Despite bearing a Terran name, Ludd Laws are laws put in place on Hearthside, the Allied Worlds, and other yinrih governments to prevent the export of monkey fox technology to Earth. They are so named because they were the brainchild of Dr. Staples and other academics at Erickson College who were the first humans to interact with governments at Focus, first with Wayfarers' Haven, then, via the missionaries, with the High Hearthkeeper on Hearthside.

The crew of the Dewfall are not economists, historians, or anthropologists (sophontologists?), and don't understand how unreservedly giving all their technology to Earth right away could be a bad thing. Even if Iris and the others were versed in those fields, the Yinrih never had an equivalent to the age of exploration where civilizations with vastly different levels of technological development came into contact for the first time. Throughout yinrih history, without exception, from the post-Theophany shamanists to the present-day primitive wayfarers, the only technologically primitive societies at Focus were born of a deliberate rejection of modern life or technological progress.

The missionaries initially hand over all their gifts: tailstone, star lanterns, fabricators, force projectors, neurogel, etc. to the human First Contact team and tell them to have at it. Sunshine is especially keen on giving humanity a leg up. However, Dr. Staples et al. very swiftly realize that handing Kardashev II technology to a not-yet Kardashev I civilization indiscriminately would almost certainly result in disaster of apocalyptic proportions. The absolute best case would be total economic upheaval as nearly every aspect of human life would be upended by the influx of new tech. A far more likely scenario would be Terran militaries swiftly snapping up the gifts and, if they weren't already weapons, figuring out ways to weaponize them. Earth would be one itchy trigger finger away from total annihilation, I mean, even more so than it already is.

And so, after politely but firmly asking the missionaries to kindly put away their toys, Staples and the others take advantage of the tiny window before yinrih governments figure out who's really in charge on Earth to literally beg the High Hearthkeeper to spearhead the passage of these export bans, all before the mass router even made such exports possible in the first place.

The high hearthkeeper is initially confused and saddened. “Why are you refusing our gifts? Do you reject our offer of friendship?” but after being brought up to speed on the perils of indiscriminately dropping tech into a primitive species' lap, she understands.

The mass router is perfected less than a year after First Contact, and by then most relevant Focus governments had passed such Ludd Laws. The nature of the Underlay and Tailstone made it much easier to enforce these laws, even against governments who did not recognize them, as states who refused, especially other colonies in the Spacer Confederacy, were simply not given access to the mass router trunk line between Sol and Focus, which was only accessible through Wayfarers' Haven and eventually Hearthside.

After FTL is well established, the High Hearthkeeper returns to the issue of uplifting humanity. If monkey foxes can't bring their gifts to Earth, than humans could come to them. She sets aside large swaths of land on Hearthside to give to human settlers. There they could have access to all the benefits of yinrih technology. A separate initiative begins on the Terran side to establish a human colony within the Spacer Confederacy as a sort of vassal state to Wayfarers' Haven. Thus is born the Split Horizon, the first fully independent human colony at Focus.

As these human enclaves are exposed yinrih tech, governments on Earth are able to suss out the ramifications such drastic innovations have on human culture, and can plan ways to safely introduce this space tree doggo tech to humanity on Earth.