Rectitude

The Rectitude is a Palleseen supply carrack whose seizure by the smuggler cartel known as the Red Grieving Bat Society in the month preceding the events of Lives of Bitter Rain sets in motion the evidentiary chain by which Sage-Invigilator Angilly traces Lasaret's cultivation of the cartel. The vessel itself never appears in the narrative; it is recorded only as a discrete past event-the attack on the Rectitude, distinct from the vessel-and everything that follows in the text flows from the altered provenance of its cargo. - ch 3

For all its narrative invisibility, the Rectitude is the hinge on which a crucial investigative thread turns. The goods taken from the carrack place the smugglers' new holdings in a context that Lasaret has been deliberately building, leveraging the Red Grieving Bat Society's "complete fiat" over shipping for his own ends. It is the cargo's change of hands, rather than any action performed by the ship, that draws Angilly into observing meetings between Lasaret and the cartel. - ch 3

In the wider shape of the book, the Rectitude never resurfaces. Its arc is a single, completed event in the recent past whose consequences are felt but whose physical presence is entirely absent from the text. It functions purely as the origin-point of a trail: attacked, stripped, and then remembered only by what its absence makes visible. - ch 3

The Object

Description

The Rectitude is identified as a Palleseen supply carrack. No further physical detail-rigging, tonnage, markings, armament-is recorded in the text. The vessel does not appear in person at any point in the narrative; its form is known only from the generic category of ship it occupied. - ch 3

What It Does

The Rectitude performs no action within the story. Its narrative function is entirely retrospective: the seizure of its cargo by the Red Grieving Bat Society produces a change in the goods' provenance that serves as the evidentiary thread linking Lasaret's dealings with the cartel to Angilly's observation. The ship is, in effect, a plot catalyst whose sole operative property is having been attacked. - ch 3

Provenance

The Rectitude was a Palleseen supply vessel prior to its capture. It was seized by the Red Grieving Bat Society in the month before the present action of Lives of Bitter Rain. The text does not record what became of the hull or the remaining crew after the seizure; only the disposition of the cargo matters to the plot. - ch 3

History

Lives of Bitter Rain

The Rectitude is a Palleseen supply carrack that had been seized by the Red Grieving Bat Society, a smuggler cartel, the month before the present action - ch 3. The ship does not appear in the narrative in person; it is known only through the consequences of its capture, which the text records as a discrete event distinct from the vessel itself - ch 3. What matters to the plot is the haul taken from the carrack: the seized goods bring Sage-Invigilator Angilly to observe meetings between Lasaret and the Red Grieving Bat Society, whom Lasaret has been cultivating in order to exploit their "complete fiat" over shipping - ch 3. In this book the Rectitude thus functions purely as the origin-point of an evidentiary trail; its role is to have been attacked, so that the cargo's new provenance becomes the thread by which Angilly locates Lasaret's dealings with the cartel - ch 3.

Relationships

• Red Grieving Bat Society - the smuggler cartel that seized the Rectitude and its cargo. The society holds what Lasaret describes as "complete fiat" over shipping, a monopoly he has been cultivating; the attack on the carrack is the visible exercise of that power. - ch 3
• Lasaret - cultivated the Red Grieving Bat Society in order to exploit their control of shipping routes. The Rectitude's capture falls within the network of dealings he has been constructing, making its cargo a point of evidentiary contact between his plans and the cartel's operations. - ch 3
• Sage-Invigilator Angilly - an Inquirer drawn to observe meetings between Lasaret and the Red Grieving Bat Society by the altered provenance of the seized goods. The Rectitude's fate is the thread that leads Angilly to these meetings; the ship's absence from the narrative is thus inverted into its significance, functioning as the origin-point of an investigation rather than as a character or setting. - ch 3

Tags

1. supply-carrack · #military-transport · #palleseen