Neuostland

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Revision as of 03:23, 5 October 2006

Neuostland is the third planet in the Chimera system. Named for the Eastern Province of terrestrial Grossdeutschland (comprising Rumania and the Czech Republic), from the start the planet was destined to become like its namesake, an agricultural powerhouse. From the beginning of terraforming plans it was decided to encourage the planet to support massive agriculture and not much else. The resulting program created a very hot and wet world caught in an almost perpetual spring, with a mild and almost nonexistent winter. 200 years of careful selection and indoctrination has kept the population in a state of almost medieval subservience to an unseen ruling caste of German administrators on Arminius.

History

The Accidental Colony

The planet that was to become Neuostland was claimed by the German FTL ship Seevogel after it was denied access to the world that would become New Ukraine by the Alexander Nevsky (See also the Battle of New Ukraine). The name had been chosen for the larger world by the newly established Reichs ministry for the Outer Colonies. When the colony ship fled into orbit round the smaller planet, hurried calculations on board revealed to the Ministry that their supplies could, in a pinch, be used to create habitable conditions on this world too. It was decided to commence terraforming operations, and name the planet, as if it had been the original target.

Terraforming and the Labour Battalion

When the colony FTL ship Seevogel reached orbit around Neuostland in 2149, the colonists were made up of some 1000 ethnically German engineers, and about 2000 further arbeiter, organised in a 'labour battalion' mostly of Polish and Czech stock. They engineers set about seeding the planet's atmosphere with a chemical soup designed to aid the development of the water and oxygen-creating bactieria they unleashed on the planet's surface.

In early 2150, most of its planetside work completed, the arbeiter labour battalion was shuttled out to Arminius to commence the construction of the arcology housing on Arminius. The head engineer, Hermann Teilhard, had reached the conclusion that they would receive no aid until the Alexander Nevsky had been neutralised, and that it may be some time until that occured. He knew the terraforming would take between ten and thirty years to stabilise, and that it would be almost a century before the planet's new ecosystem could truly support sustained agriculture. He also knew that if a siege mentality set in amongst the colonists, unrest might cause food riots, or worse, cause a mutiny amongst the Labour Battalion. He formulated an ambitious and adventurous plan to keep the workers busy, and to grant the early colonists shelter while the terraforming took hold and relief came from Earth. He decided to use the gravity well from the Seevogel to construct the shell of the arcology. Under the direction of some 100 German personnel, the Labour Battalion commenced the work of stripping their erstwhile transport and rebuilding it in a new form on the small moon.

It was a dangerous and arduous undertaking. Of the original 2000 arbeiter, 137 died during the terraforming, of exposure or disease caused by the bacteria and algae. In low-orbit work, a further 432 died, mostly from low-gravity fatigue. As the Battle of New Ukraine drew to a close and the resulting uneasy peace re-opened access for German supply ships to their new colony, the remaining labour battalion returned to Neuostland's unstable surface to build sealed habitats and prepare for the first farming efforts.

Spitzer's Compass

While Teilhard was trying to keep order, the small team of surveyors were excitedly observing the changing face of the new colony. The original survey team for the planet was headed up by a man who would become first Planetary Governor and be ennobled for his efforts: Johan von Spitzer. Spitzer's team produced the first post-terraforming maps and named many of the geographical features they saw. The first task set in front of the team leader was to define which pole was North and which was South. In the Solar System, this had always been simply defined by Terrestrial conventions - Mars and other bodies simply had their poles defined by how the planet was in relation to Earth. A compass would have easily told them which way an Earth compass would define it, but Spitzer was concerned that the new world have the correct direction as North.

On New Iowa, North had been chosen almost through an accidental consensus by the multinational colonists, based on the fact that Earth Compasses reacted uniformly to the planet's magnetic field. Some early British maps did go against other British maps by defining what became South as North, but the majority of UIS and British maps agreed on North almost by accident. Chimera had no such conventions. The Soviets' colonisation of New Ukraine was not yet underway, and there were no other inhabited or claimed planets.

Not so for Neuostland. Von Spitzer had nothing to guide him in his choice. He tried choosing it according to orbital direction, but noticed that when he did so he was unhappy with how his maps looked. In the end, his perception of Earth as having more land masses in the Northern Hemisphere tipped the scales - so the map of the new globe would not look bottom-heavy, he chose the hemisphere with more terrain features to be North.

Early Agricultural Failures

Immigration and Indoctrination

To tend these fields, the Ministry began negotiations with the SS and the The Reichs Ministry of the Interior to round up people deemed to be too racially impure to be part of terrestrial Grossdeutschland, and commence plans for transporting them to the new colony en masse.

The "Neuostland Crisis"

On September 7, 2367 The Russian Third Extrasolar Fleet arrived via FTL on the border of Neuostland's cislunar space. This unprecedented use of a wormhole for planetary assault meant that planetary defences based on Neuostland’s moon Arminius were less significant a threat to the Russian battlegroup. The sheer speed with which the fleet appeared sparked debate about the existence of Russian Stationary Assault Generators near Pluto.

The Russian Dropship Maxim Gorky began deploying for what looked to be a large scale invasion of the planet's surface, while the remainder of the Russian fleet in two battlegroups centered around the Stalin and the Alexander Nevsky moved to engage the Arminius base and its significant defences.

Before the Gorky could complete the ground deployment, it was engaged by an SS taskforce that appeared to have been stationed on the planet itself. Russian intelligence was unaware the taskforce was even in-system, so the German counter attack came as a surprise. With the Russian forces split between engaging the moon base and fighting the SS taskforce, their numerical superiority was of little use. The invasion was suspended, managing only to capture two of the nine distribution centres on the surface, but successfully conducting strategic bombing of several major rail lines.

