Torek Timeline: fifty-one years since the Yuragi

The Tokei Shimpo founded in Kyobashi

Founded as Tokei's local paper. It has recorded the city's daily life ever since, before and after the Yuragi.

H-1912-01

The Yuragi begins — Torek Year 1

On July 2, the dimensional boundary permeation phenomenon (the Yuragi) was first observed on the Tokei bayfront. On September 7 the first large-scale permeation event occurred, and people from another world line arrived in a body on the shore — the ancestors of today's Drifter citizens. Half a century on, the cause remains unknown.

H-1975-01

The internment years — bell alarms and the 'Kishi' surnames

The arrivals were gathered into internment facilities on the bay. During the long blackouts, handheld bells relayed the scale of each Yuragi (one strike = caution, two = alert, three = evacuate: the 'bell code'). On naturalization, a custom arose of choosing surnames containing the character 岸 (shore), and names such as Kishiura, Kishitani and Kishiyanagi remain common among Drifter families. The 'Lullaby of the Shore', sung to put children to sleep, also dates from these years.

H-1975-02

Tokei Dimensional Boundary Authority (TDA) established

Founded as the agency responsible for observing and forecasting the Yuragi and managing drift objects. The observation network began to take shape; its early chart-paper records are still primary sources for the 7th International Joint Study.

H-1976-01

First successful observation of fragments from an advanced world line

Fragments of technology from another world line were observed, and reproduction of 'exogenous' technology began. Hinokuni's technological history entered roughly thirty years of acceleration from this point.

H-1979-01

Dimensional Boundary Control Act enacted

Set out state ownership of drift objects, appraisal procedures and the operation of restriction lines. That year a tricycle recovered in Kameido became the first registration of 'Lineage 31' in world-line matching.

H-1983-01

Birth of the first generation of designed babies

Prenatal design derived from exogenous technology was institutionalized. The first generation is now around 36; their children are the second generation.

H-1990-01

Citizenship established for Drifter residents

Seventeen years after the arrival. As the fruit of the rights movement, citizenship was established in law and the internment era formally ended.

H-1992-01

Licensing system for exogenous techniques begins

Techniques that can be reproduced but not explained were placed under license. Practitioners are popularly called 'artificers'.

H-1997-01

Certification and registration of permeation sensitivity begins

The city began registering people said to sense a Yuragi before it occurs. Certified individuals still number only a few dozen citywide. 'Awakening' schemes claiming to develop the sensitivity have repeatedly become a social problem since.

H-2001-01

The Bay Ninefold Fog

In September the entire bayfront was wrapped for nine days in an unexplained dense fog and sealed off. When it cleared, twelve people who had been inside the cordon (five warehouse workers, three anglers, two residents, two TDA observers) could not be accounted for. Apart from two pairs of shoes set neatly on the quay, nothing was left behind. The largest permeation event on record; neither cause nor whereabouts has been established. The families' association, the Ninefold Fog Society, still holds a 'roll call' before the memorial on the bay greenway on the 9th of every month.

▶ 23 years after the Bay Ninefold Fog: families seek reinvestigation

H-2003-01

Post-fog reforms — the five-level index and 'permeation disappearance'

Statistical grounding of the permeation index, resident-register checks during cordons, and a permanent bay observation network were put in place. A special status of 'permeation disappearance' was created, allowing certain procedures without a presumption of death; it has been applied to 29 people nationwide.

H-2005-01

Year one of the symbiotic robot

Non-humanoid symbiotic robots spread into homes, care and disaster response. Under the 'too-lifelike' regulations their form stays that of a tool, while their role becomes that of a neighbour. An estimated 410,000 units now operate in the city.

H-2008-01

Robot Legal Status Council: first report

Deliberations on the legal status of symbiotic robots began. The report was carried over for the next fourteen years; the first public hearing came in 2026, in the council's fifteenth deliberation.

▶ Robot law council holds first hearing on "registered subject" plan

H-2012-01

'Exclusion measures' institutionalized

Joint response by the TDA Biological Control Division and police to dangerous drift species became an administrative procedure. Through the 38th case, all were carried out in daylight; 34 ended in capture.

H-2014-01

Ruling in the rescue-robot damage suit

Damages were awarded, but the ruling added in a supplementary opinion that 'the matter cannot be exhausted by the vocabulary of property'. It became the starting point of the later legal-status debate.

H-2016-01

Tokiwado turns to 'perpetual custody' of robots

A Buddhist-goods shop in Kyobashi, founded in the Meiji era, began taking in symbiotic robots that had finished their service. More than 300 are now in its care, with a three-month wait for new admissions.

H-2019-01

First confirmed recurring Yuragi — off Haneda

At an observation point off Haneda, a Yuragi that reopened repeatedly at the same spot onto nearly the same world line was confirmed for the first time. It became the starting point of the stable-window concept.

