Germinal Colony
Introduction
History
The Establishment of New Paris
The French were much later to establish their jump gate technology, ultimately purchasing the patent for the technology from the Americans. The republic’s first gate was opened in 1916, a full 40 years after the first gate was opened by the American Extraplanetary Commission, and a year after the Japanese opened their gate, thus embarrassing the French government on the global stage. Revolutionaries of the current day blame the decadence of the bourgeois aristocracy. From a more academic perspective, this diagnosis is not entirely untrue, as during this 40-year interim French aristocrats were busy expanding and cementing control over their Earth colonies. The opinion of the government after the establishment of the first jump gate was that Aether expansion outside of the solar system was costly, and ultimately was just a symbolic act of power projection by other nations. As a result, while other nations were establishing their Jump Gates, the critically underfunded French Aether program began establishing colonies on the moon in 1885, with ambitious intentions to establish a mining base in the asteroid belt by 1906. By 1904 however, the French abandoned their intentions of solar system expansion due to the overwhelming success of the American and British jump systems, which began shipping back huge quantities of natural resources to Earth in the early 1900s. Severe logistical issues also made their ambitions into the asteroid belt completely untenable.
France’s embarrassing Aether program, status as the only major power without access to a jump gate, and the economic demand for colonial materials from the Aether eventually swayed the aristocracy to seriously consider establishing colonies in deep Aether. As the early 1900s moved on, the global academic community also became fascinated by the ecological discoveries made by Aether colonists. Due to this push in academia by the French intelligentsia and the wider scholarly community, it was decided that the new colony would establish the first interplanetary university. Academics from across the globe flocked to France in the years leading up to the launch of the ship, which created controversy among many global powers, as they believed the establishment of such a university was a ploy to drain academics from competing nations. This culminated in late 1916 when the first French colonial ship took off to discover the Napoleon system (later renamed the Germinal system).
Early New Paris
Although the French were the last of the great powers to establish a jump gate, and by extension an interplanetary colony system, the French were by far the luckiest in terms of the initial success of their colonial endeavors. The most important factors that led to their success were the combination of the overqualified makeup of the initial crew of the colonial ship, and the remarkably earth-like planet named Étoile Chérie where the New Paris colony was established. When the colonists first arrived, they found a relatively warm climate with rich soil, a diverse variety of alien flora and fauna, and most importantly, a breathable atmosphere.
Due to a combination of abundant natural resources and rich soil, the colonists were able to establish the return gate by 1924. The first return voyages brought back the colonist’s ecological discoveries, but most importantly it brought the largest harvest of wheat in human history, as the climate of the colony was particularly well suited for the cultivation of that crop. This return voyage single-handedly ended the great famine of the early 1920s, and caused the global community to begin viewing New Paris as a breadbasket colony.
Versailles University
In the years before the completion of the return gate, the multinational group of academics aboard the French colonial ship came together to establish the first extraplanetary university. Biologists and ecologists began working on studying the properties of the myriad of plant and animal life on their new planet. As a result of their work, by the time the return gate was completed, they had already amassed a list of over 5,000 new plant and animal species. The story of their findings sparked public interest in the new colony back on Earth with sensational headlines claiming intelligent human-like alien life had been discovered. Despite the falsity of these claims, public demand to see the new planet created an international demand for travel to the newly established university. Due to the diverse makeup of the university, and increasing international tensions, it was decided that the university be open to students and faculty from across the globe. After intense resistance by French aristocrats, it was decided in the Treaty of Versailles of 1927 to be an international university not beholden to the laws and regulations of the French government.
Economic Impacts
The overwhelming success of the New Paris colony and the establishment of Versailles University led to the creation of a massive tourism industry on the new earth-like planet. This fact was not lost on the French government, which immediately began construction projects on ships to facilitate the demands of international travelers. These investments also included urbanization efforts in and around New Paris over the next ten years. This coincided with the establishment of other colonies on different parts of the planet. Consequently, the French economy boomed in the years leading up to the revolution. The benefits of these economic improvements however exacerbated inequality in France, and likely contributed to the rising frustration of the working class that led up to the revolution. For example, in 1927 many aristocrats began the construction of lavish mansions on the colony planet, which were primarily funded by a heavy tax put on exports coming out of the colony. Furthermore, the working class was forced to pay a higher tax in general to fund the massive public works projects happening in the newly established colonies. The wealth of the French colony also contributed to international tensions leading up to the Great War.
Modern Day
Étoile Chérie Geography
The geography of Étoile Chérie is quite different from Earth despite housing similar conditions for life. Unlike our sun here on Earth, the star that Étoile Chérie orbits is a red dwarf, making the rays it emits much cooler. Due to this cooler star, the distance the planet is away from it, and the chemical composition of the atmosphere Étoile Chérie glows a bright yellow color from orbit, with greenish tints from its four oceans. This yellow tint is where the name of the planet derives from, as when the French explorer and academic Louis Leblanc first viewed it, he exclaimed “Ma chère étoile, je pleure pour toi”.
