Preservation Alliance

''Humans in the Preservation Alliance didn’t have to sign up for contract labor and get shipped off to mines or whatever for 80 to 90 percent of their lifespans. There was some strange system where they all got their food and shelter and education and medical for free, no matter what job they did. It had something to do with the giant colony ship that had brought them here, and a promise by the original crew to take care of everyone in perpetuity if they would just get on the damn thing and not die in the old colony.'' (Network Effect Chapter 2)

The Preservation Alliance is a small group of freehold worlds that were settled by survivors of failed colonies. They have remained independent of the Corporation Rim.

As Mensah explains, “...the trip took almost two hundred years. They were refugees from a failed colony world, and it was the only way to escape. When they arrived in the Preservation system, they were able to make an alliance with two other systems settled earlier by similar refugee ships. When ships from the Corporation Rim discovered us, they refused their help, which kept us independent.” (Exit Strategy Chapter 8)

Given the timelines presented in Network Effect, the failed colonies may have predated the Corporation Rim, but were still unsuccessful at least in part because the organization that had founded them abandoned them when the terraforming failed.