The right to connection began as the right not to be denied rescue simply because one lived in an isolated place. Even after the First War, passages were not installed in every peripheral settlement. Star systems with large populations and high production opened multiple entrances. New settlements had to wait decades or centuries for spacecraft carrying entrances to arrive, and even after arrival they had to bear the stabilization costs. The Galactic Settlement Authority connected first those places where expected trade exceeded the cost of maintaining a passage. Installation was reconsidered if the population increased. It was a standard for allocating limited equipment and energy. Peripheral Settlement 91 had a population of about four thousand. The Settlement Authority promised to install a wormhole once the population exceeded ten thousand. If underground mineral production increased as planned, the threshold was expected to be reached within ten years. The mineral deposits were deeper than expected. Mining equipment failed, residents left, and the population fell below two thousand. The settlement could not grow because it was not connected, while the Settlement Authority concluded that a passage could not be installed in a place that had failed to grow. The settlement’s autonomous government requested thirteen times that the installation threshold be lowered. The answer was always the same: the current population and trade volume did not justify the cost, and the matter would be reconsidered if the population increased. A fourteenth request was never sent. The culture tanks used to produce oxygen were contaminated by a mutated microorganism. The necessary chemicals were in another star system, and transporting them by slow ship from the nearest connected hub would take sixty-two years. To conserve oxygen, the settlement closed its mines and schools and reduced the residents’ hours of activity. The last confirmed survivor left a record forty-one years after the contamination began, stating that one culture tank was still operating. When the rescue ship arrived, 112 cryogenic chambers remained. Only three still had power, and one person was restored. The chemicals brought by the rescue team weighed twelve kilograms. In the central regions, the same chemicals were sold for less than household purification agents.
The incident was initially classified as a failed settlement. Peripheral Settlement 91 had never reached the installation threshold of ten thousand residents, and the Settlement Authority had not violated its contract. After the survivor reached the central regions, the thirteen requests and their responses were made public. The final response, sent while the population was already declining because of oxygen shortages, stated that the Authority would wait for the population to increase. The Settlement Authority explained that the wording had come from an automated response form. The official responsible had known about the contamination but lacked the authority to approve a passage outside the established criteria. If an exception were granted to one settlement, exceptions would also have to be granted to thousands of others in the same position. There were neither resources nor procedures for handling such exceptions. The peripheral settlements formed star-system alliances and began speaking with one voice. They demanded that the central polity change the criteria for judgment. Population and production, they argued, could determine the priority of passage installation, but they should not determine whether rescue itself was possible. The central polity government opposed the proposal, arguing that guaranteeing a wormhole for every settlement would make maintenance costs impossible to bear. The debate continued for nineteen years. During that time, additional accidents in unconnected settlements were investigated. Records were found of places that lacked medicine for known diseases, and of others that had food but could not harvest it because parts for cultivation equipment were unavailable. The deaths in each incident were negligible in the statistics of the galaxy as a whole. Supporters of the right to connection argued that this was precisely why population could not be the sole criterion.
As the debate continued, the star-system alliances began defining connection not as economic assistance but as a right of citizenship. The central polity could not provide passages of the same capacity to every settlement, but it agreed to a compromise guaranteeing at least one connection sufficient for rescue. The principle established at this time later expanded from the guarantee of one passage to the requirement for two, and then three, backup passages. The Declaration on the Right to Connection guaranteed access to the galactic network for every permanent settlement. Population, production, and distance did not determine whether the right existed. Even if the number of users declined, a connection could not be severed without the consent of the remaining citizens. After the Declaration, medicines and technicians moved into the periphery, and fewer settlements were abandoned because of isolation. A wormhole was installed at Peripheral Settlement 91 as well. No residents remained there, but the passage was opened for the investigation of the ruins and the commemoration of the dead.
Once the new right took effect, applications that had not been anticipated also increased. An individual would first register as a resident of a planet and demand a connection, then transfer the settlement rights to another company once the passage had been installed. Some residents left before the passage opened. The Settlement Authority tried to cancel their applications, but the applicants notified it that they intended to return. The Declaration did not specify how far the possibility of a departed person’s return had to be protected. The issue later required a separate ruling. Institutions existed to enforce the right to connection, but no rule had been established for determining when the obligation to maintain that connection ended. The centennial report on the Declaration announced that deaths caused by isolation had fallen by 99.8 percent. The increase in passage maintenance costs was recorded under a different category. The two figures were consequences of the same decision, but they were not compared in the same table. The right to connection succeeded in securing the survival of the periphery. Its success led to more new settlements, and therefore to more entrances that civilization had to maintain. Whenever the closure of passages was later discussed because of energy shortages, the records of Peripheral Settlement 91 were invariably submitted. Those proposing closure now had to provide evidence that, this time, the rescue ship would arrive in time.