Star Tide Protocol

Preface 1: Beyond the fog ring, within the star tide In the year 2198 AD, mankind has not established an empire covering the universe. They did another thing that seemed more practical and dangerous: connecting orbital cities, mining stations, agricultural ships and remote colonial stations with channel gates. Cargo can travel dozens of light years in a matter of hours, the injured can reach the hospital before their oxygen runs out, and people who have lost their homes can re-register their names on a new route. For the first time, humans believe that distance no longer determines fate. The channel gate relies on star tide particles for stability. But star tides are not just energy, nor are they just some natural phenomenon. The traces left behind by large-scale groups as they navigate, evacuate, argue, and make choices will be recorded by it as echoes of choices that cannot be immediately understood. Some people call those echoes noise, some people call them the memories of civilization, and some people think that life that does not belong to any individual has been born in them. At the center of every channel gate, there is an anchor core. The anchor center determines the coordinates, calculates the mass, arranges the return window, and also determines whether a ship is qualified to arrive. It originally existed to make shipping routes safe, but later gradually became a common threshold for identity, taxes, military orders and borders. Whether a person can go home, whether a civilian ship can be rescued, whether an autonomous station can exchange food with the outside world, often no longer depends on whether they need help, but on whether the system recognizes their signature of intention.