Human Sphere

A list of human colony worlds, habitats and colonized systems in Project: Daybreak.

Post-war development notes
A few things to keep in mind with reclamation projects and the expansion of existing colonies:
 * Most agri-worlds are gone, so efforts will be made to make colonies self-sufficient, e.g. by clearing farmland (c.f. Charybdis IX in The Cole Protocol).
 * The refugee crisis and overall displacement of populations should not be underestimated, and what makes things tricky is that most evacuation efforts weren't exactly under any central authority; UNSC ship may have protected evac convoys wherever they could, but there are hundreds of independent operators in the business, many of them impromptu in nature.
 * It's easier and more cost-effective to keep large numbers of people on ice than thaw them out, so this is what smart or well-organized operators will be doing until their cargo can be guaranteed reasonably humane conditions when awake. Unfortunately, most evac efforts were anything but well-organized, there weren't often even facilities to freeze all the evacuees, and ship captains (or the companies that run them) will be looking to get ride of their cargo as soon as possible, often just dumping them on existing colonies in the absence of better options. However, there were still "arkships" stacked full of almost nothing but cryotubes, built or converted by planetary governments, large companies or the UNSC in the later half of the war. While not all such ships made it, it is suspected that millions still remain frozen, waiting for the right time and place for relocation.
 * This also has very human and personal implications; it will displace people in not just space, but time as well. People will sleep away the years, even decades while their family, friends or relatives go about their lives elsewhere, usually thinking the sleepers dead; and when they wake, they will be separated by years or decades.

Glassed colonies
Colonies that are beyond recovery, at least in the immediate future; restoration would take centuries of work with terraforming technology beyond humanity's current capabilities. As in canon, some may still become hotspots to silicate mining.

Pre-2010

 * Arcadia - initially invaded in 2531 and glassed in 2547, Arcadia now has little relevance. Salvagers, pirates and various peripheral elements of the Covenant meta-civilization have been active in the system as well as its immediate neighborhood after the war, and may use Arcadia or some of the other planets and planetoids in the system as hideouts.
 * Reach - Deemed virtually unrecoverable, the UNSC's crown jewel is now a mass grave. In the immediate post-war years, small communities of Covenant stragglers remain in its orbit and groundside facilities, and hundreds of salvagers pick apart the orbital debris field, including the husk of a refueling and refit platform left unfinished as the Covenant pushed on to Sol and eventually the Ark. Still, securing Reach's orbital space will be a priority project for the UNSC following the war, as the system continues to be a major slipstream node and Sol's gateway to the greater galaxy.
 * Eridanus II
 * Eridanus Secundus (this may need a better name, since I'm pretty sure it's never referred to as such in the narrative, and that Nylund meant Eridanus II by that chapter title) - Insurrectionist/independent asteroid habitat. Survived the attack on Eridanus II in 2530, but was presumably destroyed by the Covenant in 2552.
 * Jericho VII
 * Madrigal - a colony in the 23 Librae system glassed in 2528.
 * The Rubble - an asteroid settlement built by the survivors from Madrigal in the trailing trojans of the gas giant Hesiod in the 23 Librae system, with the assistance of ostensibly independent Kig-Yar traders. Destroyed in 2535.
 * Miridem - an Inner Colony glassed in 2544. Large cities included Antioch, Cyrene and Syracuse. Most of the initial settlers were Martian, though there was considerable immigration from across Sol in the colony's early decades. Widely-spoken languages included Neo-Esperanto and French, though there was notable variety among the major cities. The planet used to be something of a hotspot of telecommunications and cybersecurity technology in its neighborhood of space.
 * Second Base and Green Hills - the first two colonies to be glassed after Harvest. The two are most likely located fairly close to one another, possibly (if not necessarily) in the same system.
 * New Constantinople - a fairly prominent population center at the often-ill-defined border between the Inner and Outer Colonies, first settled by Eastern Orthodox colonists. Later a waystation between the Inner Colonies and the Orion-side Outer Colonies. May also have been an industrial center. Site of a battle in early 2537, which saw participation by the Spartan-IIIs of Alpha Company. May or may not have been invaded more than once. Vice Admiral Whitcomb was also famed for his accomplishments in a battle there, but it was most likely glassed either in 2537 or a later date.
 * Atlas Moons - colony-moons, likely of a gas giant, site to a prominent siege at some point before the fall of Reach in which Admiral Whitcomb participated. May have housed industry or other facilities critical to the war effort.
 * Levosia - Outer Colony and exporter of refined selenium and technetium, operations crucial for the building of slipspace drives. Historically rebellious, and site of the Callisto Incident in 2494. If the mining/refining (both?) operations remained intact during the war, the world would've remained a strategic asset. Most likely glassed in the later half of the war.
 * Charybdis IX - Corporate-run mining colony, glassed in 2535. Had some importance to the war effort in its sector.
 * Bliss - one of the first Outer Colonies to be glassed in 2526. Home to a silicate mining operation after the war.

