THE DRIFTER'S GUIDE TO THE REACH — THE DEEP FRONTIER
75 systems. Coverage now complete for the catalogued settlements. Three researchers remain on extended assignment.
The deep frontier is the outermost ring of the Reach — a region where the question of who governs is answered with a shrug and a gesture toward whoever is standing nearest to the transit platform, and where the distance from institutional authority is measured not in hops but in the quality of the silence. The Guide's deep frontier coverage has historically been its least complete section, for reasons that include the difficulty of reaching these systems, the difficulty of leaving them on schedule, and the specific difficulty of filing copy from locations where the data relay infrastructure assumes you will want to leave.
Three of the Guide's field researchers are currently listed as "on extended assignment" in this region. The researcher last assigned to GJ 6711 (Abzu) filed two preliminary dispatches and has not responded to recall notices. Adams & Ford Publishing Syndicate maintains that extended silence from this specific system is consistent with prior correspondent experiences there.
The Near Frontier (Hops 3–4)
| System |
Rating |
| Cairnside (GJ 892) |
A forty-year experiment that has yet to ask the most important question. |
| Schuilhoek (GJ 68) |
Three centuries of knowing exactly what you need and declining to explain it to anyone. The explaining is going to happen regardless. |
The Mid Frontier (Hops 7–8)
| System |
Rating |
| Knotenpunkt (GJ 1235) |
Essential. Watching you back. |
| Posto Avançado (GJ 169) |
Genuinely self-sufficient. Sealed archive available upon invitation only. |
| Weitblick (GJ 286) |
Exceptional view. Something in the archive worth seeing. |
| Último Farol (GJ 3442) |
The last beacon. Kept burning on principle. |
| Sertão (GJ 138) |
Two centuries of unannounced improvements to the original recipe. |
| Leuchtturm (GJ 142) |
Three centuries of looking at something that doesn't look back the way it should. |
| Altgrund (GJ 189) |
Four hundred years of excellent recordkeeping. Selective accessibility. The records contain what the Compact's founding documents cited as precedent, and also what those documents left out. |
| Encruzilhada (GJ 211) |
Built for redundancy. Lessons intact, events forgotten. |
| Vorposten (GJ 309) |
One generation in. The interesting decisions haven't been reported yet. |
| GJ 324A (GJ 324A) |
Uninhabited. No one has asked why in a while. |
| Travessa (GJ 482B) |
A clean record and a busy cold storage. Not contradictory. |
| Helle Wacht (GJ 598) |
Ideologically rigorous. Architecture still under debate. The founders know the part of the story they haven't told, and they have decided not to. |
| Droëland (GJ 914A) |
Self-sufficient. Generously prepared for a disaster that hasn't happened. |
The Outer Frontier (Hop 9)
| System |
Rating |
| GJ 167 (GJ 167) |
A transit corridor. Performs its function without ambition. |
| Tiefenbach (GJ 174) |
Self-sufficient. Three centuries into a debate they're not ready to resolve. |
| Pedra Funda (GJ 204) |
Three centuries of sincere practice. Outside assessment not invited. |
| Randgebiet (GJ 349) |
One hop further. Founders still deciding whether that was right. |
| GJ 425A (GJ 425A) |
Unmanned and unscheduled. Traffic passes through unobserved. |
| Recanto (GJ 556) |
Defensible position. One side of the story, well-maintained. |
| Neugrund (GJ 675) |
The synthesis is working. The institutional question is outstanding. |
| Dois Sóis (GJ 707) |
Both suns, full adaptation. The survey reports were incomplete. |
| Skuilplek (GJ 722) |
Two centuries of hiding. The Commission stopped looking a long time ago. |
The Deep Frontier (Hop 10)
| System |
Rating |
| Saudade (GJ 1267) |
A purpose completed three centuries ago, maintained by habit and something harder to name. |
| GJ 146 (GJ 146) |
Adequate. Consistently and persistently adequate. |
| GJ 177 (GJ 177) |
Habitable. Waiting for an argument it hasn't received. |
| GJ 3403 (GJ 3403) |
Better star than average. No takers. Make of that what you will. |