H-2021-01

Forecast-linked insurance launched; 'The Window of 1975' published

Drift-object insurance with premiums linked to the permeation index went on sale and within three years accounted for over 60% of new policies. The same year Karin Kokonoe's 'The Window of 1975' was published; ignored by academia, it has kept gaining readers.

▶ "The Window of 1975" hits its 20th printing

H-2023-01

The Dimensional Survey Division and the first stable window — 'the Lit City'

The TDA's Dimensional Survey Division, created in 2023, brought the first stable window into service off Haneda in March, with a permanent observation rig. The stone city of Lineage 7, 'the Lit City', was observed continuously for the first time. Five windows were in service by 2026.

▶ Another skyline on the far side of the glass: Stable Window 1 and 'the Lit City' enter a third year — and this paper opens a Dimensional Survey section

H-2024-01

Medium Yuragi in Fukagawa; three cargo-like drift objects

In the early hours of August 21, three metal containers drifted into Fukagawa 2-chome. The sealed liquid was found to 'differ in isotope ratio from any known water', and whether to open them went to the quarantine committee.

▶ Mid-scale Yuragi hits Fukagawa before dawn; TDA recovers three cargo-like drift objects

H-2026-01

Successive exclusion measures in the bay warehouse district and Edagawa

On August 30 a security guard was injured in the bay warehouse district, prompting the first night-time exclusion measure since the system began (the 38th). The same night two workers were injured at an Edagawa materials yard (the 39th) — the first time two cases ran in parallel on one day. Neither target has been identified.

▶ Guard seriously injured in bay warehouse district; TDA launches first nighttime removal operation

H-2026-02

The bell code broadcast again after fifty-one years

On September 3 a recording of the internment-camp bells was played over the disaster radio, and the generation that knew the bells and the one that did not heard the same sound.

H-2026-03

Arrival Remembrance Day — the fifty-first-year gathering

On September 7, at a ceremony in Kishihama Park, the 'Lullaby of the Shore' was sung in public for the first time, after being set down in notation for the first time in half a century. 121 first-generation arrivals were invited; the oldest is 101.

▶ Fifty-One Years Since the Arrival: Ceremony at Kishihama Park as the Shore Lullaby Is Sung in Public for the First Time in Half a Century

H-2026-04

Fukagawa Drift Container: One of Three Opened

On Sept. 29, the Third Appraisal Center opened, inside a sealed chamber, one of the three metal containers that had washed ashore on Aug. 21. The contents proved to be a liquid resembling water, with an isotope ratio matching no known lineage, and the cause of the liquid surface's failure to track the container's tilt remained unexplained. The other two containers remain in storage.

▶ Fukagawa Drift Container Opened — the Liquid Inside Remains 'Unidentified'

H-2026-05

Window 5: TDA Acknowledges, for the First Time, 'Signs of Awareness'

On October 5, the TDA's Dimensional Survey Division revised, for the first time, its longstanding official position that there was no evidence the other side of Window 5, 'the Sword Country,' was aware of this side. The revision followed observations across three openings (September 27, September 30, and October 3) in which people in a marketplace visible through the window were seen raising wooden tags toward the opening shortly after it began. The division stopped short of calling it communication.

▶ Window 5's Market Crowd Raises Tags Toward the Opening — Survey Division Admits, for the First Time, 'Signs They're Aware of Us'

H-2026-06

Window Treaty: Interim Agreement — Explicit Diversion Ban Settled

On October 15, working-level negotiators in the Window Treaty talks reached an interim agreement on explicit treaty language banning the diversion of window-rig and stable-window-related technology to military purposes, nine days after the draft was tabled on the 6th. The allied priority supply clause sought by Ameria was left out of the treaty's main text and settled instead through a separate memorandum. The Foreign Ministry again denied the existence of a 'secret annex' that had surfaced in suspicion earlier in the month, but with the memorandum's full text withheld for now, sovereignty-camp lawmaker Tetsuo Munakata and others remained unconvinced. Formal signing is targeted within the year.

▶ Window Treaty Reaches Interim Agreement — Explicit Diversion Ban Settled, Allied Priority Supply Moved to a Separate Memorandum

H-2026-07

Window 5, 'the Sword Country': First Object Believed Sent on Purpose Is Recovered

In the small hours of October 20, during an opening of stable Window 5, 'the Sword Country,' observers directly witnessed a figure on the other side throw a small tube-shaped object toward the window; it crossed the boundary and was recovered after it fell. Inside was a folded paper bearing a drawing and characters, though decoding has been deferred and no meaning has been assigned. It marks the first time, across all five stable windows, that the moment of an object being sent on purpose was itself observed.

▶ Window 5, 'the Sword Country': A Small Tube From the Other Side — First Object Believed Sent on Purpose

H-2026-08