Post-2010

 * Actium - an Inner Colony world glassed in 2545 after a several-week-long battle.
 * Meridian - glassed beyond recovery, but remains home to a silicate mining operation and houses an orbital port that has become a confluence of newly-emerged slipspace lanes as well as a staging point for further expansion out into the Cygnus Verge.

Fanon additions

 * Bolder and Calvary - colony-moons of the anomalous Jovian gas giant Tiamat, Bolder and Calvary were glassed beyond recovery, and the Gliese 898 system is now home only to pirates, salvagers and a small group of ex-Covenant fanatics seemingly interested in Tiamat.
 * Falkirk, Ffyniannus, and Sgothein - three Scottish colonies of the Gaelic system, the Gaelic colonies were notable for being Inner Colonies that were disillusioned from the UEG and UNSC due to the devastating invasions suffered during the Inner Colony Wars, which devastated their economy and industrial base. Only Falkirk and Ffyniannus were terraformed, with Sgothein receiving only atmospheric changes due to its status as a mining world. Their populations have a strongly patriotic, slightly isolationist culture, with a particular hatred of interstellar corporations. All three colonies were abandoned during the Siege of Gaelic, with Ffyniannus' surface being left largely untouched due to a very successful mass evacuation.
 * Pharos - a Venusian hothouse world that served as a UNSC materiel depot. While only the UNSC facilities and bunkers were turned to slag, the planet remains of little to no utility as most of the colonies beyond have been destroyed.
 * Parvati - a high-g Inner Colony world with most human habitation concentrated on a series of canyon systems and caverns due to the inhospitable weather conditions on the desert plains that covered most of the planet; a further terraforming and climate-control project was ongoing, but would still have taken over a century to take effect. Settlers hailed primarily from Earth's South and Southeast Asia, and have the stocky builds characteristic of high-g worlders. While only the human settlements were glassed in 2543, this destabilized what little artificial ecosystem Parvati had, making short-term resettlement unlikely beyond domed habitats.
 * Roston - an industrial world that supplied the war effort in Sectors 2 and 1, before its glassing in the late 2530s.

Reclaimable colonies
Colonies that were attacked by the Covenant, but for one reason or the other weren't fully glassed, or glassed at all; some had major population centers or industrial plants slagged, but may remain otherwise intact.

