Siberia Prime

Topography and Climate
In spite of its current snowball status, Siberia Prime was once a temperate planet. Beneath its ice sheets lie layers of ash and plant residue, and primitive life still swims in its seas. The cause for the glaciation is not well-understood. Ice cores taken from Siberia Prime and Siberia Secundus hint that the local star, Yaytsa, once shone more brightly. The ash layers, on the other hand, are rich with meteorite fragments, even though there are few large asteroids left in the Yaytsa system. A sustained cataclysmic impact event, theorized to have happened 800,000 years ago, could have darkened Siberia Prime's skies long enough to settle into a permanent nuclear winter.

Prior to colonization, Siberia Prime's climate was cold but placid. The Siberians undertook an ambitious geoforming project with orbital mirrors and upwelling warm water from lower levels of the oceans. Though the project was expected to take only three generations to produce shirtsleeve weather, the planet warmed an average of only two degrees Celsius over the course of 150 years. Instead, wild storm systems formed throughout the middle latitudes, rising and waning in sync with the day-night cycle.

Strengths

 * 1) Ingrained Resilience: Siberians are no strangers to expensive struggles that span generations. Struggles against the Covenant, against their homeworld's climate, even against each other. Their culture prizes adaptability and long-term dedication.
 * 2) Friends In Low Places the Siberian government has always had connections with the criminal underworld, connections that only got stronger after the fall of Siberia Prime. Many soldiers and state security personnel left the service of their government to work as mercenaries and criminal enforcers, though few cut ties completely. Siberia Prime's relationship with ONI is similarly complicated.
 * 3) Gunsmiths Its bloody history and proximity to the Outer Colonies meant that Siberia Prime developed the largest arms industry outside of SolCore. Although some designs were licensed or copied from Earth and Martian corporations, many more were homegrown. Siberia Prime's relative independence from Earth meant that its arsenal was perfect to export to one or both sides of the UNSC/CMA's proxy wars.

Weaknesses

 * 1) Cat's In The Cradle: Siberia Prime had the most comprehensive, successful evacuation plan of any major colony. The particulars of this evacuation plan meant that the vast majority of the evacuees were minors unaccompanied by their parents. The demographics of the Siberian survivors skews younger, and a generation is coming to age that is disaffected with their government and disconnected from the culture that produced them.
 * 2) Tarnished Legitimacy: The government of Siberia Prime staked its future on successfully repelling a Covenant invasion, an act that was supposed to turn the tide of the war. After the failure and exile, the GIE has lost the loyalty of its military and its citizenry, and is struggling to reassert its power.
 * 3) Bad Reputation Siberia Prime called in all its favors early in the war, and its behavior throughout the war burned through whatever goodwill was left over. As far as the UNSC is concerned, Siberians are only looking out for number one, and cannot be expected to honor the spirit of a contract. The Covenant, on the other hand, are not happy about being on the receiving end of chemical weapons.