Star-Rover Garrison

Yasmin had taken for granted that the star rovers were ignorant barbarians despite their ability to traverse interstellar space. Of course, these "rovers" are merely making use of the few workable spaceships left over after the Fall of the Terran Empire. Thus, their position is entirely different from that of, e.g., Nicholas van Rijn's trade pioneer crews traveling in the newest models of mass-produced, computer-controlled spaceships that could be properly serviced or even replaced whenever they returned home. Yasmin is surprised to learn that the star-rover garrison in the city of Anushirvan on her home planet, Sassania, is well-kept and that those who use it are well-behaved.

Roan Tom was introduced to us a star rover of the Long Night. I took the phrase, "star rover," to be a mere short-hand description used by our narrator from his perspective in the further future. However, Yasmin's reflections give me the impression that this was the terminology generally applied at the time to people like Tom who used FTL ships to raid or trade as the case might have been. Three installments later, our viewpoint character will instead be, Daven Laure, a Ranger of the Commonalty - living and working in what we might describe as the New Dawn of a Long Day.