You were not supposed to be here.
The Zorbonians — a perpetually struggling backwater of a vast galactic empire — finally won the Imperial Lottery. The prize: the right to abduct one exquisite individual from anywhere in the known galaxy to fix their economy. The selection committee reviewed your file with great care. They were particularly impressed by your demonstrated capacity to coordinate the movement of standardized containers across continental distances.
They think they got a logistics savant. They got you.
Now operate Trade Terminal 7-G. The populace requires goods. You will provide them.
━━━ WHAT YOU'LL DO ━━━
Run a planet's economy from a single screen. Build production facilities, manage resources, and keep an entire alien populace fed, clothed, housed, and content — all from a terminal you barely understand.
Trade on the galactic market. Buy low, sell high, and try to read a market that shifts beneath your feet. Surplus is only worth something if you sell it at the right moment.
Decipher as you go. New resources arrive as untranslated alien glyphs. Figure out what they are before they become a problem — or after, the hard way.
Survive the news. A constant stream of headlines drives prices, demand, and disaster. Most of it is noise. Some of it will end your run. Learning the difference is the whole game.
Climb a corporate ladder that does not entirely make sense. Your supervisor, Vellum Quex-9, will be in touch. Frequently. He means well, probably.
━━━ THE TONE ━━━
I.T.C.B. is a management sim with a straight face and a dry wit — bureaucratic cosmic comedy in the tradition of Papers, Please, Cultist Simulator, and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The numbers are serious. The universe is ridiculous. You are somewhere in between, doing your best.
The populace is counting on you. They don't know you're improvising. Let's keep it that way.