Bunyip (Fort New Detroit) - Settlement And History

History and Settlement
New Detroit is one of the older colonies in the sector. The colonization process began soon after the Treaty of Mars was signed and the Terran Sphere was established. Biogenesis, then a fledgling firm with lofty ambitions, took on the terraforming contract. Their work on the interface between the native ecology and Terran imports helped make the firm’s reputation, and even today is seen as a masterpiece in grafting an entire new branch of life on to an already established world. Even today, students of the terraformer’s art come to the world to study the work done on the planet, and Biogenesis has maintained a regional office on planet.

The colony was originally conceived as a refuge for many of the displaced groups looking for homes in the Colonial War’s aftermath. Additionally, the Terran Sphere Navy also saw value in establishing itself in the system, using it as base of operations on the opening frontiers of the Terran Sphere. The frontier has moved on, along with many of the Fleet’s ships with it. However the climate diversity made it appealing to the Terran Sphere Marine Corps, as it offered a wide variety of environments in which to train for ground operations. Fort New Detroit, the colony’s principle settlement, has grown up around the training camps that operated here, and the world remained a popular place for retired TSN personnel to settle down.

The city that grew up around the fort is a orderly town, spreading along the banks of the New Mississippi. While Fort New Detroit was the largest settlement, the colony has diverged somewhat from the standard colonial model of a mega-metropolis that holds the overwhelming bulk of the planetary population. Instead, there are a number of mid-sized cities, mostly scattered up and down the New Mississippi. Among these cities are New Memphis, Hawking Falls City, and New Baotou along with a number of smaller towns and villages. The proximity of all of these to the great river system of the New Mississippi makes riverboats and barges of all sizes common along its length.

Beyond the terraformers and the military, the economy of New Detroit was diverse but fairly typical in other respects. There are a few robotics subsidiaries and a number of firms focused on R&D for the Terran Sphere Marines, but nothing that truly rose to exceptional prominence in the Sphere. The most notable exports for the colony are agricultural products such as coffee and wine that have benefitted from the planet’s unique terroir.