The Manifest Convoy departed Sol in 2158.
It reached Epsilon Eridani in 2224, after approximately 66 years in transit.
The convoy possessed respectable propulsion technology, but its ships were enormously burdened with industrial equipment. Meridian's leadership had deliberately rejected several faster proposals because they required abandoning cargo capacity.
The expedition's founding philosophy was straightforward:
Arriving quickly with nothing was less useful than arriving slowly with the machinery required to build something.
For the first eleven years, the system worked remarkably well.
Then Hesper suffered a cascading agricultural failure.
A fungal contamination spread through multiple nutrient systems. Protein production dropped sharply. Several crop strains had to be destroyed.
Food became limited.
The Meridian Compact's original economic rules suddenly became horrifyingly literal.
People owned shares in farms.
Companies owned reserve food.
Departments possessed contractual priority over storage.
Some families technically possessed sufficient purchasing power to eat well while others did not.
Captain Jovanka Markovic of Manifest issued what became known as the Life Floor Order.
No contract, ownership claim, debt, or commercial right could supersede minimum human requirements for breathable atmosphere, potable water, basic nutrition, emergency shelter, or necessary medical treatment.
Meridian's largest investors protested.
Markovic refused to reverse the decision.
When several executives attempted to remove her, the freight unions aboard Solidarity sided with the captain.
The confrontation nearly became violent.
Instead, negotiators created the principle that remains central to MERC society:
Survival is not a commodity. Everything above survival can be.
The policy became known simply as the Floor.
Years later, the convoy suffered another crisis.
A software synchronization failure between Manifest and Abacus corrupted portions of the financial database during an extended communications interruption.
Multiple organizations suddenly possessed conflicting ownership records.
Some cargo appeared to have been sold twice.
Some debts existed on one database but not another.
Several companies technically owned the same fabrication machinery.
The resulting dispute became known as the Broken Ledger.
For seventeen months, trade inside the convoy nearly stopped.
Machine shops withheld parts because payment records were uncertain.
Captains refused transfers.
Families hoarded personal property.
Several violent incidents occurred.
The crisis ended with the Great Reconciliation, during which representatives from every vessel reconstructed millions of contracts from backups, personal records, cargo logs, and testimony.
Some debts were erased.
Some ownership claims were divided.
Some could never be resolved.
Meridian society emerged from the event with an almost obsessive respect for verifiable records.
A contract witnessed, recorded, replicated, and properly guaranteed became something approaching sacred.
A verbal promise became nearly meaningless.
During the final decades of the crossing, the original corporate hierarchy gradually dissolved.
The companies still existed, but power moved toward captains, guilds, trade houses, worker cooperatives, financiers, and independent operators.
Meridian ceased being a corporation.
It became a marketplace that happened to possess ships.
By arrival, even the name had changed.
The Meridian Logistics Compact was officially reorganized as the Meridian Exchange.