1.2 LIGHT

Juna recounts the “Second Bottleneck,” when corporate Concerns (“Megasocial Opportunity-Exploitation Concerns”) led humanity beyond a ravaged Solar System, framing the Garveneer Special Projects mission: establish resource nodes and pathways for expansion. Their target, Shroud, is a massive, tidally locked, hydrogen- and ammonia-rich moon with crushing pressure, deep cold, and total darkness.

From flyby data and Drone Fourteen’s brief transmission, the team learns Shroud hosts large, alien life in a lightless atmosphere that inexplicably broadcasts on radio. Juna, Bartokh’s assistant and the crew’s mediator, models the hostile world while managing tensions among biologist Rastomaier, geologist Skien, data specialist Big Mike Jerennian, and engineer Mai Ste Etienne.

After Fourteen’s 12 seconds of footage, Chief Director Advent sends commendations and demands more, while Resource Oversight’s Terwhin Umbar condemns waste and cuts budgets. The crew toasts with weak stimulant before returning to work under conflicting directives: deliver breakthroughs with fewer resources.

Juna briefs Bartokh on progress: Ste Etienne drafts improved drone designs; Jerennian identifies additional recoverable frames; Skien and Rastomaier refine mission parameters. Juna continues building planetary models to placate management, reflecting on Shroud’s perpetual darkness and unsettling radio-active biosphere.

Visiting the workspace, Juna sees advanced drone schematics—and a larger design. Ste Etienne reveals Bartokh directly commissioned a manned mission concept, exciting her engineer’s daring but alarming Juna. Juna confronts Bartokh, who downplays it as theoretical yet hints Opportunities wants eyes on the surface, implying pressure toward a risky human descent.