New France

New France is the name of an early Earth colony claimed and colonized by France during the late 21st-early 22nd century.

History
The planet was discovered in 2050 but it was not until 2063, when warp drive was invented, that it became practical for humans to explore and colonize the planet. Before a more orderly system of colonization was developed, Earth nations simply claimed a planetary system for themselves and set about colonizing, without regard to the interstellar consequences of their actions.

Beginning in 2070, France sponsored an expedition of fifteen scientists and explorers, including Michel Picard, whose family would, nearly 300 years later, include the famous captain Jean-Luc Picard. It took six months to travel to the planet, the third of seven in the solar system, and initial reports were very promising. The crew spent three weeks on the planet, surveying a number of sites to verify soil quality, animal life, and other information on the planet.

The planet has two moons, the first about 250,000 miles away, and the second about 535,000 miles away, being 3/10,000 the mass of New France. There are ten continents, with much of the shores bearing a mediterranean-climate, inner areas often have a temperate climate, while mountains have alpine climates. The day is 23 hours, 58 minutes, 0.94 seconds, with a year of 365.235 days, and twelve months. The solar system showed evidence of valuable metals, but the survey ship, the SS Bonaparte

Strangely enough, the life on New France bears a remarkable similarity to that postulated on Earth between 50,000 and 15,000 BC, with a large number of large predators and herbivores, plenty of rhinoceros, giraffes, smilodon, and other species only written about in scientific journals.

When the French scientists returned to Earth with glowing reports of the new planet and its potential, France financed the construction of four warp ships, with a new warp 2 engine, just patented by Zefram Cochrane, and sent 80 people to the system to map out the continents and spot potential landing and settlement sites. The second mission, led by the crew of the SS Champlain, returned in 2072, and created five settlement sites, naming them New Paris, South Marseilles, North Marseilles, New Lyons, and New Strasbourg. All five settlements began with the crewmen arranging to clear forests near rivers and setting up a series of houses around a town square, setting up a church, city hall, a security office, store, and lumber office.

While the crew were clearing and building houses, other members of the expedition from the SS Cabot went to investigate the asteroid belt, and found several deposits of gold, silver, platinum, and palladium, which were enough to fund the entire mission, but were in such large quantities that it would crash the recovering Earth economy. It was decided that they would underreport the amount of metals in asteroids until more settlers came to New France.

For much of 2072, the 80 people explored the planet, finding the soil very fertile and well adapted to agriculture, including grape production, allowing them to produce the first extrasolar wine in 2073, presenting twenty bottles to Earth upon their return. The expedition agreed to leave twenty people behind, while sixty returned to Earth.

From 2073-2075, France sent another five thousand settlers to New France, the only bottleneck being the need to build warp drives and create antimatter to fuel them. The small settlements on New France began to grow into villages, and a road was cleared between New Paris and North Marseilles, since they were on the same continent. Eight new villages were created, and mineral deposits were found, with mines being sited and claimed. Soon, the settlers on New France decided they needed to create a ruling body to govern themselves, since communications with France took years by normal radio.

In 2076, New France created the Articles of Confederation for New France, modeled on the Constitution of Quebec and that of France and of the Confederate States. Given the number of predator and prey animals around, the right to bear arms was guaranteed, as were the freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, petition, and other important rights. The French language was declared the language of New France, with some slight alterations to 'improve' the language.

The New France government, approved by France on Earth, consisted of a governor-general who would govern the planet for France and for the betterment of the French people on the planet. A vice-governor-general would act in his place as necessary. A bicameral legislature would pass laws, with a House of Deputies as a lower house, and Senate as an upper house to represent the provinces, which were arbitrarily drawn on Earth in Paris, dividing the planet into 130 provinces, mostly using natural borders such as rivers or mountain range peaks, or just drawing straight lines between two points to try to distribute the arable land and resources as evenly as possible. A judicial branch, the Supreme Court of New France, was created to resolve disputes.

Battery power systems were recharged using solar paneling and solar roof tiles which fed into a common power bank, then fed out to houses as needed. People were credited with the power they generated, but paid for the power they used over that amount, resulting in a number of people having no bill, but quite a few having a small electric bill.

Using materials mined from asteroids, the Franc became the colonial currency, in gold, silver, and copper coin. Banknotes would be backed with gold and silver to make exchanges easier.

2080s
New France gained around 40,000 new settlers from France on Earth and France's former colonies, introducing the first black French onto New France. These settlers experienced little trouble integrating into the life of the colony, and the planet's second Speaker of the House was black French. The colony grew by the birth of over 8,000 babies on the planet, which was also aided by the urging of the Governor-General for settlers to have at least 3 or more children, and giving acreage to families who had children over 3. It would not be uncommon for families to have more than 4 children throughout the 2080s. During this decade, road systems were improved and paved, linking most towns to each other on the continents, while the first rail line was produced using Confederate gauge (6', or 2 meter) from New Paris to North Marseille, cutting the trip from 3 hours to 30 minutes.

2090s
During the 2090s, New France gained another 120,000 settlers, and welcomed another 18,000 babies. Settlers founded another 88 towns on the planet. Shuttle service from New Paris to West Avignon began, the two towns of over 10,000 people being able to fly between the two settlements in only 4 hours.

Immigration
Beginning in 2115, New France took over responsibility for immigration to its solar system. For much of the 22nd century, it required French heritage of at least 25% (one grandparent from France or Quebec), and the ability to speak French. By the end of the 22nd century, around 2185, it required 1/16 French heritage, and by 2245, 1/128 heritage was required.

Any person seeking to immigrate to New France by 2370 must demonstrate at least 3/4 heritage from the planet Earth or its colonies, but only 100% humans are allowed to settle and live on the planet, aside from diplomats and their families.

Language
The official language of New France is French, but with some intentional differences. The r is no longer uvular, but a trilled flap, like the Spanish r. The combination -ll- is pronounced like the English word Castilian (ka-stee-jen). Pronunciation was 'enhanced' to make learning easier for children, with the ends of words pronounced, including the plurals, and the conjugations of verbs.

All social activities on New France take place in the French language - government, courts, commerce, business, education, and media. Books and magazines are all printed in French and translated into French from other planets.

Demographics

 * 2070: 15
 * 2072: 80
 * 2075: 5,000
 * 2080: 6,094
 * 2090: 46,437
 * 2100: 187,153
 * 2110: 267,322
 * 2120: 332,025
 * 2370: 694,221,936

Planetary Defenses
New France gained its first orbital facility in 2110, a small space station with artificial gravity and docking ports, and a crew of 24 to help people arriving at New France to find a place to settle, and to help direct people to places that needed settlers and find a job when they arrived.

Until 2140, this was the only orbital facility, when the people of New France constructed an orbital satellite defense grid with pulsed phase cannons directed from Orbital Facility 1. In 2180, New France gained a true, modern defense when it created five stations at each of the Lagrange Points of New France, each with a crew of 80 persons, who would spend three weeks on, and one week off. These stations had the best sensor grids available for 2180, along with atomic warheads, large phase cannons, photonic missiles, and ten photonic torpedoes.

In the 2240s, New France was able to upgrade its defensive facilities, and constructed 26 equidistant stations around the solar system with laser cannons and photon torpedoes, with long-range sensors to detect incoming traffic into the system and deter smugglers.

As of 2370, New France's defense is largely automated, but the large, 8,000-man border force has been reduced to about 3500 men manning the border stations as well as the Lagrange Stations, controlled from the L2 point.