Terms used by the descent crew, Asterion staff and the Directorate. Where slang and official terms differ, both are given.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Asterion | The ring-shaped research station at the Rift rim. See Asterion Station. |
| Brake | Carrier routine that emits a decoy pulse to slow nearby pursuers. See Field routines. |
| Cache | A sealed supply container found in the shaft. Some were placed by the Directorate; some were not. See The caches. |
| Calibration | A temporary field adjustment chosen between floors (slang: card). See Field calibrations. |
| Carrier | The armoured descent elevator; also the name of its heaviest chassis. See C-9 “Wayfarer”. |
| Credits | Directorate salvage tallies kept in the carrier ledger. See Credits and caches. |
| Descent lock | The coupler setting that holds the carrier to the mapped route and prevents ascent. |
| Echo | A sector that repeats an earlier environmental profile. See Echo sectors. |
| Floor | One operation window: a stretch of shaft cleared between two route markers. Ten floors make a sector. |
| Guard | Carrier routine that diverts power to the shield field. |
| Guardian | The machine holding the tenth floor of a sector. Official term: access-control unit. |
| Hardpoint / mount | A universal weapon mount on the carrier frame. See The garage. |
| Interval | Short for phase interval, the unit of depth inside the Rift. See Rift physics. |
| K-1 | The first probe sent into the Rift in 2189. |
| Ledger | The carrier’s record of salvage, credits and supplies. |
| Manual | Direct pilot aiming. Pauses the drone link. |
| Overdrive | Carrier routine that raises the weapon cycling rate. |
| Phase coupler | The reactor interface that draws current from a Rift Shard and anchors the route. See Reactor and phase coupler. |
| Relay | A buffered signal repeater in the shaft wall. Eleven lower relays failed in 2217. |
| Route key | Access data recovered from a guardian, needed to anchor the next sector. |
| Route marker | A stable anchor point at the end of a floor. A disabled carrier falls back to the last one. |
| Sector | A stable stretch of shaft containing ten floors. One hundred are mapped. |
| Shard | A fragment of anomalous Rift material. See Rift Shards. |
| Warden | Any machine of the access-control family; also the guardian of the Frozen Reactor. See The Warden system. |
Related articles
ARCHIVE RECORDThe RiftA perfectly straight alloy-lined shaft found beneath the Khepri Basin in 2189. Its depth changes, its echoes repeat, and its end has never been reached.
ARCHIVE RECORDRift physicsDepth drift, early signals, warm relays and geometry that folds at sector boundaries: the measured anomalies of the shaft and the rules the crew uses to survive them.
ARCHIVE RECORDC-9 “Wayfarer”A crew-rated industrial elevator rebuilt as a single-pilot armoured carrier. The only vehicle descending the Rift.