Russian Admiral Petrov ordered her fleet to rally out beyond Arminius, an order which stranded a significant number of ground troops on Neuostland’s surface. The SS taskforce was unwilling to engage the combined Russian fleet and instead moved to orbit around the Arminius base.

In the Russian fleet, the Gorky sustained the most damage, although few ships survived completely unscathed. On the German side, the SS taskforce was relatively damage free, but the Arminius base had suffered significant damage to its defensive infrastructure.

Politics

The inhabitants of the planet are deliberatly ill-educated and kept that way in order to increase their servility. They use only the most primitive farming methodologies. Because this Bauernwelt is ruled from Arminius, its moon, the serfs of Neuostland know very little of their masters or their predicament.

Sporadic Revolts

Held down by a system of ignorance and opression, the farmers on Neuostland are usually placid and servile. When they do revolt, as they have countless times over the two century history of the planet, it is usually motivated by a shortage of food or specific harsh treatment by local police. Until very recently, only isolated cells of rebellion have occured, and the Schnell Wartemannschaft (Fast Response Team) has been able to put them down with ease and restore order. The worst revolt was the famine of 2243, when an unusually hot summer caused crop failure everywhere but the Johan basin and the extreme south. The Schnell Wartemannschaft was deployed constantly to hot spots throughout the summer, and Wehrmacht Garrison units were temporarily deployed in regional centers to maintain order.

Recent Political Agitation

Since early 2166, the Government on Arminius has become aware of a new, much more organised resistance cell on the planet. It has been conducting raids on local collection facilities in the Johan Basin, and over the last year has reduced productivity in that area to less than 40%.

Schnell Wartemannschaft (Fast Response Team) deployments have succeeded in preventing a number of attacks from succeeding, but thus far has not captured any of the rebels, who have commited suicide rather than be taken alive. The mysterious leader of the movement, who calls himself only 'Tedesceau', has eluded all efforts to track him down. This rebellion resulted in the first permanent deployment of Wehrmacht Garrison troops to the planet's surface since settlement.

The Russians claim that the deployment of the Third Extrasolar Fleet that triggered the Neuostland Crisis was motivated by a request for help from Tedesceau, but no communication has been intercepted from the heavily-monitored surface of the planet. How Tedesceau got word to the Russians, if this is indeed what happened, is a mystery. Many commentators are sure that this is nothing more than a naked power-grab by the Russians, who have a clear military advantage outside Terrestrial space, and wished to use the revolt as a pretext for invasion.

Geography

Bodies of Water

Due to the high heat brought about by the terraforming process and the proximity of the sun, there are no large bodies of water at all, and very few rivers. There is a very large swamp in the planet's lowest basin, known as 'Varus' Lament'. Most of Neuostland's rivers feed into this area,and the one large lake, known as 'Johan's Eye', after the first planetary governor, Johan von Spitzer. Spitzer had trouble naming it, and his team bandied the name around so much that it stuck. The original map held by The Reichs Ministry for the Outer Colonies still has Spitzer's scrawl on this one terrain feature, while all other features are named in type. Other than these bodies, much of the planet's small amount of water spends much of its time in the atmosphere.

Mountains

The poles are small plateaus of solid, almost featureless ice that cover massive mountain ranges underneath them. A number of mountain ranges march outfrom under the ice in three main northerly ranges, and two southerly ones. Apart from the mountains, the remainder of the planet has been landscaped to be flat and almost entirely featureless. This makes it perfect for farming, but not particularly conducive to the development of regional difference or national organisation - with no natural borders and low population density, the people of Neuostland have trouble banding together in groups larger than townships.

Northern Ranges

The longest of the northern ranges, which is also the thickest and long enough that it crosses the equator, is called 'The Spine'. The other two create a long, elliptical valley beneath the polar regions and are collectively known as 'The (Eastern or Western) Arms'. The Arms create a basin in which the largest body of water, 'Johan's Eye' resides.

During the Neuostland Crisis in 2367, it was noted that there was considerable SS activity in the weeks pre and proceeding the incident.

Southern Ranges

The longer of the two southern ranges comes up as if to meet the Spine, but stops about four hundred kilometers short. It is known as 'The Tail'. The other southern range is quite short and curls almost immediately west after emerging from the ice. The area between it and the pole is rocky and barren. The inhabitants call it 'The Barrens', bu the original surveys state that the range is called 'The Niebelung's Smelter'.

Built environment

Small villages

Train System

Centralised Collecion Points

Military

Unarmed Populace

The ignorant, isolated and docile populations of Neuostland's isolated townships are regarded bytheir German overlords as expendable in every way. There is no standing army on the planet's surface, and the ground troops available on the moon of Arminius are organised towards population control. They are not an army in any sense of the word. The full capabilities of the weapons systems on Arminius are unknown, but are thought highly unlikely to be for defence of the farmers below.

Wehrmacht Garrison

This battalion-sized unit is usually stationed on Arminius and is rarely deployed to the planet's surface. Only in the event of a sustained revolt by the population is it required to keep order.

Fast Response Team

The Schnell Wartemannschaft or 'Fast Response Team' is the first line of defence against an unruly population. It is based on Arminius and deployed by rapid response shuttle.

Arminian Batteries

It is suspected that some of the 'defence' batteries on Arminius that are aimed at the planet's surface are capable of a wide-scale elimination of the plaet's population, but it is more likely that they are a last-ditch weapon to remove an enemy ground force from the planet's surface.

Economy

Demographics

Culture