Maps, Compasses, and the Brokerage: A Pilot's Reference
By The Ceres Commune Trade Council
Maps, Compasses, and the Brokerage
A Pilot's Reference
ES 89 Edition
Compiled by the Ceres Commune Trade Council
Published collectively at Ceres Yards
About This Reference
This Reference is a companion to the Almanac. It covers two tools every working pilot will eventually buy, and one office every working pilot will eventually visit.
The tools are the Compass and the Map. The office is the Ceres Commodities Brokerage. The Trade Council recommends owning all three.
— The Trade Council
- The Compass
A Compass is a personal locator. It does not, despite the historical name, point north. There is no north in space. The Compass points to fold-stress.
Every fold-active site emits a small, persistent signal — a fold-stress signature. Stargates emit one. Beacons emit one. Pattern facilities emit one. Even an active fold-core on a moving ship emits a faint one.
The Compass listens for those signatures and tells you where they are.
What the Compass shows: nearby stations, beacons, anomalies, wrecks with intact cores, mining belts (their refining beacons emit), and sites the user has flagged.
What the Compass does not show: anything that isn't fold-active. A dark wreck with a dead core is invisible to a Compass. A hostile ship that has powered down to drift is invisible.
Note: The sensor envelope is generous but not infinite. The Compass is useful for the next several jumps, not for plotting across regions. For region-scale planning, use the Map.
Continued.
- The Map
A Map is a cartographic record of the region you are flying in. It shows stargate connections, station locations, claimed faction territory, and the major trade-route flows between them.
Maps are updated quarterly by the Brokerage. The version you carry will reflect the data current at your last refresh; ask the Broker when you re-dock.
A Map is not a navigation system. It does not plot routes for you. It does show you the possible routes and their relative traffic, so you can plot intelligently.
Note: Maps come in regional editions. A Sol-Prime Map will not help you in Vega Reach. Buy the Map for the region you are working.
Continued.
- The Brokerage
The Ceres Commodities Brokerage is the Ceres Commune's trade office. Its primary functions: maintain the Maps, sell Compasses, and broker commodity trades between independent pilots and bulk buyers.
The Brokerage operates kiosks at all major IPU stations. Look for the Ceres Commodities Broker at any station's commercial concourse — same desk, same Trade Council uniform, regardless of which station you are docked at.
The Broker does not take a cut of contracts it brokers. It charges a flat administrative fee per filing. The fee is published; the fee is the same for everyone.
The Trade Council considers the flat fee an article of faith. Bargaining with a Broker wastes your time.
Continued.
- On the Name "Brokerage"
A word of clarification, because new pilots ask.
The Ceres Commodities Brokerage and the Black Halo's so-called "Brokerage" are not the same organization. They share a name only because the Halo took ours.
The Ceres Brokerage has operated since ES 22. The Black Halo adopted the term in approximately ES 60 to lend their fee-extraction practices a veneer of legitimacy.
The Trade Council has, on multiple occasions, requested that the Halo cease using the term. The Halo has, on multiple occasions, declined.
In practice: if a Broker wears a Trade Council uniform and operates from a kiosk at an IPU station, they are ours. If they intercept your hull in open space and ask for a "transit fee," they are not.
Continued.
- A Note on Fold-Stress
The Compass works because fold-stress propagates through the substrate faster than light propagates through space. This is engineering, not metaphysics.
The Reach worked with the same physics. The original Reach-era cartography units — Stellar Cartography Unit Gamma, or Cart-Gamma in salvage terms — used fold-stress detection at a scale modern Compasses cannot approach.
The Trade Council notes this for historical context. The modern Compass is not a Cart-Gamma successor. It is an independent invention, built on commercial sensor technology that emerged after First Light.
The Trade Council does not claim Cart-Gamma's lineage. The Trade Council claims the work of its members, which is enough.
Continued.
- Last Notes
A Compass pays for itself within months. A Map pays for itself within weeks if you trade. The Brokerage exists to make your work easier and your paperwork cleaner.
If you are starting out: buy the Compass first, the regional Map second, and visit the Broker when you have a question. They will not waste your time.
Trade well.
— The Trade Council
End of Reference
Maps, Compasses, and the Brokerage: A Pilot's Reference, ES 89 Edition. Compiled by the Ceres Commune Trade Council. Distributed at cost. Next edition expected ES 90.