Nouveau Montreal

Nouveau Montreal is a prominent UNSC-aligned colony world. The world has recently gained notoriety due its importance as a trade hub at the human end of the Pleiades Corridor.

Initial Colonization
The Avalon System was first surveyed by the Auriga Expeditions in 2419, with the planet that would be named Nouveau Montreal receiving a manned expedition around the same time. Though the system was notable for the Earth-analog world, with an accessible asteroid belt between Nouveau Montreal and Avalon IV, its distance from the Inner Colonies meant that its settlement was delayed in favor of closer alternatives.

The first colony ships reached Nouveau Montreal in 2437, as slipspace technology improved and the mapping of the Perseus Way now made it viable to reach out into the Cepheus-Auriga Quadrant. Initial colonization consisted of a largely-Quebecois population, with minorities of European and West African Francophones which were settled along the southern coast of Nouveau Montreal’s supercontinent. This effort was pushed by Nebulex Extraction and Refining, a Luyten-based corporation that has been a dominating force in the Quadrant since the early 2400s. Nebulex had made claims on the system, as they believed the planet and its asteroid belt were more plentiful than it actually was. As such, they expended a significant amount of resources developing a colony that was not showing the necessary returns to justify continued investment.

Corporate cashflow slowly stopped, and the colony's growth stagnated as its ruling corporate council saw no reason to continue work on the world. Interest in further colonization was also dampened by the new push to colonize the Asgard Stratum, diverting resources away from the Clavain Sector. The system only saw minor development in the outer system, with a refueling depot built in orbit of the gas-giant Avalon IV, along with some mining outposts in the nearby asteroid belt.

Unrest and Nebluex’s Fall
The colony continued under corporate rule for 31 years, and unrest began mounting as Nebulex’s promises for terraforming of the planet and extensive development were broken and the colony was left to stagnate. This was compounded by how little of the wealth that Nebulex mined from the system was reinvested back into Montreal's infrastructure. Attempts to reinforce the security force only caused more unrest.

As a result, in 2468, when a new round of protests occurred, Nebulex proposed negotiations between the colonial parties and themselves to hammer out an agreement to form a colonial government, one independent of Nebulex. The corporation gambled that they could use the split between the various opposition groups to maintain their large claims on the world and control of the system’s asteroid belt. In this, they were partially correct. The colonial parties failed to consolidate and often argued between each other. Regardless, they still managed to maintain a united front that blocked the corporate-friendly government Nebulex’s negotiators were pushing.

Negotiations subsequently stalled, which only further angered the population. Protests continued into September of 2470, when a sit-down strike by Nebulex miners occurred. The Director of Operations of Nouveau Montreal, Gideon Toussaint, finally lost his nerve and ordered corporate security to storm the mines and arrest the miners. The fights left several miners dead and riots broke out across all major cities, stretching corporate security thin. The colonial parties, angered at Nebulex's actions, demanded that they pull out of the colony and allow the colony to determine its own government without Nebulex's help. Toussaint, angered at these demands and the deteriorating situation throughout the colony, refused. This only enraged the population further, leading to a siege of the corporate quarter in the capital of Foix. Realizing the situation had turned against him, Toussaint requested reinforcements from Nebulex HQ to put down a revolt.

Nebulex’s corporate office covered up the revolt so as to not panic their shareholders, and sent a wave of reinforcements. The private military companies (PMCs) they hired successfully put down the revolt in the major cities, but guerillas had spread throughout the hot and humid foothills that ran parallel to the southern coast of the supercontinent. Eventually, Nubulex's criminal actions at Nouveau Montreal finally leaked to the CMA, who put together a task force to defeat the rogue corporation's armies.

After they arrived in July of 2471, the CMA discovered the amount of force they brought was far more than what was necessary. Most of the PMCs had outright surrendered to the CMA or began deserting, as morale was already low the previous guerilla war. The news of the CMA's arrival broke whatever remained of their desire to fight. In the aftermath, the corporate leadership of Nouveau Montreal was arrested due the abuses they laid on the colony in suppressing the revolt. Investigations into Nebulex would destroy the company as a number of other unethical and shady practices were discovered. The corporation never recovered from this blow and dissolved four years later.

The Makélélé Regime and the Five Days of Foix
In the aftermath of Nebulex’s collapse, the CMA began to set up a new government. In this they chose a fellow CMA officer and native of the world, Arianne Makélélé. In her new role as colonial governor, Makélélé was expected to assist in reconstruction and to work with local political organizations to set up a new government. Initial progress was good, with the reconstruction programs proving popular. The establishment of a gendarmerie helped restore order to the colony and a native police force was naturally very popular. This rapid progress convinced the CMA taskforce to depart the system so they could deal with more pressing matters. Makélélé retained before though the elections of 2472, reasoning it was her job to provide stability while the colony rebuilt itself in the wake of Nebulex's exit. This was welcomed by both the parties and populace.

