Valcartier-En-Orbite

One of the colonies of VEO

## The Iron Planet

Space Exploration sometimes bring wondrous things to those who look. From the perfect spherical diamond twice the size of Earth of HT-475 to the strange waterworlds who reveal secrets in their seas, another such wonder was the world formerly identified DL-2216, now better known as Valcartier-En-Orbite. The planet itself is not remarkable in its size, but as soon as the Confederation took a close look at its asteroid-strewn orbit, it noticed how the world below those rich pieces of space rocks (already earmarked for exploitation by the Confederation) was actually more rare metals, like titanium, tungsten and paladium, then rock. At that point an innovative plan to colonize it was conceived.

### Living in Orbit

The GNC-Dumoulin, MIL Davis and Bombardier Aerospatial put down a joint claim to colonize and maintain this new world, but rather then terraforming the world, they decided to build a series of O'Neil cylinders at various Lagrange points along with a large group of space foundries to convert and process materials taken from the planet. The plan was first believed to be far too expensive, but as soon as mining process in orbit was started and the cylinders were built from those same materials, the cost of productions became negligible. As such, VEO began growing exponentially.

## Issues with planetary exploitation

The atmosphere and the ground on the planet DL-2216 made exploitation a bit harder then orginally expected. The atmosphere itself was toxic while the ground had dangerous regions which made mining almost impossible. This made GNC-Dumoulin afraid that while the asteroids would make the colony rich, the original plan to strip mine the world itself for additional ressources was impossible.

### Magitechnology to the rescue

It was about that time that Terrans began exploring the supernal realms in earnest, with assistance of the Elven Empire. The first meeting wit genies surprised the Terrans, but once GNC learned that the Empire used the assistance of those elemental creatures to terraform worlds, they asked if they could assist them with their "little planetary trouble".

While the cost for hiring a team of Djinni to replace the atmosphere was exorbitant, once the methane-carbon dioxide atmosphere was replaced by a more traditional nitrogen-oxygen hybrid, the cost to send mining teams down dropped seriously, even allowing for permanent mining settlements to be built planet side. What surprised the Terran the most was how cheap it was to have Shaitans to fix the planetary crust and secure it for exploitation, mostly because the shaitan saw this as an opportunity to train some of their young ones and many others viewed this as a fun diversion.

### The Div threat and Turner's Privateers

Of course, all that genie activity, especially as it was required to keep some of those supernatural beings on hand in case of issues, brought a large number of div to the planet, which required the Colonial Body to hire the Hunter's Guild Association "Turner's Privateers" as permanent retainers to the planet. Turner's men have been doing a good job at keeping the planet and the colonies relatively safe, but over time they expanded their work to taking care of Dread Ones raiders, criminal organisations and terrorist groups.

## The Allard family

Valcartier-En-Orbite is the home of the Allard family, known for a variety of things, but mainly for scientific breakthroughs and political acumens. Joseph Allard, the paternal figure of the family, is the inventor of the modern Terran warp drive and its counterpart, the Warp Inhibitor Field (or Warp Disruptor), while his wife, Jacqueline Daoust, was a representative in the Terran Parliament. Their three kids all also have great careers ahead of them now. The eldest, Edmond Allard, is currently on the Apex Consortium board of director, the youngest person to ever take that role. The only daughter, Adeline Allard, is on the fast track to joining the Terran Senate, but her knowledge of law also seems to show that she might join the Supreme Court in the future as well, one of the rare person who would ever take on multiple roles in the political realm of the Terran Confederation.

The youngest, Alain Allard, originally was on the way to glory due to his skills at professional sports. Having graduated from the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Anglosphere, Terra with honors in both in engineering and as a professional small craft pilot, he was still drafted first in the TFL draft as Quarterback for the Montreal Épervier. Even though the team had a horrible season the year before, finishing 1-17, only winning against the second worst team in the league at the time (the Colorado Highlanders), Allard led his team to both winning their division, then the Regional Championship, and finally, the Globalbowl, defeating the previous year winner, the Los Angeles Jackals. In his second year, the Épervier were once again dominating the league, mainly thanks to Allard's contributions, but a freak accident in the divisional finals ended his career, forcing league medical teams to replace his left shoulder with a cybernetic replacement and using reconstructive magic to heal what could have been a deadly concussion. Since that time, Allard has been working in VEO with local militia and Turner's Privateer on the development of a new brand of combat vehicle, the starfighters.