The planet itself is a little bit smaller than Earth and hosts two major continents, whose landmass takes up most of the planet's surface, and is separated by four relatively small oceans. There are also two polar caps on each end of the planet, though their ice sheets are quite small. Étoile Chérie’s temperatures are pretty standard across most of the planet year-round with above-average rainfall. The surface of the planet is a mix of low rolling hills and flatlands, with the exception of a few large mountain ranges on each continent, and a few volcanic archipelagos. Rivers and lakes cut the large landmasses into many pieces, and flow into the four oceans of Étoile Chérie. These oceans are covered in thick green bioluminescent algae, whose light can be seen poking out of the planet's yellowish atmosphere.
Ecology
The planet itself is much older than Earth, and likely looked very different throughout its lifecycle. Currently, the build-up of minerals and organic compounds over billions of years has caused the soil across Étoile Chérie to be remarkably rich. Plant life burgeons all across the planet’s hilly surface, with huge evergreen trees foresting most of the landscape. The most abundant of which is the giant blackwood tree, whose dense and heavy woods helped the early French settlers build their first homes in their new colonial world. Much like the giant blackwood trees, most flora on Étoile Chérie is massive compared to Earth's plant life. It is said that even the smallest of flowers on Étoile Chérie can grow as tall as Earth's sunflowers.
The gigantic flora on Étoile Chérie corresponds with equally gigantic Fauna, mostly consisting of large herbivores that feast on the bounty provided by the dense plant life. These large creatures reminded the early settlers of the dinosaurs of Earth's past, though in actuality most of these large herbivores share little resemblance to the dinosaurs aside from their size. One famous example of this is the unfortunately named “Giganticus Gelatonus ”, a cube-like slug that slowly absorbs plant matter on the forest floor, of Étoile Chérie’s “Forêt d'ombres”.
The wildlife on Étoile Chérie can be quite dangerous to the many human settlements that live there. Although most animals are herbivores, the large and aloof nature of many of the native creatures can be destructive to colonial settlements. For example, in early 1917, one French explorer recalled that an animal referred to as a loisallo flattened part of the barracks in New Paris to eat a large blue fruit that draped from a tree branch overhanging the wall. Despite this, the loisallo are a relatively tame animal and have begun to be domesticated by colonists as pack animals. In appearance, the loisallo has a large round body supported by 6 gangly thin double-jointed legs, as well as a long thick neck that supports its flat long head. They have a thick carapace that armors their legs, and protects the otherwise soft tender meat inside. Settlers began farming them almost as soon as they landed, and the meat of one fetches a high price in Earth markets.
A more genuine threat to colonists on Étoile Chérie is that of the felogious stinger, a large insectoid resembling a hornet with three stingers. These make their nests burrowed in the dirt of river beds, making them a nuisance to many colonial settlements. They are quite venomous and extremely territorial, which has caused the government of New Paris to issue an open season on them to keep its colonial citizens safe.
Despite the wide diversity of plants and animals on the planet, the short interaction the planet has had with humans has already drastically changed the planet's surface. Earth plants tend to do well on Étoile Chérie, but none so well than that of wheat. The overall climate and soil on Étoile Chérie is ideal for growing Earth wheat year-round. This fact compounded with colonial deforestation, and lack of disease has caused wheat to become an invasive species on Étoile Chérie. So much has grown so quickly in fact that scientists estimate that wheat has quickly become one of the most dominant species of plant on the planet. Some worry that the success of wheat on Étoile Chérie has contributed to a drastic change to the planet's ecosystem displacing or killing untold populations of plants and animals before they could be studied.
Life on Étoile Chérie
The largest city on Étoile Chérie is by far the capital city of New Paris. The city itself lies on the very site where the early colonists first settled, at the fork of a river in what was once a dense forest. Today the city's size rivals that of its namesake, with the city's urban center stretching nearly sixty miles. The city is home to six large aether ports, whose massive cargo ships can be seen shipping goods back and forth to Earth at all hours of the night. The city is alive with light, as the glow of bulbs from the city's many residents reflects off the yellowish atmosphere, creating a near-blinding glow to those not wearing protective eyewear. This phenomenon of light has caused many to tint the color of light bulbs in their homes to make light pollution less harsh. The overall effect of these factors on someone descending into the city for the first time is a rainbow aurora of colors that emanates from the city as one flies down from the Aether.
New Paris is an extremely diverse place with citizens of all nations mingling together in the busy marketplaces exchanging goods and services. New Paris is also home to Versailles University, which attracts a host of young people from all over looking to get “an otherworldly education” as their slogan goes. Life in the city is fast-paced, and chaotic, as the city itself is home to a large share of the colonial world's overall population, and the city's infrastructure and population continuously grow each year as more people move to the jewel of the French Republic.
Life outside New Paris is radically different. Wheat remains one of the primary exports of the colonial world, and much of the people living outside the city make a living as farmers. Many of these farmers either live alone on the city's outskirts, or form small communities around the planet, and ship their crops into the city. This model of farming towns cropping up around larger colonial cities, like New Paris, has been true for many of the larger colonies on Étoile Chérie, though none have grown quite to the size of the capital. Aside from living in major colonial cities or their neighboring farmlands, some groups have funded their colonial communities within many of the planet's forests, though these communities typically either die out or do not interact much with the larger colonies.
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