• Mansfield Colony began as a Federation re-supply depot for deep space exploration.
The initial colony was provided with workshops and hyperdrive repair facilities and
automated Federation mining equipment was brought to provide the necessary raw materials.
The local ecology of the main continent suffered terribly due to the unenlightened attitudes of
the commanders of the Federation navy at the time. In retrospect, the damage that was done to
the planetary environment seems terrible, but at the time the single idea uppermost in the
minds responsible for space exploration was 'expand'.
• At the time Laedla was explored and developed, there was serious concern amongst
humanity in general that there was a belligerent extra-terrestrial race waging war on new
planets. Many ships were disappearing near Zelada, Ququve and Aymiay and the Federation
was keen to expand in a different region in case the fears of non-human encounters
were verified.
• To this day, the loss of thirteen exploration vessels within a single sector in three
months remains unexplained, but similar bursts of losses have occurred on different occasions,
at the edges of expanding human space. The threat of alien invasion or warfare has diminished
however, since no active encounter has ever been recorded and no trace of non-human
civilisation has been reliably confirmed on any planet.
• Mansfield colony was put together in a frenzy of panic, when the Federation
anticipated a war which never emerged. The colony was equipped with a mass of sophisticated
robotic equipment and machine shops, but few colonists. The second stage of colonisation set
out to reverse this trend, immigration by thousands of peasant farmers from worlds bordering
the Empire. As the population changed from military dominated mining and refurbishing to a
more agricultural base, the Federation navy presence was reduced.
• The Empire invaded Mansfield colony in force on Lightning Thursday, and the
Federation forces were overwhelmed within two hours. It was the greatest set-back the Ghurka
regiment of the Federation has ever suffered and it confirmed the Empire's Clone troopers
as their elite forces. The empire ensured that the Federation could not reclaim the
world by establishing strong fortifications at Maxwell City and Suzuki Town and two naval
bases off planet.
• Once the Empire had taken control of the population, they lost no time in re-
establishing an industrial economic base for the planet. The world and the outer planets are all
donated by Empire mining concerns, and Mansfield colony is a net importer of food in some
years. (This is due to Empire reliance on single strain crops which can be very vulnerable to
epidemics, when the entire world crop of a particular type may be destroyed.)
Entry by David Massey
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