The Shepherd's Trail, Part 1: New Jerusalem
Hello, everyone! Today, we start off on our road to exploring New Jerusalem in preparation for their arrival in Heavy Gear Blitz and the Roleplaying Game. The way this is going to work is that each week for the foreseeable future I am going to post a bit about New Jerusalem’s history, peoples, geography, etc, so we can explore this new world together. We will also have a quick little story to go along with the lore of each one.
This first one is an easy one, a bit about the planet itself……
New Jerusalem
This first one is an easy one, a bit about the planet itself……
The star Nereus is the central celestial body in the Nereus system. Nereus is slightly cooler than Sol, which gives it an orange glow. Nereus has 6 satellite planets: Actaea, Galene, Melite, Pronoe, Xantho, and a potential colony world located between Actaea and Galene. At the outskirts of the system is an asteroid belt which astronomers believe could, potentially, form a new planet in the future. A smaller asteroid belt between the potential colony world and Galene also has formed over the life of the solar system.
The planet is like Earth in terms of size and density, but follows a far more eccentric orbit, which results in much harsher climate changes with the seasons. The average temperature varies between 5C and 25C as the planet moves from perihelion to aphelion. The world has a single moon named Nerities.
The equatorial region of the planet is the most stable and is most suited to human habitation. This region is highly mountainous, boasting many lakes and rivers. Summers are hot and wet with cool dry winters, and the terrain is dominated by tropical forests, swamps, and other wetland biomes. Planetary surveys showed this region was rich in minerals and other natural resources. Winter across the northern hemisphere would be harsh with significant snowfall, even towards the equator. The lakes and rivers are byproducts of the massive amount of moisture moving around due to the snow. Shifting further north, the terrain turns into a band of dryer, cooler grasslands, deserts, and taiga, which then turns into polar forests and tundra in the winter. This region is most suited to large scale farming, with soil samples suggesting Earth native plants and animals would do well if transplanted here. The end of the growing season would be marked by major snow events, which would turn the grass and farmlands into tundra. Even farther north is a massive circumpolar sea which bounds the planet’s northern hemisphere. This sea has its own currents, and effectively isolates the north pole from the rest of the planet. Coastal regions are still suitable for human habitation, where they would likely harvest massive algae blooms that occur in the summer months. In the winter this sea freezes over, which would isolate these communities. While this does create a land bridge to the northern pole, no settlements could reliably exist beyond the coastal regions. South of the equator, the world follows a similar pattern to the northern hemisphere with one significant change: vast highlands and small mountain ranges prevented the formation of a circumpolar sea, and instead inland water bodies ranging from lakes to small seas dot the landscape. While the southern hemisphere is generally a bit milder than the north due to the planet’s axial tilt, the lack of the circumpolar sea to isolate the coldest regions results in even more extreme weather. Settlements could exist in the southern hemisphere, but the lack of a usable growing season restricts their size and ensures the need for a lifeline to the equatorial communities.
Bidding for this planet opened in 5415. Typically, massive corporate conglomerates combined with private interests to secure newly opened colony worlds. The multi-round bidding process was grueling, and could take several years until a bid was selected. This world’s bidding process, however, was upended at the last minute by an unexpected offer…
Lian walked into the Concordat Colonization Bureau’s headquarters like he owned it. With how much his client, a massive conglomerate of businesses, private groups, and secretive investors, had placed in its bid, it was almost a justified feeling. The chamber where the bids would be read was packed, as this was the last round. The CCB would make its final decision in the next few days based on the bids read out at this meeting. Lian didn’t have to be at this meeting—his job was only to prepare the bid—but it was tradition. And after all the months of work, he would be glad to see it done. As he took his seat at the front of the room, he glanced to his side. His opposite number, the broker for a competing group of investors, looked smug. She was obviously confident, he thought. It was a shame that he was going to have to ruin it.
Working though ten rounds of bids had made the last year and a half of his life beyond busy, but this would be the final day. Dozens of groups had initially made bids for this new world, but now there were only two, and after today, there would be only one. The CCB’s head of colony investments walked in the room with a pile of folders in his hand. The folders contained the bids for the new colony world. Of course, there would only be two bids this round, which would make it short. The CCB head placed the folders down at his desk and the meeting began.
The meeting started off like all the rest, with a call to order, the reading of the minutes, and so on and so forth. Despite having been in this type of meeting countless times, it still bored Lian to death. The minutes dragged on until, finally, the moment came. The CCB official stood up and moved his folders to the podium.
“I will now read the bids for colony world HO-04/5411.6” announced the official as he pulled out one of the folders. The first bid was from Lian’s client’s competitors, and it was a strong bid. The broker for his client’s opponents was beaming. Lian let her enjoy her fleeting moment of triumph. A brief round of applause followed, and the official put the folder away and went on to the next one. Lian felt warm inside as the CCB official read his client’s bid, and the shift in the other broker’s expression was worth it. She went from shock to disgust to horror in a matter of seconds. It was done. He had won his clients a new world. Relaxing in his chair, Lian smiled to himself as the applause for his bid was much louder. His euphoria, however, turned into curiosity as the CCB official put the folder aside and picked up a third one. The room rumbled as the official began to read another bid.
Lian’s jaw hit the floor as he heard it. Not only did it beat out his client’s bid, but it did so by a huge margin. He tried to collect himself and succeeded just in time to catch the end of the reading of bid. With anger welling up in his mind, he listened to who had sniped a planet from under his nose.
“…and this bid has been submitted by the Church of Jerusalem and accepted. We will now break for lunch before discussing the bids.”
The last part was drowned out by the uproar.
