The Halcyon Breach

The Halcyon Breach (2418). A gatekeeper team smuggled replicator designs from the Mandate's Vaults to an Open City faction, then defected to the Open Cities: the defining security scandal of the age (see Why it mostly works, in Recursive self-improvement). The Open Cities' small Vaults are efficient but each is weaker than a large Vault, so their replicator designs had stayed behind the other blocs'. The designs went to one faction, not to the Open Cities as a whole: their Vaults belong to many different cities and owners, and a faction that owned one could put the stolen designs to use on its own. The Open Cities caught up on Halcyon's designs, and once they had designs worth sharing, they began sharing them with the Parishad.