Cold Wake Panic
Date: 2892-2895
Location: Jovian route corridors, relay dark zones, distributed insurer tribunals
Primary actors: PSC insurers, Rossum & Douglas, Cryonix, privateer cells, corridor security buyers
Cold Wake Panic was the moment late-Sol corridor law admitted that thermal stealth had become a strategic problem rather than a boutique engineering trick. A run of near-miss interceptions, ghost tracks, delayed heat dumps, and misclassified quiet-running vessels convinced insurers that existing permit categories no longer described the real battlespace. Too many ships could remain cold long enough to make first detection politically explosive.
The panic mattered because it formalized a new vocabulary. PSC insurers began pricing thermal posture directly, Rossum & Douglas became central to certified quiet-running envelopes and heat-debt tolerances, and Cryonix’s signature-managed skins moved from premium industrial specialty into overt strategic infrastructure. After Cold Wake, no serious power could pretend that waste heat was separate from warfare.