Venezia

Venezia is an Outer Colony in the Orso system and one of the most notable melting pots of the human and ex-Covenant civilizations.

Topography and ecology
Venezia is a warm terrestrial world with a roughly 0.8G gravity. The equatorial belt is uncomfortably hot, and mostly desertified. Landmasses cover about 2/3 of the planet; in addition to various lakes and swamps, there is a single shallow ocean. Most habitation - in the form of around a handful independent spaceport-cities and innumerable lesser towns and settlements - is centered around along the temperate zones toward the poles.

The planet has a chaotic excuse for an ecosystem, a mix of the rather primal native fauna mixed with plants and animals (often inadvertently) brought by the human settlers from various other worlds, mainly the nearby Gao. Various fauna and flora of Covenant origin have been introduced to the planet since contact. As a result, various regions of the planet have their own micro-biomes. Venezia's single ocean is largely covered in a native type of algae growth, which gives it a distinct smell; according to the planet's denizens, you get used to it.

History
Venezia's 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.

Following the war, Venezia's disparate local governments stabilized into an alliance of what are mostly merchant republics centered around major urban centers and a handful of orbital ports, which grow by the day as traffic flows through the system. The spaceport-city of New Tyne, including the core city and a surrounding sprawl of slums and raft-cities filled with refugees, is considered by some to be Venezia's capital, though many of the other independent city-states are quick to dispute this claim.