He moved through the native-level space toward the pre-Tower presence at its following distance and addressed it directly.
The pre-Tower presence responded before he framed the question, its structural communication arriving in the dimensional medium with the quality of something that had been holding the answer ready since the challenge was filed.
Article Three of the founding charter established the administrative intelligence's standing. The charter predated the constellation stream, predated the current governance framework, predated the challenge mechanism being used against it. Amending it required unanimous consent from all original charter signatories. Reinterpreting it required a majority. The challenge was a reinterpretation. The Compact had none of the original signatories.
The challenge failed on foundational procedural grounds before any committee convened.
