The Introduction of Security Zones

Human civilization in the Milky Way Galaxy occupied a vast amount of territory.

Half the galaxy encompassed a huge amount of star systems, of which only a fraction was occupied by humans.

Even so, this still amounted to an astronomical amount of planets that were populated by millions if not billions of people each!

The enormous territories occupied by humans made it so that central authorities such as the Mech Trade Association and the Common Fleet Alliance lacked the numbers to properly enforce their authority on every single star system and planet.

Space was too big. If people truly wanted to avoid the Big Two's enforcers, they could simply travel to an out-of-the-way star system that was devoid of any permanent human occupation and play with Auto Heretics all of the time!