The Last Human Colonies

>>>Earth [CLEANSED]
Gaia, Terra, Mother Earth. The cradle of mankind and the lost home of human civilisation. By the time the Glorious Alliance armada arrived in 2210 to cleanse all signs of Rot the planet was well beyond saving. The Earth Republic had been reeling from sporadic outbreaks since late 2202, but it was the Food Riots of 2207 and the fall of the Anatolia Defence Line that saw the collapse of a unified quarantine effort and the virulent spread of the sentient disease to all corners of the globe. Within 3 years the vast majority of Earth’s population of 20 billion was dead, fled or succumbed to the Rot. Sharing a similarly tragic fate to many life-sustaining planets in that time, no organic was spared and the landscape itself came to resemble a creeping, sickening organism of one mind. When the last Earth President Maria Flores ordered the launch of every nuclear and proton warhead in the twilight days of 2210, there were few still alive on the surface to be annihilated in the planetwide conflagration. When the Grand Armada arrived, there was little left for them to bombard other than the scant detections of enduring strains of Rot that had survived the nuclear apocalypse. Today the planet, reclassified as X-99 in the tongues of the galaxy’s dominant species, is a dead world. Quarantined and uninhabitable, it is unfeasible to terraform even if there were resources to be found for a project of that magnitude. Mother Earth is now a tomb, another sad testament to one more species condemned to extinction by the Rot. It is utterly lifeless except, perhaps, for remnants of the Rot which have been found to persevere even in ashen wastelands and the depths of the void.

>>>Other Cleansed Human Colonies
Hightower
Gethsemanie
Sunset
Maidenfall
Valkyrie

>>>>>Surviving Human Colonies
>>>Perspira – Federation Territory
One of the most developed human colonies by the time of Earth’s fall, this archipelago-dotted ocean world acted as a booming trade port overseeing the majority of commerce between United Earth Republic and Federation space.  Following the controversial police actions of 2213, Perspira has come entirely under Federation governance. Although humans are not officially classed as a second-class species, a huge influx of Federation immigrants in the years since has seen them become a minority on their own colony. It is inexplicably difficult for a human to achieve seniority in business positions or gain public office, though detractors will point out their underdeveloped intellect and proportionally higher sleep cycle requirements as reasons for the lack of career advancement. A human can ace his tests at a Fed academy but, without alien connections, can still find themselves piloting outdated ore freighters in the middle of nowhere. There is a growing divide between the humans that live in the city centres embracing the benefits and advantages of Federation rule and those segregated to the ill-organised slums that dot the more remote islands, mainly descendants of refugees fortunate enough to have made it to this remote border planet and eventually passing quarantine.

>>>New Antioch – Unclaimed Territory
A planet of little strategic value and even less material significance, this harsh desert world was the site of several major religious exoduses in the latter half of the 22nd century. Fleeing from increasing censure or suppression of religious freedoms, these underfunded and poorly planned missions survived the hostile environ of the world but were the focus of Earth media for years as religious wars between Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and other old faiths plagued further development. It was only during the height of the Rot crisis that the Holy Orders united, cleansing out both the Rot itself and the heretical new ‘Void Mother’ faith that was gaining ground in human and xenos cultures. The Holy Orders, their sect territories strictly defined and any major disputes resolved through highly ritualistic combat duels, have maintained their fierce independence and purity from alien influence in part due to their zeal but in the main due to their insignificance and isolation.

>>>Whitelake – Yibrak Mandate Territory
A resource rich arctic world that was discretely a major site of United Earth Republic R&D labs, the sub-zero surface temperature even at the planet’s equator meant that the enterprising miner colony missions had developed vast subterranean caverns and geothermal networks within which to live and continue to exploit the planet’s minerals. So close to the heart of the cutting edge of human engineering, extensive cybernetics became commonplace on the colony even in those not working as miners. In the wake of the Rot crisis, scantly defended and pushed well past its population air recycling parameters by the influx of refugees, Whitelake was absorbed by the Yibrak Mandate without a shot fired. The Yibrak ministers saw the wisdom in ensuring the mining world stayed dependant on their continued O2 shipments for mineral exports at an exorbitant rate. Whitelake miners will work 12-hour shifts in dangerous conditions for another day of breathable atmosphere, miner strikes and illicit greenhouses alike are crushed with equal brutality under the Boot and Maglock of the lethal Auxl warrior clans. Should even that prove insufficient, the Yibrak overseers can always just shut off the air recycling.

>>>Clayton’s Cradle – Savis Empire Territory
Given an ‘X3 Uninhabitable’ classification despite its breathable atmosphere and luscious jungles, this small moon on the Tertia Minor system bordering the Savis Empire was never intended to be colonised beyond the addition of a few scientific observation labs and a discrete listening post. With few options, less fuel and critical O2 levels, it was the last resort of hundreds upon hundreds of evacuation ships that had been turned away from every other habitable world in the sector. Their holds of humans lucky enough to escape Earth uninfected had in large part fled with just the clothes on their backs, woefully ill-equipped to deal with the virulent diseases, toxic vegetation and lethal predators that would carve through their ranks like wheat before the scythe. Within a few years the millions of desperate refugees that made landfall had been reduced to less than ten thousand. Aided by experimental genemods distributed by the handful of science outposts, the survivors and their descendants are some of the most hardy and lethal sentients alive. They are in high demand in the Legio Auxiliaries of the Savis Empire that has extended its borders well past Tertia Minor, some have even been granted full Savis citizenship and the right to possess property and slaves of their own.

>>>Three Pines – Unclaimed Territory
The site of the Republic and Spring Unity alliance victory over the expanding Savis Empire in the previous century, Three Pines had long been a focal point of defence and bearer of a military heritage. Following the war, land grants were given to a vast number of human and Belcossan veterans as the planet entered its second decade of colonisation.
A pivotal strategic location to any outside threat approaching from the whole of the galactic north-west, one would be hard pressed to find a single Three Pines family or blossom unit that did not have a currently serving member in the armed forces. Ready for any threat to their nations from without, its residents must have watched with growing horror as the Republic and Union died to the Rot from within. This horror would only have been compounded as the trickle of refugees turned into a flood, the remnants of refugees and military forces to escape the dying gasps of Earth fleeing to this remote colony as a last refuge. The infrastructure of Three Pines would have been stretched to the breaking limit at the influx of 10 million refugees, let alone hundreds of millions. In those dark days it was impossible to tell whether the planetary defence guard soldiery was gunning down Rot outbreaks or starving hordes of refugees forced to cannibalism.

Although Three Pines would survive its final stand against the Rot with the arrival of the Grand Armada in 2216, the damage was done. A mixture of Rot depletion of the ecosystem and indiscriminate orbital bombardment has rendered the planet atmosphere borderline uninhabitable, estimated to inevitably turn toxic within a matter of years. To this day there are refugee camps that have existed for nearly two whole decades, an entire generation of humans born into squalor and utterly dependent on the mercies of food charities, mainly Federation-based, for survival into the next day. As for their survival over the next decade, the prospects for every inhabitant on Three Pines without a ticket off-world looks grim indeed.