Event · event
The Mandate's elevator
Indian Ocean, south-west of Sumatra.
Read more in Reaching outward
The bloc elevators. After the Crisis, neither the Settlement nor the Mandate would depend on a shared cable again. The Mandate opened its own in the equatorial Indian Ocean southwest of Sumatra in 2488, and the Settlement its own in the equatorial Atlantic, about 1,000 km off Gabon, in 2496. In 2497 the Settlement and the Mandate each run one of their own, both brand new. The Elevator is still the only shared one, and the Parishad's and the Open Cities' only stake in Earth's routes to orbit. It carries cheap freight and the poor, its slow decline has begun, and "the Elevator" still means only the first.
From 2271, the Elevator, built jointly by all four blocs, carries most of the Lift's later freight and its poorest emigrants. Passenger capacity grows from about a million riders a year in the 2320s to six million by the 2430s, as ribbons are added and climbers speed up. From 2488, the bloc elevators carry emigrants too (see The Elevator, in Reaching outward).
The Elevator · Open Cities (the platform); Settlement 35%, Mandate 35%, Parishad 15%, Open Cities 15% of climber slots · Most of Earth's traffic to orbit, though the bloc elevators of 2488 and 2496 have begun to draw it away; still the only shared route, and the one Belt-bound freight takes