New Bermuda

New Bermuda is a Human Outer Colony World in the Artemis system. Named after the island of Bermuda on Earth, New Bermuda was the site for multiple battles during the Human-Covenant war. 
== Geography and Astronomy ==
New Bermuda is an oceanic planet with a climate similar to Earth's. Unlike Earth, New Bermuda has no large deserts, instead, New Bermuda's singular supercontinent is blanketed in a series of dWe forest and plains, with tundra on its southernmost and northernmost tips. A number of remote islands are also scattered across the surface of New Bermuda, none of them exceeding the size of Earth's Sri Lanka. Close to the equator there exists a tropical climate that consists of thick rainforests inland and swamps on the coast. Closer to the poles, the supercontinent is covered in plains and temperate forests. 
Artemis, the star system containing New Bermuda, resides close to the outer edges of an interstellar cloud of gas, dust, debris and other particles. Deeper within the cloud, there is a large amount of electromagnetic radiation that eventually makes its way outwards. Though it loses power as it travels outward, it is still sufficient to generate some interference with communications and sensor equipment. While this typically not enough to cause major issues, spikes of EM energy can cause temporary bouts of major interference, with duration that may vary from hours to years in extremely rare cases. 
Settlements on New Bermuda are few and far between. There are less than a hundred permanent settlements on the planet, many of them with less than a thousand residents. The majority of New Bermuda's populace is located in the capital megacity of Harbor, which also contains most of the planet's industrial capacity. The rest of its population are spread amongst self-sustaining towns or mining settlements, the larger of which are connected to each other and the capital by a rail network. 
== History ==
=== Early Colonial History ===
New Bermuda was discovered in the late 24th century, and was a promising candidate for colonization as it was located within its star's habitable zone and its surface was covered in water oceans and life. In 2456, Colonists landed on New Bermuda. For decades, New Bermuda remained a small colony with a slowly growing population, subsisting mainly off of farming and mining their own food and materials. As other colonies were established further away from Earth, New Bermuda became a rest stop for those en-route to faraway planets. By the 2470s, New Bermuda's small landing strips had turned into spaceports. With an abundance of raw materials from their mines, locals began to offer spacecraft maintenance and repair services. While much of the population lacked proper education due to the colony's small size, the colonists were well-versed in practical and mechanical skills, and this information was passed down through the generations. Across the supercontinent, mines and quarries built to harvest New Bermuda's abundant natural resources dotted its otherwise undeveloped wilderness.
As time went by, New Bermuda's repair services blossomed into a full shipbuilding industry. In 2478, the city of Harbor was officially founded. Soon after, the government-backed New Bermuda Municipal Shipyards was established as the colony's first officially approved shipbuilding company. With the colonies quickly growing, the UNSC also stepped in to establish their own facilities on the planet to maintain and repair warships.
=== UNSC Rule ===
To protect its shipbuilding facilities, the UNSC also established an Army garrison in Harbor. The small garrison was not a major concern for the people of Harbor, whose local militia was still intact and retained jurisdiction over the city. As the insurrection began to ramp up, the UNSC established more military installations on the planet, hoping to use it as a staging ground for operations further out. In turn, the UNSC tightened its grip on New Bermuda to keep secure its assets.
Rather than rebel or rise up against the UNSC, those who wanted independence from the UEG moved further away from Harbor. As New Bermuda's only large settlement, Harbor housed most of the population and industry of New Bermuda, leaving most of the planet still undeveloped. As a result, those wishing to move away from the city had an ample amount of places to go. By 2500, over a million of the planet's 1.2 million population lived in Harbor, while the rest lived in small settlements or mining towns scattered across the planet's wilderness. 
New Bermuda maintained relative peace throughout the Insurrection period. While strategic for the UNSC, its small population and relative obscurity meant that insurrectionist groups rarely targeted it for attacks. 
=== Human-Covenant War ===
New Bermuda continued to grow and prosper through the beginning of the 26th century. Refit and repair stations were constructed in orbit, and the population continued to rise. In 2536, a Covenant discovery fleet detected artifacts on New Bermuda and travelled there to investigate. At the time, New Bermuda was currently housing a battlegroup of UNSC ships preparing for a counterattack on the Covenant at the nearby colony of Armistice. Initially, UNSC forces fended off the Covenant scouting party, but a handful of Covenant vessels managed to escape to the fleet and inform them of the human presence on New Bermuda. 
Soon after the first engagement, the cloud in which the Artemis System resided went through a phase of increased electromagnetic output, blocking communications from exiting the system and both sides were cut off from their allies. Covenant forces advanced to New Bermuda and the ensuing space battle resulted in the loss of almost all UNSC vessels, but not before the Covenant carrier responsible for transporting the rest of the fleet's fuel was struck with a MAC round that destroyed its fuel storage. Unwilling to return alone, damaged and empty-handed, the Covenant fleetmaster ordered a full-scale invasion of the human colony. At the first sign of Covenant near the colony, people flocked to spaceports, attempting to board any ship they could for transport out of the system. When these craft were shot down, others refused to fly and people crowded railway stations, attempting to evacuate to the mines and wilderness. 
What followed was over a month of bitter fighting. In the first week, UNSC forces were pushed out of Harbor and the city was glassed, along with hundreds of miles of wilderness as part of an excavation of religious artifacts. A UNSC corvette that survived the space battle with the Covenant attempted to take off after an emergency landing at one of the city's spaceports, but was shot down. Smoke and ash from the glassing blanketed much of the continent in smoke, blocking out the sun.