Makélélé however began to develop authoritarian tendencies that isolated her from the parliament and the parties. Her popularity remained high among the average person due to her own personal charisma and a series of popular economic programs that she had pushed though parliament. However, in the background she had started to encourage in cronyism and fraud to help enrich herself and friends. This came to culminated in 2479 when leaks reveled that in 2475 when she had sold off Nebulex's assets, she had pocketed much of the money for herself. This caused outrage, only increasing when she dissolved parliament to prevent them from ousting her.

Attempts to appeal to the CAA failed, and the handful of inspectors sent to such a remote colony were often bribed into silence. Protests of increasing size and frustration were staged, but these had little effect on Makélélé. They did, however, have an effect on the Gendarmerie, who were often the ones to suppress these protests. Many became uncomfortable about being forced to arrest and sometimes fight their own people, with many sharing the same political sympathies as the protesters. This led to plot by the UDNM and other opposition groups to forcefully overthrow Makélélé by using sympathetic Gendarmerie units to arrest her and avoid a drawn out civil war.

The plot was discovered by Makélélé on October 9th of 2481 and she ordered the disarming of the units of disloyal units on the 11th, this marked the beginning of the Five Days of Foix. The coup had to be launched now or risk being dismantled by Makélélé. Luckily for the plotters, Makélélé underestimated how many units were aligned with them, meaning they had a numerical advantage in the capital and were able to lock down the city before she could react. Although loyalist and rebel forces were forced to fight, neither wanted to harm the other. Consequently firefights were brief with one side surrendering or withdrawing rather than engage in a drawn out fight. This affected loyalist forces the most as their morale was already poor due to being surrounded and outnumbered in Foix. The opposition was also reinforced by the citizen paramilitaries, some of whom had experience in fighting Nebulex’s security forces years earlier. Morale was overall higher in these units and when large swathes of Foix quickly fell to the rebels, their morale soared and loyalists faced numerous defections. By the third day, only a few hundred Gendarmeries remained to defend the government quarter. These units, while demoralized at the losses were Makélélé loyalists and were much more willing to fight for Makélélé. They defended the quarter for a near day and half before they were forced to surrender, after Makélélé was captured while attempting to flee.

With the end of Makélélé came the challenges of setting up a new government, and securing the rest of the colony. The most important task however, was to make sure the CMA did not put them down as rebels, as Makélélé had requested their intervention before she lost. As such the parliament turned to the UNSC for protection. While not interested in the world itself, the UNSC viewed this as an opportunity to expand its reach into the Clavain Sector and the Cepheus-Auriga Quadrant. As a result, they agreed to assist in “peacekeeping” operations. The CMA task force, which had been tied up in other duties, arrived only to find a UNSC force already in the system. The CMA was forced to leave the system, and the UNSC went to work on refurbishing the refueling station on Avalon IV to be used for their ships. Along with leaving behind a small army and aerospace garrison to deter any attempts by the CMA retaking the system.

Recovery
From here on Nouveau Montreal began to fade back into relative obscurity. Something that would be a blessing for the colony. As it would be able to avoid the worst excesses of the UNSC and CMA during Insurrection and lead to its survival during the Human-Covenant War.

Topography
An Earth-analog terrestrial world Nouveau Montreal orbits an F9V-class star. With an orbit of 1.4 astronomical units, Nouveau Montreal is located on the inner half of the habitable zone for a star of this type, making it significantly warmer than Earth. There is little in the way of polar ice caps, and its equatorial band is effectively uninhabitable to human life. The planet is not dry, but is instead fairly wet. Most of the extra water is converted into vapor, particularly at higher latitudes where the temperature is hotter. Because of this, most of the terraforming efforts, that have been fairly sporadic over the years, has focused on trying to bring some of that vapor down from the atmosphere to cool the planet.

Nouveau Montreal is a young world, and a younger world than its level of life would suggest. The world should only be comprised of single celled and perhaps a handful of simple multicellular organisms, yet it boasts a complex biosphere. Indeed, examples of native life have been found on the sea floor, and have confirmed the theories that Nouveau Montreal life should be more primitive than actually is. This makes it one of the clearest examples of out-of-place biota, and the interaction between the native organisms and the species previously seeded or introduced by humans has fascinated scientists.

Due to its young age, the planet is tectonically active. The planet has three main continents, one of which is a supercontinent hat takes up 77% of the land surface area and 21% of the planet's surface. The other two continents are located close to this landmass, and geologists suspect that these have recently (geologically-speaking) broken off from it. This is collaborated by the fact the main supercontinent currently has numerous rift valleys, which is evidence that it is in the process of breaking apart. As this activity naturally causes a large amount of earthquakes and tsunamis to occur, the majority of the population are forced to live on the southern coast of the supercontinent, where there is relatively little tectonic activity. That this region is fairly temperate by the standards of the planet, with a Mediterranean-style climate, has only made it more attractive for settlers.

As planet's population has grown, either though natural growth or from refugees, the interior of the supercontinent and the northern two continents have also been settled. While less hospitable than previously settled regions, climate control and light terraforming has improved these conditions.