Ballast

Ballast is a Human colony world in the 70 Ophiuchi system within the Tethys Sector. It is a cool, wet planet with somewhat primitive geology. Only two major landmasses and very few contiguous mountain ranges exist, dividing the land into windy bogs and arid highlands. The largest continent is named Firmament, and is home to the capital city Crux Landing and the agricultural-center Windswept. The smaller continent, Raqia, is home to numerous coastal cities along its outer coast and the inland sea.

Ballast was settled later than many other Inner Colonies, but the the lack of a first wave of Pioneers meant that very little of the destruction of the Inner Colony Wars found its way to the colony. Ballast quickly caught up with its colonial elders and played a strong hand in UEG politics for the next two centuries. The Human-Covenant War likewise left Ballast relatively untouched, allowing it to thrive in the post-War world.

Ballast orbits in the circumstellar habitable zone of Kennewick (formally known as 70 Ophiuchi A), a K0-type orange dwarf slightly smaller than Sol. The periodic close approach of 70 Ophiuchi B on its elliptical orbit every 88 years changes Ballast's lighting conditions and causes some orbital wobble; this also alters the system's viability for slipspace transits, making the major interstellar jump points of the Aquila Trunk less viable for a time.

History
The Sol-Ophiuchi Corridor was first identified and explored in 2304, and Ballast was catalogued by the Nomura Expedition in the same year. Ballast was a barren, wet world at the time, with no native microorganisms. Of only middling prospects for colonization, Ballast was a third-rate candidate compared to the planets of the Epsilon Indi system, and exploration missions continued along the 70 Ophiuchi-Guniibuu Corridor in search of better worlds.

Decades later, Ballast was an ideal prospect for settlers in the Domus Diaspora. There were no Pioneer settlements to compete with, and advances in terraforming made the colony more economically feasible to adjust. Fifty years of weather satellite data indicated that the equatorial Salish Sound would be an ideal spot for first settlement. The area lay in the wind shadow of the Titan Mountain range, the sound and the connected sea were deep enough for splashdowns, and the complex estuary system could easily be adapted for agriculture and river-travel. The small communities and spaceports quickly coalesced around a nexus of trade, which became the capital Crux Landing.

Ballasters considered the trouble of the Inner Colony Wars (ICW) to be a foreign problem, and they worked to keep it that way. Settlers from other colonies were encouraged to keep moving, in case they brought trouble or troublemakers with them. The only skirmishes in the ICW to happen on Ballast soil were fights that the locals don't consider to be a part of the ICW at all. In 2388, labor union strikes and food riots reached a high point, and the CMA sent in troops to restore order.