A World Rent Asunder
Art shamelessly taken from ned-rogers.deviantart.com
2211 was the year that the second moon of the gas giant, Cavelier, was colonised in a joint Franco-American venture. Their colony ship had travelled for many years to arrive in the system. The young people who started the journey from Sol were elderly by they time they'd reached orbit of Cavelier. Though when they made landfall, their descendants named it Louisiana.
The years were harsh, prior to them building the connector station between they solar system and Sol. Native mollusc beings harassed their efforts and the storm prone environment battered they settlements.
Soon though, Louisiana became an old friend of prosperity once the connector station was finished. With economic backing from the powers in the Sol-system, the colonists pushed the natives into reservations off the main continent and weather stations were built to alter the weather in their favour. For a good century, the colony boomed and the population soared in the various metropolises that peeled across the colony. For a colony on the edge of known space, they were competing with the powerhouse core worlds for many decades. There was however, forces conspiring against the colony, both from within and without.
Human space beyond the connector station was unravelling at the seams. Conflicts on Earth and IN the Sol system were starting to involve other systems. Colonies on the edge of known space were starting to collapse on themselves and economies were taking nose dives.
The once steady convoys and routes that flowed through the connector station were drying up.
On Louisiana, the colonial republic was regarded more as a joke with every bill passed and with every election counted. Voter dissatisfaction and apathy was driving people away from democracy. While also driving loyal believers of democracy to radicalise in defence of their republic.
Political, economic and celebrity dynasties were becoming more and more like aristocrats, who pushed and prodded the government in their favour. While pressure groups became political parties vying for the growing radical vote.
Then Louisiana became divided on views on a sign issue. Accident? Attack? or Sabotage?
The connector station was destroyed. In a midst of a flurry of communications packages and unexpected incoming shipping. The media of Louisiana was promoting various angles on the incident. Most called it an accident, a near derelict station with a skeleton crew being replaced with mechanoids, it was bound to happen. After analysing the communications however, some argued that a detonation took place. Prior to an invasion by nearby systems to seize Louisiana's wealth and people.
Then there are the stories of sabotage, committed by powers on Louisiana to enable a coup d'état or open the colony to civil war.
Regardless, the Louisiana was cut off from the rest of human space. With no way of reaching out to the rest of the colonies and too embroiled with their own problems to send help that would take decades to reach them. Investigations were launched by the colonial republic, though ultimately they hadn't be able to find any tangible evidence before other matters presented themselves.
Panic quickly manifested into anarchy, riots that lasted for days and weeks, police forces across the colony either collapsing or dissolving under the pressure. Problems such as famine and diseases long forgotten, now sprung up and ejected people out of the cities and towns of Louisiana. In the mountain passes and highlands of the continental interior, groups once passively critical became actively hostile. Either out of necessity or opportunity, they all strived against the republic.
As the weeks went on and the government started to buckle under the continued pressure and increasing lack of resources. The dynasties with their wealth and power began openly challenging the republic, fortifying what they owned and seizing what they needed. Soon conflict erupted for resources and fleeing civilians and the republic were caught in the middle.
It was only a few months before the republic collapsed, torn apart and then all but forgotten. Then as two decades went on, settlements sprung up from amongst the wilderness that consumed the highways and cities. The weather stations that once kept the storms at bay have fallen one by one, as now great storms batter the continent and remove evidence of human dominance with every storm season.
The Dynasties set themselves up as the aristocracy they imitated, dividing their land into Baronies and enforcing order and prosperity through feudal obligation and authority. The Baronies built themselves grand keeps and compounds to protect their assets and their people. While also keeping the wilderness and it's dangers out.
Then you have the Survivor Clans, made up from the desperate and the cunning that escaped the cities. They survive the harsh Louisiana years by adapting to the world around them, building strong holdouts in land suitable for their needs and to capitalise on their skills.
Regardless of their forms or locations, the factions that have formed are dependent only on themselves and have goals and ambitions that could span the whole of the colony.