The Definitive Country Almanac: The Cinderbelt Coalition — Part 1#

Kethra Almanac • Approved 19 September 2026 • drafted 18 September 2026 • Sections 1–4 (Sections 5–8 are in Part 2)

Status: approved. Briana approved the whole almanac on 19 September 2026 (the Almanac Approval Decision). Where this file calls something a proposal, read it as approved, except the open points that decision lists.

Status before approval:

• Established in earlier files, and taken as given here (proposals there too, unless the spine's canon table covers them):
  • Belt industry and shipyards, seated at Cinder Hollow: "the largest belt power" and "the largest shipyards in the system" (the spine, Chapter VI).
  • About 1.5 million people in the Cinderbelt, about 50 AU out; a 7-hour signal delay (the spine, chapter 11).
  • A dual council: a Council of Yards (owners) and an Assembly of Crews (workers), who must both agree on labour law "and rarely do" (Chapter II).
  • Dispossessed of its Kronos moons by the Imperium; it wants Hearthport back (the spine). One holdout moon, Holdfast (Who's Who, chapter 11).
  • The Cinderborn, born at about 0.3 g, who mostly cannot live on Kethra's surface (Chapter I).
  • Transportation to the Cinders: forced labour in the belt, abolished in AL 2203 (Chapter II, the Crown almanac).
  • The Seam, a platinum-group cluster claimed by both the Coalition and the Imperium, with skirmishes every season (chapter 11).
  • From the register: its objective is to keep its settlements independent while supplying the defence effort; its fear is requisition becoming annexation; its leverage is shipyards, repair capacity and material throughput; its split is that owners negotiate contracts while workers demand protection and enforceable limits.
• Proposal: everything else. It is built on the spine, chapter 11 and the Kronos colony almanac.
• Correction made while writing this almanac: the Kronos colony almanac had called Hearthport's first crews (AL 2102) "belt-born". The belt was not settled until AL 2140, so that line has been corrected there. The account below is consistent with the correction.

Reading note. The Coalition is a country of hollowed rocks, 7 hours of signal delay away from anyone who might tell it what to do. It is not on the planet at all, and most of its people could not stand on the planet if they went there. Every Coalition place named here is on the interactive Atlas's Cinderbelt map, and the full list is the generated Register of the Cinderbelt Coalition.

Section 1: National Overview & Identity#

Official Name & Etymology#

• Formal name: The Cinderbelt Coalition of Yards and Crews
• Short name: the Coalition; in the belt, simply the Hollow (for its capital)
• Adjective: Coalition, belt. People: Cinderborn if born in the belt (Chapter I); crews for everyone who works there.

Where the name comes from. It was founded in AL 2091, in Kethra's orbit, as the Outer Works Coalition: a coalition of fuel and mining companies that meant to work the outer system. It opened Kronos in 2102 and the Cinderbelt in 2140. When it moved its seat to Cinder Hollow in 2171, it took the belt's name. The belt is called the Cinderbelt for its dark, burnt-looking rock, "the cinders" in heartland speech, which is also why transportation there was called "transportation to the Cinders".

What others call it:

Greeting: "Air and light." Reply: "And a hull between." It is a wish for the two things a rock can run out of, and for what keeps them in.

National Symbols#

Shift's End, first verse (original lyrics):

Close the seal and bank the fire, the long shift's done, Seven hours from the sun and seven more from home; Hull between and air within, and the light we made — Shift's end, shift's end, and the rock still round us.

The State Profile#

Chronological Timeline#

Section 2: Geography & Environment#

Physical Geography#

The Rocks#

"Climate"#

• Vacuum, radiation and cold outside; shift-lit warrens inside.
• Spin gravity: 0.3 g in the great rocks; less in the small yards; nothing at the axis, where ships berth.
• The dark: no daylight. Gardens grow under fusion lamps; shifts, not days, set the rhythm of life.

Life and Resources#

Section 3: History & Chronology#

The Outer Works#

The Coalition began as a company, not a country. In 2091 fuel and mining companies in Kethra's orbit, among them the Crown's Corran Iron Company, pooled their capital to work the outer system. In 2102 their Kronos Fuel Authority founded Hearthport, and for a century the fuel of half the world came through Coalition hands.

The Cinders#

In 2140 the Coalition reached the belt. Its crews were contract workers from orbit and, from the same year, convicts transported by the Crown. "Transportation to the Cinders" was forced labour in the belt (Chapter II), and the Coalition's yards were where it happened. Transportees built Kiln Rock, spun up Cinder Hollow in 2158, and raised the first Cinderborn children, who grew tall and fine-boned at 0.3 g and could never go home.

In 2203 the Crown abolished transportation. In 2204 the freed transportees and the contract crews won the Crews' Charter and the Assembly of Crews, the second chamber that has argued with the Council of Yards ever since. About a third of today's Cinderborn descend from transportees, and say so.

Founding & Sovereignty#

The Coalition is sovereign by distance. Its seat moved to Cinder Hollow in 2171, 7 hours by signal from anyone on Kethra, and no government down the well has been able to rule it since. The Assembly gave it an associate seat in 2150; the planets still argue about what that makes it (Chapter II).

The Taking and After#

The Taking of Hearthport (2284) is the Coalition's wound. In one operation during the Corridor War, a Vardane force seized the Kronos moons. The station guard fought for eleven hours. Two hundred and twelve residents and sixty-four guards died, and the Coalition's officials were deported to the belt. Those officials include the last Warden, Joss Tenner, now a councillor at Cinder Hollow.

The crews answered with the Taking Embargo: no Coalition hull or plate for the Imperium. In 2297 the Council of Yards, whose members needed the money, lifted it to sell hulls to Castellan Rock. The crews struck for a year, the Long Shift, and won a law that every sale to the Imperium must pass both chambers. It has passed twice since.

Meanwhile the Imperium's belt claims grew from 23 to about 60, and the Seam became the place where the two meet every season.

Historical Rulers & Leaders#

Yardmasters of the Council of Yards (complete)#

39 Yardmasters since the Outer Works Coalition of 2091. The Council elects the Yardmaster for four years, and may re-elect once. (All proposal. Generated from a fixed seed with mixed name pools; see the naming principles.) The Rendt family, the Hollow's great yard-owners, has held the office three times. The current Yardmaster is in bold.

Crew Speakers of the Assembly of Crews (complete)#

28 Crew Speakers since the Crews' Charter of 2204. The Assembly elects the Speaker for three years.

Station Wardens of Hearthport#

The Coalition's Wardens of Hearthport, 2102–2284, are listed in full in the Kronos colony almanac. The last, Joss Tenner, sits on the Council of Yards for the lost moons.

Figures every crew child knows#

Section 4: Demographics & Society#

Population Metrics#

The Cinderborn#

• "Not a separate species", whatever the insult says (Chapter I). Tall, fine-boned, and at home only in low gravity.
• Downwell sickness can kill them on Kethra (Chapter I). Most will never stand on the planet their ancestors came from. That is the Cinderborn's private grief and public pride.
• Transportee descent is spoken of openly. A family that came to the Cinders in chains in 2150 is as proud as a family that came as owners.

Language#

• Landspeech in its belt form: fast, full of yard words, and timed by shifts ("second shift", "shift's end").
• Glove-cant: hand signs for work in vacuum, used everywhere, even indoors.
• Linecant among the haulers, who learned it from the Rovessa High Houses.

Religion & Belief Systems#

The Hearth Vigil. Every rock keeps a lamp lit for Hearthport. Believers and unbelievers alike stand by it on Taking Day.

Public Health#

Education#

Every crew child learns glove-cant before they can read, and the seal drill before either.