Campbell's Landing

Campbell's Landing was a resource-rich inhabited planet located in the Lurone Sector. Once home to a thriving and culturally-diverse human population that lived in orbiting habitats, it was depopulated early into the Human-Covenant War.

Discovery
Due to its location within the Scab, Campbell's Landing was not discovered until 2472, and even then under unusual circumstances. Under pursuit from a CMA frigate, the Take Two, the smuggler Remi Campbell took his ship into the anomaly to throw off his opponent. For some unknown reason, Campbell was forced to crash-land on an uncharted body in the Gamma Mensae system, where the wreckage of his freighter remains to this day.

Though the Take Two departed immediately after capturing Campbell, initial sensor sweeps of the system proved exceptionally promising. A follow-up expedition saw a number of autonomous probes sent into the system, only a fraction of which actually made it there thanks to the turbulent slipspace conditions. The results of these studies revealed that, not only was the planetoid exceptionally rich in complex molecules and heavy-metals, but also in exotic materials which were previously only found in laboratory conditions.

Eventually, news of the discovery eventually made its way to the executives of BXR Mining Corporation and Nomolos Refining, two of humanity's largest mining companies. Both competed with each other for claims on the system, and sponsored later manned expeditions. Ultimately, Nomolos secured the lead when they converted two Springhill-class freighters into remote construction vessels. These were used to build the first habitats and the critical navigation stations needed to guarantee safe travel to Gamma Mensae.

Society and governance
Because Campbell's Landing was naturally hostile to human life, with a high gravity that required both costly infrastructure and personnel to wear specialized exoskeletons even in pressurized spaces. There was only one dome city that was established on its surface, the rather modest Tomi-no-Kawa that served as an administrative base. A handful of settlements called Konu Ornas (literally "Landing Places") were founded at promising mining sites for work purposes. Instead, most of the population of 26 million lived in the thousands of satellites that orbited high above the hellish landscape. Most of these stations were grouped into clusters that consisted of both habitation stations and their industrial workplaces, each of which orbited at different velocities. The only thing stopping them from colliding with each other was a controlling dumb AI that carefully tuned the station-keeping thrusters of the entire orbital community, the significance of which meant that it was very carefully maintained. The largest stations of each cluster were connected to each other and the surface via large-capacity shuttles, though travel to individual satellites was largely limited to private spacecraft.

Even by modern 26th century standards, the people of Campbell's Landing were ethnically diverse, thanks to Nomolos' decision to only recruit those who were prepared to work so far from home. The vast majority of the demographic hailed from the other nearby Outer Colonies, but there was still a significant number of well-educated Inner Colonists and even Earth-born. Only those who spoke the same language had their living and work spaces grouped together, and this has given individual habitats distinct identities that reflected the multicultural mix they had. As a result of this, giving the entire population a unifying label other than Campbellan was actually quite difficult to accept, with many even objecting to calling themselves "Outer Colonists" as well. This also meant that a handful of common words had began to coalesce into a common creole used in lieu of English.

Economy
Campbell's Landing was solely colonized because of the ease several exotic metamaterials could be acquired, whose abundance was only caused by the unique conditions generated between the planet and the Scab. Notable examples include Zenostium used in paragravity plates, Anansium for stealth composites used on prowlers, and Bartosite, a shielding agent for slipspace drives. Most of the planet's economy was subsequently focused on the acquisition, refining, and transportation of these valuable goods, which had to be escorted in guarded convoys to avoid losses to piracy. It also exports a large quantity of heavy metals and alloys each year.

However, it could not be wholly devoted to this industry, as history has shown that the Scab could cut off the system to regular supply at various times of the year. Habitats were set aside for growing a sustainable amount of produce, mostly hardy, short-rooted vegetables that had high crop yields. Few of these had livestock aside from chicken due to space considerations, and what little there was tended to be reserved as a delicacy for the elite. Elsewhere, factories for personal spacecraft and consumer goods existed to supplement those sourced from imports, and metalworkers had carved themselves a niche as local artisans.