System: Yance I

The colonists who settled Yance I - dubbed Agador by its inhabitants - were anti-technologists, mostly of Amish descent, who sought to create a world free of the ravages of widespread industrialization and commercialization. Putting aside their beliefs long enough to plan, finance and undertake a relocation from one world to another, these settlers came to Yance I, assured that they would find a new land to their liking. Yance I was a terrestrial world of diverse climates, with open, hilly bands of fertile soils in the temperate zones, a mix of jungles and deserts in the equatorial zones, and frozen tundra and glaciers in the polar reaches. However, what went unnoticed in the first planetary surveys was the dominant animal life form.

No sooner had the settlers made planetfall and founded their first colonies than their imported livestock - and even a few of the colonists - began to succumb to attacks by a predator called the black reaper. This aggressive, feline-like mammal, similar in many ways to the Terran puma, but almost half again as large and with a large, spiked, prehensile tail, roamed the plains of the primary continent of Paradiesland. The settlers at first tried to wall in their lands to keep out the reapers, but the powerful beasts broke through or leapt over their wooden constructs, causing massive damage. Relocation also failed to work, as the reapers, attracted to the new food source, simply followed them. In desperation, the mostly pacifistic colonists resorted to primitive firearms, only to find the reapers' hides resistant to such weapons.

The colonists were forced to turn to modern technology to control the animals, bargaining with traders from nearby worlds for heavier weapons, including automatic rifles and laser weapons. These concessions to advanced technology saved the colonists but eventually eroded the pilgrims' way of life. Over the following centuries, Yance I's population gradually became more modernized, a transition that caused no small degree of conflict between the orthodox and progressive populations and led to the relocation of the traditionalist settlers to the neighboring continent of Neuhoffen. The ascendance of the Terran Hegemony and its incorporation of Yance I led to the further industrialization of Paradiesland, including the establishment of a small arms factory for SLDF infantry weapons.

Meanwhile, Neuhoffen became a haven for those seeking escape from the evils of modern life, virtually left alone while the rest of the world entered the Golden Age of technology. The years under Combine rule saw even more turmoil for Neuhoffen residents, forced into increasingly smaller enclaves by the Kuritan rulers, who saw a better use for the minerals in the mountains of the continent.

Today, the orthodox Amish and Mennonite communities that remain on Neuhoffen have become little more than tourist attractions, a nostalgic look back at where humanity once was. The capital city of Yance I is Firstpoint, located on the western coast of Paradiesland. Endstehen, the largest of the remaining "old world" settlements on Neuhoffen, is set on that continent's southern reaches. Yance I's other three continents - Alameda in the northern hemisphere and Brisbane and Ausdaner in the south - make up the rest of the planet's landmass. Of these, only Ausdaner, completely covered by the planet's southern ice cap, is uninhabited.

There are no functional factories located on this planet.