Pre-2010

 * Ariel - a barren world home to a research outpost; while invaded, it was seemingly never glassed, and may become more prominent as a settlement project in the post-war era.
 * Fumirole - invaded, but may have survived total glassing.
 * Tribute (Epsilon Eridani III) - a mainly industrial colony and Epsilon Eridani's lesser population center, Tribute was spared the brunt of the Covenant invasion as the Covenant focused all their might on Reach. Still, most of the planet's cities and industries were glassed, though a number of smaller settlements survive, and the glassing was not widespread enough to destroy the planet's ecosystem and climate. Post-war, it has become Epsilon Eridani's most notable resettlement project, with hundreds of thousands of refugees flowing in from across the human sphere.
 * Circumstance (Epsilon Eridani IV) - a waterworld with several seastead-cities and aquatic farms; founded as a lesser agri-world to feed Reach and Tribute, but later became quite prestigious as a center of law and culture. Also home to a notable cetacean transplantation and intelligence research project. Circumstance lies at the edge of Epsilon Eridani's habitable zone, and has only a fairly narrow temperate band around its equator, with the oceans freezing toward the poles. Has expanded considerably in the post-war era as a dumping ground for refugees from Reach and Tribute, as well as migrants and refugees from elsewhere in the human sphere, who now inhabit vast raft-cities built in and around the ruins of the world's seastead-arcologies, the influx of population too fast for the formal rebuilding and expansion of those seasteads to accommodate.
 * Beta Hydri VI - Inner Colony intact as of 2533. Likely not a major world, though would probably have a decently sizable population. Most likely attacked at some later point, but not necessarily unrecoverable. If it's recovered and relevant in the post-war era, it could have more interesting features/gimmicks than simply being another bland Earthlike world.
 * New Jerusalem - invaded in mid-2552, but likely not fully glassed before the war's end. Being fairly close to Earth, it'll most likely be reclaimed.
 * Cygnus II - most likely the same as New Jerusalem. An agent of the fetcher Oliver Birch was stationed here after the war, suggesting it was recolonized.

Post-2010

 * Carrow - evacuated during the war, but was either never attacked or was bypassed by the Covenant due to the absence of colonists. Settled by a group of ex-Covenant in the immediate aftermath of the war.

Fanon additions

 * Fjord - suffered a minor Covenant attack which destabilized the already struggling local government, precipitating a full CAA takeover in the post-war era, one that was welcomed by most of the locals after decades of incompetent administrations from the world's two opposing political factions. Fjord's home star has assumed some strategic importance as a waystation system in the post-war era.
 * Verne - a high-oxygen jungle-world mostly covered in an impenetrable tangle of plant life and hostile fauna, Verne was home to several dozen arcologies rising above the jungle canopy, most of which now lay in ruins. However, the ecosystem remains intact, and the planet is now home to numerous unsanctioned independent settlements within and above the canopy.

Intact colonies
Colonies that did not suffer appreciable attacks, though many would've still felt the second-hand effects of the war.

Pre-2010

 * Ballast - a fairly prominent Inner Colony.
 * Beta Gabriel - an Europa-like ice world with a subsurface ocean, Beta Gabriel has little permanent population to speak of, aside from marine laboratories and research outposts, and was thus spared the Covenant's attentions in the Epsilon Eridani invasion.
 * Forseti
 * Gilgamesh - a colony originally established with lofty, ancient Mesopotamian-inspired trappings, Gilgamesh has since become notorious as both a tax haven and a pleasure world, and is a popular furlough destination among UNSC personnel. While the planet is represented in the UEG by a loose coalition government, it is ineffectual and corrupt; the true power lies at the hands of the corporate tycoons who run the planet's hotels, casinos, pleasure palaces, spas and shopping malls. Within the cities, which are effectively independent states, any rule of law is essentially enforced by private security firms; outside the major spaceports, crime and squalor reign, an effect exacerbated by the growth of endless slums and tent cities around the major urban centers as a result of the ongoing refugee crisis. During the last two decades, Gilgamesh's orbital communities and select isolated planetside locations have also become hotspots for unsanctioned cybernetics and biological research, secure from the prying eyes of authorities as long as they pay the right people.
 * Luyten - an old, densely-populated near-Earth Inner Colony. Home to the Spartan-II candidate Caleb-095.
 * Emerald Cove - a fairly notable Inner Colony famed for its tropical archipelagos, Emerald Cove was abandoned in 2542 due to a threat of Covenant invasion. The Covenant established an outpost on the world in the late 2540s, but the planet was never glassed; since the war, Emerald Cove has attracted several Covenant stragglers, but will be prioritized for reclamation and resettlement by the UNSC.

