Lore

Chronology of Major Events

A pre-2378 chronology of major historical events, from the Halberg Drive through the shutdown of Arenal.

Fairhold

A judicial oversight authority associated with Praetor-based adjudication.

History of the Known Galaxy

A broad historical overview of human expansion, Osharran discoveries, slipstream travel, the New Galicia Event, the New Galicia Accord, and the Triton Compact.

Indentured Servitude

A widespread contractual condition in which people trade rights and freedom for safety, security, debt relief, or survival.

Interstellar Law

The legal framework governing contracts, authority, liability, and jurisdiction across worlds.

Jurisdiction After FTL

The collapse of older jurisdictional assumptions after FTL and slipstream travel made legal simultaneity nearly impossible.

Kethra

A form of Osharran programmable matter that can perform complex functions without conventional electronics, but becomes dangerous at scale.

Koschei Facility

The Osharran research site where an attempted failsafe against intelligent machines became the origin point of the plague.

New Galicia Accord

The cornerstone legal framework governing artificial beings, autonomous AI, fabricants, and machine self-awareness.

Osharran Technology

Osharran technology followed a different path from human electronics, combining high-energy engineering, biological computation, programmable matter, and material recipes.

Osharré

Ancient sentient, spacefaring civilization whose ruins, technology, and kethra-based engineering predate humanity’s expansion beyond Sol. They are believed to have died out before humanity reached Osharran space, exterminated by rebellious thinking machines called Selkare. Physically, the Osharré were about a head shorter than humans, gray-skinned, with large dark eyes and smooth, hairless heads, with no visible ears and no hair.

Private Property

In a highly automated economy, intellectual property and contractual control matter more than physical ownership.

Repo Operations

The high-risk practice of asset recovery, contract enforcement, and extraction across interstellar space.

Slipstream Lanes

The backbone of interstellar travel: fixed corridors of warped spacetime that allow ships to move between star systems far faster than conventional FTL drives.

Slipstream Travel

The dominant method of interstellar travel in the Ransom's Law universe.

The Lattice

A deeper and more mysterious framework underlying advanced slipstream phenomena.

The Legal and Political Environment

An overview of the fragmented corporate, military, religious, and planetary power structures that govern the Ransom’s Law universe.

The Lightspeed Rule

A pre-FTL principle stating that laws propagate at the speed of light, created to address jurisdictional delay across early colonies.

The Ministry

Sometimes simply referred to as "the cabal," the Ministry is a secretive group of powerful individuals who have been resurrected as artificially intelligent "echoes" inside a copy of the illegal AI simulation known as Arenal. The Ministry wields great power over the known galaxy through leverage over individuals in many corporations and organizations.

The Osharré

An extinct sentient, spacefaring civilization whose ruins, technology, and slipstream knowledge shape human expansion.

The Triton Compact

A technocratic legal regime that created unified rules for trade, indenture, jurisdiction, and corporate compliance.

Vein-glass

A reusable Osharran display slate made from laminated glass and ceramic layers etched with pigment-routing microscopic channels.