Breachers
Breachers are the pilots and crews who enter sealed or inaccessible zones for salvage, travel, research, extraction work, or survival. A Breach is the passage they force into infrastructure the Citadel intended to keep closed.
The trade
Breaching is one of Mainframe's three major producing industries, beside manufacturing and raking. Breachers search for hidden corridors, chambers, vaults, and targets called mounds, then force temporary access to recover whatever has remained sealed since before the present civilizations existed.
A fitted ship is livelihood, weapon, tool, shelter, and wager. Inside a Breach, captains mine, fight, tow, hack, cut, scout, and recover whatever the machine has not reclaimed. Cargo does not count as profit until both ship and crew cross extraction intact.
Every opening changes the route behind it. A forced passage may expose an untouched vault, reconnect distant strata, vent a chamber, awaken local machinery, or create a path for something on the other side. The value of a Breach is therefore inseparable from the danger it introduces.
Slang
Their working language is blunt and regional. A mound is a sealed objective. Breachers themselves may be called aardvarks or malamutes. The slang changes between ports, but the profession is recognized anywhere that old locks stand between a settlement and something valuable.
History
The earliest credible aberration records came from Breachers operating in remote Mainframe during the ninth century AI. An unknown captain called Orphan is credited with describing the Cachalot in 890 AI, more than a century before formal expeditions established that aberrations belonged to a larger ecosystem.
What answers a Breach
Protected zones are defended by ancient security circuits. When a daemon core detects unauthorized access, nearby gates lock, flight operations halt, and the system begins a staged response designed to contain the intrusion before it reaches critical infrastructure.
The staged response is described in Security circuits.
In the game
Players are Breachers. Breach describes how a run works, and Ship loss what is at stake.