The Colonies

Under the administration of the **United Confederation of Sovereign Systems**, humanity has surveyed and colonized several hundred worlds across a portion of the Local Bubble of the Milky Way galaxy over **300** lightyears long (in each direction). The planets under the jurisdiction of the UCSS, together with humanity's homeworld, are collectively referred to as "*Terra and Her Colonies*". Human space is divided into five **Astroschemes** - stellar regions: the **Sol system** itself, **Île-de-Terre**, **First Diaspora**, the **Limitrophe**, and **Free Space**, which can be further sub-divded into smaller patches of space. Due FTL travel using the Aeolus Drive, which has a maximum range of **8,1** lightyears, results in the creation of "Arms" that extend from Sol , which connect only the stars that are within this range of eachother. The invention of jump-gates has significantly reduced the the travel distance between certain sections of the "*Arms*". Arms are named usually after the largest world on the starting and end-point of the arm, example being the **Groombridge-Invictus Arm**, this is not always the case, as for example the **Milvian Arm**, which reaches from Terra Nova and reaching all the way to **Calanshio**.

While the **United Confederation of Sovereign Systems** *(UCSS)* is technically a confederation of equal, independently-governed worlds, this is not true in practice; the interests of ***Terra, Corporate Entities and the Coreworlds*** weigh more heavily in the government's decision-making than those of the **Anterior Systems**. This has led to tensions and even civil war between the UCSS and the outer settlements, which many of the Coreworlds rely on for foodstuffs and mineral resources. Many of the nearer colonies use names from greek & roman mythology, to keep in line with the planetary names of the solar system, while those further out tend to receive more descriptive or abstract names, while many others are simply named after locations on Earth. Higher GDP per capita values tend to be concentrated around the original colonisation sites.

The term **Medina** is commonly used to indicate the initial site of colonization, for example the oldest parts of the Terra Nova Colony would be refered to as the **"Terra Nova Medina"**, this is not always the current capital of said colony. In the early stages of colonization it is common for a colony's initial population center to be considered synonymous with the colony itself.

The colonies range from heavily-populated and economically, politically and strategically significant worlds to struggling pioneer outposts which could barely sustain colonists. Some worlds were terraformed to greater degrees than others depending on the local conditions and presence of indigenous life. A great range of highly diverse cultures are present on Humanity's Colonies, some worlds have their foundations in the cultural heritage of a single Earth nation, while most have varied population bases. While most colonies tend to have inhabited surfaces, due to the innate bias of their human inhabitants, many colonies are orbital or are in space altogether.
Space Military Fortress' and Kontors act in a similar vein to the forts and factories in old colonial america, as a entry point for pioneers to claim the local star system's resources and settle any habitable planets. Many of these Space Station do in fact have a permant civilian population housed in habitions modules, although most of the newly arriving colonists tend to move to more habitable places instead of staying in these "Space Forts".

The **Xenogeological Survey and Catalog Service** also exists to document various extrasolar planets, assigning them identification codes, based on geological and environmental condidtions. They also offer bounties to private individuals or teams willing to perform mineralogical surveys on the frontier. This survey data is made commercially available to further corporate development.

When naming celestial objects, the UCSS has certain guidelines - a following excerpt makes clear:

* **General**: Although not necessary, the names may be drawn from themes related to the sky and astronomy, or related in some way to the constellation or a cultural asterism in which the exoplanetary system lies, or related to the properties of the exoplanet and its star themselves. The proposed names should be of things, or places of long-standing cultural, historical, or geographical significance, worthy of being assigned to a celestial object.

* **Indigenous names**: In recognition of the UCSS Edict on conservation of Indigenous Languages, speakers of Indigenous languages are encouraged to propose names drawn from those languages. If one of the names proposed is from an indigenous language, then (1) the team that is proposing the name should be led by and involve one or more members of the Indigenous community, and (2) the team should annex consent to use the Indigenous language by the Indigenous group representative(s) involved in the project.

* **Theme**: The proposed pairs of names - for the exoplanet & its star - must follow a common naming theme. The naming theme describing how the names are related in some logical way should be summarized in a sentence or two and be broad enough that additional names related to the theme could be used to name additional objects in that system in the future. For example, the 2019 IAU NameExoWorlds campaign adopted the names Ceibo and Ibirapitá for the star HD 63454 and its exoplanet HD 63454b, respectively, with the system theme being "culturally significant species of trees native to Uruguay".

* **Format**: Proposed names should be provided in the Latin alphabet, and have an initial capitalized letter (following CSU Style Manual). If the original name contains diacritics or comes from a language using another alphabet or writing system, these names should be provided in Unicode UTF-8 where possible.

## Known colonies & systems

### Île-de-Terre Colonies

Note: fm = first mentioned (book.chapter)

### First Diaspora/Exodus Region

Note: pn = presumed name / pl = presumed location / fm = first mentioned (book.chapter)

### Inner Limitrophe

Note: pn = presumed name / pl = presumed location / fm = first mentioned (book.chapter)

### Mid Limitrophe

Note: pn = presumed name / pl = presumed location / fm = first mentioned (book.chapter)

### Outer Limitrophe/Anterior Systems

Note: pn = presumed name / pl = presumed location / fm = first mentioned (book.chapter)

### Free Space/Wild Space

Note: pn = presumed name / pl = presumed location / fm = first mentioned (book.chapter)