Chapter 407: Trade City
According to the regulations of the Interstellar Technological Confederation, new member civilizations are required to open a city to serve as a hub for tourism, exchanges, and fostering mutual understanding.
This city must also be equipped with quantum communication devices to facilitate real-time communication with other Confederation members.
After all, when foreign visitors arrive, differences in values and customs are inevitable, potentially leading to incidents of misconduct. Resolving such issues—whether through local laws or repatriation to their home civilization—requires extensive and instantaneous communication.
Although referred to as a “city,” it is often effectively equivalent to opening an entire planet. For the purposes of inter-civilization trade, a single city is simply too small.
The trade city must be located on an ecological planet so that visiting aliens only need basic protective gear, such as light suits and filtration masks, to operate comfortably.
Most emerging civilizations possess territories limited to a single star system. Unless they are extraordinarily fortunate, their home system generally contains only one ecological planet—their homeworld. Opening a trade city therefore often means granting access to a portion of their homeworld, which is typically the nucleus of their civilization, housing their ruling class, research institutions, and cutting-edge laboratories.
This openness poses significant security risks, as it exposes these critical assets and individuals to potential harm. In the past, nascent civilizations were allowed to designate trade cities on non-ecological colony planets.
However, a catastrophic incident changed this practice. Due to the lack of atmospheric protection, spacecraft could bypass orbital defenses and directly impact the planetary surface.
On one occasion, an unidentified vessel disguised as a foreign tourism ship managed to fool the identification systems of a trade city on a non-ecological colony. The ship then accelerated to a staggering speed and rammed into the city.