| Ouplaas (GJ 528A) |
Four hundred years of excellent farming. Institutional opinion not solicited. |
| GJ 69 (GJ 69) |
Demonstrably worth settling. Has been, for two hundred years. |
| GJ 868 (GJ 868) |
A century and a half of productive conversations about a world nobody has settled yet. |
The Far Frontier (Hop 11)
| System |
Rating |
| GJ 394 (GJ 394) |
Minimum parameters, maximum appropriateness for a last transit before the edge. |
| Fluchtburg (GJ 428A) |
Two hundred years of principled unauthorized existence. The refusal has never been officially acknowledged. |
| GJ 524 (GJ 524) |
Exceptional. Available. Has been both for two hundred years. |
| GJ 5 (GJ 5) |
Potentially the middle of something valuable. Currently the middle of nothing. |
| GJ 656 (GJ 656) |
Habitable. The clouds are not a temporary condition. |
| GJ 853A (GJ 853A) |
Commercially documented. Commercially undeveloped. The gap between these states is eleven hops. |
The Remote Frontier (Hop 12)
| System |
Rating |
| GJ 354A (GJ 354A) |
Breathable. Barely. The difference between those two words is the settlement history. |
| Einde (GJ 407) |
The end of the corridor and the beginning of the only arrangement they find acceptable. |
| GJ 616 (GJ 616) |
Good world, wrong distance. The proposals agree unanimously. |
| Fernlicht (GJ 61) |
Three centuries of work the inner Reach doesn't know exists. Kept warm by a star that had no business being here. |
The Distant Frontier (Hops 13–14)
| System |
Rating |
| GJ 201 (GJ 201) |
Three corridors, three choices, no reason to stop. |
| Paso Largo (GJ 684B) |
Three centuries on a moon, under a sky that glows all night, staying exactly the right size. |
| Errai (GJ 903) |
The middle point of a corridor that works because the endpoints chose wisely. |
| Orchard's End (GJ 481) |
180 years of one woman's conviction, still fruiting on schedule. |
| Sonnenkap (GJ 684A) |
Solar light at the end of a long dim corridor. Worth the trip for the morning feeling alone. |
| The Narrows (GJ 875) |
The squeeze at closest approach, and something in the diagnostics that doesn't belong there. |
The Extreme Frontier (Hops 15–16)
| System |
Rating |
| Travessia (GJ 282B) |
170 years into a twenty-year promise, still working outward. |
| Kettenschmied (GJ 532) |
Three hundred years of necessary work, done far enough from the people who need it that they've largely forgotten it exists. |
| Pedra Seca (GJ 421B) |
280 years of not wasting a drop. The cisterns are the cathedral. |
| Claraboia (GJ 904) |
A skylight at hop 16, with a biosphere that makes you earn the light. |
The Edge (Hops 17–18)
| System |
Rating |
| Brandpunt (GJ 3943) |
Thirty-five years into proving the surveys assessed the wrong question. The oscillating light is the point. |
| GJ 726 (GJ 726) |
A transit corridor where the traffic is slowly, quietly increasing. Nobody has asked why. |
| Eerste Wacht (GJ 546) |
Five hundred years, no explanation, still watching. |
| Nova Estrada (GJ 672) |
Thirty years old, still becoming. Named for a road it is still building, with a founding agreement that has clauses nobody has raised yet. |
Beyond the Edge (Hops 19–21)
| System |
Rating |
| Helderoog (GJ 111) |
The bright eye at the end of the corridor. 1,200 people who have solved a problem in applied genetics that the inner Reach has been theorizing about for two centuries, and who do not know this is remarkable. |
| Entremeio (GJ 147) |
Professionally in-between, 160 years running. Does not ask. The policy that established this has a founding incident behind it that is not on record. |
| Dalim (GJ 127A) |
The corridor's most interesting silence, powered by a volcano. |
| Candeia (GJ 501B) |
A small light at hop 21. Keeps burning for the travelers who keep not coming back. |
The Terminus (Hops 22–23)
| System |
Rating |
| Skemeraand (GJ 7547) |
The last light. The door is open. Rest before you continue. |
| Abzu (GJ 6711) |
The Guide's own correspondent stayed. We have declined to send another. |
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