Opening trader dialogue chain

This is where The Ticket actually starts. The Ticket opens after Falling Skies, specifically once the keep-the-case path was taken there (the choice that hands you Kruglov's case). That decision unlocks Mr. Kerman, the mysterious USEC voice on the laptop. He's the architect of the Savior route; the first contact is just a feeler. The dialogue itself costs nothing, but Intelligence Center L1 (the laptop hardware) must be built before he'll talk.

None of this requires raids, but the wait step burns real-world time — Kerman replies on a delay measured in hours, not minutes. Use that window to start banking TerraGroup "Blue Folders" materials from Lightkeeper-area Scavs and the next step's note search, because the very next phase asks for three of them.