Condemned Zone

A Condemned Zone is a designated area of the Federation of Stellar Systems where law enforcement and emergency services are not guaranteed to provide aid. These locations usually consist of regions on a planet or moon that the Federation does not have direct control over either due to treaties with other nations or as marked off areas that they have not secured from hostile entiyies. The most typical Condemned Zone consists of abandoned buildings or ancient ruins either infested by Rampants, roamed by bandits, terrorized by petty warlords and criminal gangs or all of the above. The entrances to Condemned Zones are very clearly marked and are often surrounded by border walls in order to prevent citizens from wandering into them by accident. The Federation allows its citizens to freely enter these zones, but it comes on the condition that at any time, reentry may be restricted if it means preventing a threat from entering safe territory.

Despite the dangers of the Condemned Zone, they attract the attention of treasure hunters and virtuoarchaeologists due to the possibility of pre-Blackout relics. It is common for parties of adventurers to lead expeditions in search of treasure and to scavenge for artifacts. Additionally, because these areas are outside of officially designated Federation territory, governments will often conduct black ops and legally questionable methods to secure and promote their own interests. On more than one occasion, the Federation has sent special forces into the Condemned Zone to destroy military targets to be used as staging grounds for an attack.

The entire universe beyond the territory of the Federation is considered a Condemned Zone. However, they still exist in abundance even on Federation-owned worlds. In the aftermath of the Virtual Wars, entire sectors of cityscape on Yeddo had to be turned into a Condemned Zone due to the lack of resources in rebuilding areas that were destroyed in the war. In order to protect against the rise of Rampant activity, a wall was built around the perimeter of Port Oraulan with the immediate surrounding ruined areas being declared a Condemned Zone.