Post-2010

 * Cascade - fairly populous Inner Colony that experiences something of an economic boom in the post-war era, likely due to the growth of key industries there resulting from the loss of so many other industrial centers. May also become a waystation along new sliplanes.
 * Neos Atlantis - the UNSC's primary naval yard for the immediate future following the loss of Reach and Mars' industry.
 * Losing Hand - a small, unofficial fringe settlement with an independence-minded population. Mostly oceanic environment, but may have only a narrow habitable zone (extremes of temperature?). Re-contacted by a UNSC/Concord ship after the war, and may become the site of a resettlement project.
 * Nouveau Montreal - a small, fairly insignificant Outer Colony that had the fortune of being spared the war even as other worlds around it burned. Likely saved by its obscurity, though refugees from its neighborhood flowed in throughout the last decade of the war. Assumed newfound importance in the post-war era as the only world left standing in its sector, though its government remains ill-equipped to handle the influx of commerce and people through the system. To prevent its own economy from collapsing, the world has made deals with post-Covenant entities, with a Chikri-Merkaa Conflux-based spacer guild aiding in the reconstruction and expansion of its orbital docks. This will later make it a fairly popular base of operations for Outer Vigil ships operating in the Perseus-side Joint-Occupation Zone.


 * Isbanola Sector
 * Venezia - an Outer Colony that becomes perhaps the most notable melting pot of the human and ex-Covenant civilizations. The original settlers were likely an offshoot of the group that colonized the nearby Gao. While originally smaller than Gao, largely serving as a waystation and mining outpost, Venezia's population grew dramatically as a result of the migrations caused by the Covenant War. In the war's later years, a group of Covenant traders using the now largely defunct Tempest Crossing ingress route found their way to Venezia, followed soon after by other peripheral elements of the hegemony, including defectors, merchants, smugglers and pirates. For much of this time, Venezia remained cut off from the UNSC at large, only resuming contact in the post-war era.
 * Gao
 * Aleria
 * Komoya and Talitsa (and potentially other colonies on Vitalyevna's moons)

Fanon additions

 * The Swarm - a habitat-conurbation orbiting the ice-ball η Cassiopeiae Secundus, better known as Josaphat's Folly, after its discoverer Josaphat Pirandello who spent his lifetime and fortune searching for alien ruins that weren't there. The Swarm itself was primarily established by Tanzanian and Kenyan conglomerates, though it has a prominent East Asian population, and some of its elements have since become fairly cosmopolitan. Founded as the headquarters for an asteroid-mining operation deeper in the system, the Swarm became a secondary waystation during the settlement of the Outer Colonies, and eventually gentrified into a high-technological hub. Having survived the war, the Swarm is now a gateway to the Via Serena trade route bound from Sol to the Pleiades Corridor, and has seen a fairly dramatic increase in population with transitory settlers and refugees, most of whom have been dumped by the local government on Josaphat's Folly in rapidly-erected dome-cities and habitats built in the old ice warrens dug by Pirandello's explorers.
 * Tortuga - an airless moon with a single major port city within an enclosed canyon, Tortuga has become an independent free trade port along the Cygnus side Outer Colonies since the war and the glassing of 16 Cygni's primary colony world, Masaq.

Post-war colonies
Colonies set up during or after the war.

Fanon additions
The UEG's official re-settlement program and something of a social engineering experiment. The Initiative also covers the reclamation of old colonies, as well as the expansion of existing ones, but will later become most notable for the new colonies it established, mostly based on worlds charted both before and during the war, as well as those discovered by the Fleet of Particular Justice's scouts during their expeditions to find new human worlds.
 * Phoenix Initiative

Due to logistical realities, only a handful of new worlds are settled at first, with most initial efforts focused on integrating refugees to existing or reclaimed worlds. Some of the initial new worlds include:
 * New Reach - a world with a Reacher majority and the first new colony settled as part of the Initiative, as well as the one with the most direct UNSC/UEG presence, making it something of a hub in the expanding Cygnus Verge.
 * Sigil - named as such for the enormous yet seemingly inert structure on its surface, Sigil was originally charted by Covenant explorers and is settled on the condition that Concord scientists are able to study the artifact under joint control with the UEG.
 * Shambala - a colonization project mainly outsourced to contractor corporations, Shambala only has a token UNSC presence.

Not all of the new colonies were formally set up; there were numerous groups of refugees and dissidents that simply landed on a planet and called it home. Many such worlds are not even known to the UNSC.
 * Other colonies


 * New Vietnam - an asteroid originally mined out by the Covenant during the war and since settled largely by refugees from Sector 4.