Departure Period
Approximately 2157–2166
Effective Crossing Time
Approximately 61–72 years, depending on vessel
First Major Harbor Arrival
2224
Last Founding Hull Arrival
2232
Most of the ships possessed drives capable of somewhat faster crossings.
The reason they arrived later was simple.
They kept slowing down for one another.
The First Transfer
The event HARB historians usually identify as the beginning occurred in 2183.
The passenger carrier Saint Christopher suffered a cascading failure in one of its protein-production systems. Replacement equipment existed aboard Tamarind, but the vessels were separated by millions of kilometers and traveling on slightly different trajectories.
Matching velocities required months of planning and significant propellant expenditure.
Tamarind did it anyway.
Technicians crossed between the vessels carrying replacement cultures, pumps, and control equipment.
Several remained aboard Saint Christopher for nearly two years.
Nobody called this the Harbor Coalition.
Not yet.
The Ceres Blight
Nine years later, fungal contamination spread through several major agricultural compartments aboard Ceres.
The ship that had once fed others suddenly faced starvation.
Food was transferred from four vessels.
Rations were reduced across populations that had never met one another.
Children aboard Bayanihan grew up eating smaller meals because strangers aboard another ship needed the calories.
Nobody was forced to participate.
Almost everyone did.
That changed the coalition permanently.
The Mercy Quarantine
In 2200, an aggressive respiratory infection appeared aboard Mercy of Lagos.
The irony was not lost on anyone.
The Coalition's primary medical vessel became the vessel nobody could safely approach.
For eleven months Mercy remained isolated.
Medical personnel aboard the ship transmitted treatment protocols while doctors on other vessels manufactured drugs they could not physically deliver.
Eventually small remotely operated cargo vehicles crossed the quarantine boundary.
Twenty-seven medical personnel died.
The outbreak was contained.
The experience created HARB's almost obsessive quarantine procedures.
Harbor personnel will risk their lives to rescue strangers.
They will also weld a docking collar shut if those strangers lie about an infection.
The Harbor Protocol
In 2204 representatives from eight vessels formally adopted what became known as the Harbor Protocol.
It was less a constitution than a promise.
Any signatory detecting a legitimate distress call would respond if it possessed a reasonable ability to do so.
Food, atmosphere, water, medicine, emergency shelter, and rescue were not to be withheld for political reasons.
Assistance created an obligation to contribute later when capable, but not a financial debt.
Nobody would be left to die simply because they could not pay.
The symbol chosen for the protocol was an extremely simple diagram of an open docking port.
That symbol remains HARB's emblem.
The Long Delay
The most controversial decision came in 2211.
A small evacuation vessel named Good Hope, which had never joined the developing Coalition, suffered catastrophic drive damage several light-months behind the main group.
Its distress transmission eventually reached the Harbor ships.
Assisting it would require several vessels to significantly alter their trajectories.
Doing so would delay their arrival in Epsilon by years.
The debate lasted seventeen days.
They turned around.
Three vessels expended substantial portions of their propulsion reserves adjusting course.
Good Hope was reached.
Of its original 3,100 passengers, 1,884 remained alive.
Its surviving population was distributed among Harbor vessels.
The rescue added between four and seven years to several ships' travel times.
It also permanently established what became perhaps the most important belief in Harbor culture:
Arrival was never more important than who arrived with you.
