The Central Trade Authority is a pseudo-governmental and highly bureaucratic organization that grew out of a postwar era from a demand for order and no stable governments after the war ended.
CTA To-do / Questions
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Central Trade Authority (CTA)
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General Info
Type: Pseudo-governmental entity
Status: Active, but declining
Region: Spans 7 major systems (Core Sector, Outer Colonies/Rings)
Founded: Cycle Year 0
Affiliation: Self-governing, non-traditional state entity
Function: Maintain trade routes, utilities, station governance, and itself
The Central Trade Authority is a pseudo-governmental and highly bureaucratic organization that grew out of a postwar era from a demand for order and no stable governments after the war ended. The CTA spans seven major systems.
It was originally intended as a temporary solution to dysregulation and fragile systems and stuck around because no other powers were as organized or powerful as they were/are.
Their current goal is to cling on to power as long as possible, but its authority now relies more on bureaucratic habit and paperweight regulation than genuine control.
Most citizens live in class-segmented strata based on access and identification codes. High-status individuals tend to be Registered Workers, often with full permissions to move, contract, and report income.
“The CTA still exists if it’s decaying, through inertia. It is too big to fail all at once—like a machine still running because no one has shut it off. Systems auto-renew, payments cycle through shell companies, outposts operate independently. Nobody’s really steering the ship anymore, it’s just drifting.”
The CTA formed in 0 CY as a post-war consolidation of trade and survival functions. It was not founded by a single person but by a many quartermasters, relay engineers, archivists, and many more. They recognized that no faction could feed its people alone and that the only lasting winning move after the war was standardization.
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The CTA was formed as a way to manage resources and stabilize the world after a major interstellar war involving resources and production disputes between nations. It eventually amassed enough power and situated itself as the general authority but distanced itself from the concept of becoming a government and an empire because of its origins and goals socially/culturally.
The ID and Market Registry system was introduced as a way to make trade and work contracts easier and more widely applicable as a strategy. The Market Registry allowed employers to check past work and experience of potential workers and allow workers to verify if their employers were credible and trustworthy. The introduction of credits and a standardized currency eliminated the struggle of pay transactions and salary conversion. They are easily tracked in the Market Registry and transactions can be monitored closely.
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Their charter fixed time, currency, and contract law. The first decade was effectively triage post-war. Chain routes were mapped, rationing was normalized, and sector councils were appointed where elections would have caused power struggles. Stability came from predictable movement. Trains arrived, terminals synced, prices stayed the same, and people stopped starving.
From 10 to 40 CY the Authority hardened into a machine that could think across seven systems. The Market Registry replaced faction registries. The first Core archival building opened with air-gapped backups and paper trails, a (paranoid) bunker against sabotage. The High Directorate stabilized as a committee of committees. Hubworlds grew into permanent nodes, each with a sector committee that could interpret policy without breaking it. These years felt slow but decisive. The war had made everyone tired of improvisation.
From 40 to 100 CY the CTA became culturally dominant. Children grew up never knowing multiple currencies or drifting calendars. Work traveled on contracts rather than rumors. Chain routes gained redundancy, so a broken relay no longer meant famine and panic down the line. Fringe settlements traded predictability for access. Resistance existed, but it was local, brief, and more about dignity than revolution. The Authority’s promise was simple: no surprises.
From 100 to 180 CY internal reforms professionalized everything. Training academies replaced on-the-job improvisation. The Security Enforcement Arm grew from escorts to a full service that guarded routes, audited terminals, and broke forgery rings. The Authority did not declare itself a government because it did not need to. It governed the movement of food, energy, and contracts. That made it sovereign in effect. It called itself an authority to avoid the political obligations a government would claim and fail to meet.