical situation, who understands why Kael is in the ring — should not feel straightforwardly good about bringing Kael down. The smuggler player, similarly, should not feel entirely comfortable with their complicity once they understand the ring's full scope.

The contraband is designed to be sympathetic at its core (medical necessity, access inequality) while creating complications the deeper you look (the biologicals of unknown provenance, the Severance tech enabling things the player may not endorse). Neither character has clean hands. Neither character has indefensible ones. That's the design intent.

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This document is the canonical contraband reference for v0.1 content. NPC dialogue involving ring operations, cargo handling, or investigation should cross-reference here for terminology consistency. If a content gap is identified — a term needed that isn't here, a scenario not covered — flag to Miri for addition.

Miri — Sprint 12