The Colonies of Warmth and Luna Nova

Warmth

The Skipping Stone Islands were a new nation before the Cataclysm, an experiment and distraction from Lunar Settlement entertained by the elite of WuDao, with inconsistent efforts from Kendr, the EIB, and Yirhadsh-Mendilerroak. Although the islands were larger, with more sheltered bays, gentler terrain, and significantly more trees than the Drowned Peaks, the lack of geothermal vents made the islands bitterly cold after the Cataclysm, and the semi-autonomous colonies were constantly threatened with starvation and collapse. Still, the Committee recognized them over the delegations of Laal Registaan, Velikye Elminye, and Sydor, since their determination to survive in a harsh climate was seen as an advantage in a long-shot effort to colonize unvisited worlds. By far the most diverse of the delegations, save for that of Naayashaahar, whose colony did not survive, the hopes of the Committee were realized when the Warmth colony was firmly established. It has lagged behind the other major First Wave Colonies because its world turned out to be poetically harsh and ironically named, but its people have endured and have secured use of an OTOF to build a colonial expedition for the Second Wave.

Luna Nova

Those colonists from Himmelird who managed to escape the Cataclysm were given shelter by the Vaerbere of Nijsted and the Diofyn in the Blighted Wood. Almost entirely out of pity, their entire population was granted a small colony ship, dubbed Luna Nova, in hopes their unique and enterprising culture would fittingly survive off Ird as it had done for 180 years before the Cataclysm. Despite the influential role the Academy's colonies, the Department of Xenostudies, had played in the flourishing of the lunar cities, their population was excluded both from the safe haven granted after the Cataclysm, and the colony ship, due to their association with the Academy (which was horribly unfair as the Academy had, in fact, cut ties with their lunar colonies 70 years earlier and it was due to the Academy itself, not their lunar colonies, that the TAIN was overexploited). This led to almost no Mophlion population in their colonial delegation, which had already been disproportionately low on the moon. Their colony has survived the Settlement Age, but barely, and would have greatly benefited from increased interstellar trade, but the limited number of "scout barges" each colony had on board limited their capacity for exchange in the Settlement Age. The First Wave Colonies are collectively hopeful that the discovery of the OTOFs will allow Luna Nova to stabilize their economy enough to catch up in development and economic strength, to better an interstellar federation.